Don Shebib tells me you knew the original film Goin’ Down the Road.
I did, yeah. I My agent called me and said he had a movie but you’re either going to be really excited or you’re going to have no idea what I’m talking about and I’m crazy. He said “Did you ever see Goin’ Down the Road?” “YES!” “Well, they’re doing a sequel” “Gasp!!!... Is the script any good?” He said it was really good and I said “I’m in!” I don’t think that type of thing has ever happened before, a sequel after 40 years with the original cast and same director these many years later?
How did you see manage to see it? It’s not easy to find.
I saw it when I was a teenager. One of my first Canadian things I did was this Maniac Mansion and it was with all these SCTV people. And SCTV did a parody very well-known parody of Goin’ Down the Road. OMG! They all love it. I asked Don and he said he loves it and Jayne Eastwood was in the film AND the parody! The Americans know the parody but not the movie. My introduction to the movie was the parody and knowing about that and I was like “Well, wait, what is this movie?” and Eugene and Joe were like ‘It was great!” and that is where I learned about it. That was a weird introduction to it.
Very. Especially as Jayne Eastwood was in both!
Yeah! And here she is again. Jayne, weirdly enough, played my mother in my very first job. And she is my mother here too.
What approach did you take to play Betty Jo outside the script and Don’s direction?
The first thing I do is prepare a bio. It’s something I do with Fifty Questions. I go through them and answer them and by the time I’m through them, I kind of feel like I can kind of walk onto the set and say ‘Wow! This is her!” Questions ranging from what was your first sexual experience to what is your favourite food, what makes you angry to what’s your greatest fear? That’s the thing. The fun thing about playing characters is that it’s not you, they don’t see the world the way you do, they only see it the way they do, and I really lock into what that is. I can’t figure out how to navigate through the script without it. That’s the fun part! And little detail things. I had a very specific idea about how I wanted her to look. I cut all my hair off for this role; I just wanted her to be the girl who doesn’t take care of herself. This is the nicest she looks in the movie (indicates herself, in oversized sweater, tattoos, heavy makeup, bangles) because she’s at a dance with a boy. So she puts some makeup on. And chopped my nails off and you just sort of have to figure out those things that help you know her.
What’s the story?
The film starts essentially with Betty Jo discovering her father is dead. She met him once when she was ten. He took her to the zoo. She has a very specific memory of that day and she met him and that was it. The news of his death comes to her at this terrible time because she had been searching for him. She was at this juncture in her life where she just wanted to meet him and know him. She said she needed to at least put a face to him and have some relationship with him, not even a good one, in order to move forward and figure herself out. She never gets that chance, so when she gets the opportunity to get to know him through his best friend, someone who knew him his entire life, she knew it was her last chance to have any understanding of who this man was. So they jump in the car and drive across Canada to spread his ashes. It’s kind of a great premise.
Don Shebib said wasn’t it sad there really hasn’t been the same quality of film has been made in Canada.
The thing that’s really unfortunate for small films, Canadian or America is that it’s so hard to find an audience for a tiny movie. I had a film at the festival (Night for Dying Tigers) which was really good. It is just so hard for a small movie to compete when it’s competing against Spider Man 12. It’s really difficult Sundance, the festival. Things have changed so much, just because you have Kate Hudson in a movie doesn’t mean anyone’s going to see it. It’s a really weird time for independent film. You can just hope they come back to the heyday of indie film. A good film is a good film. It will find its audience.
Anne Brodie - I review films each week on Corus and Rogers TV and for Metro News Canada, AskMen.com and Monsters and Critics. I profile celebrities for ...
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