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GRADE 12 YEARBOOK
Callum Rennie
Favourite Saying: I'm only smiling because the photographer has a birth defect, pick on the guy who comes from the broken home.
Activities: Consuming a fermented beverage which enlightens my inner being, rock climbing, pumping limestone.
Past Glories: Not getting caught stealing cookies since 1965, getting beat up by a tree.
Pet Peeves: The photographer's shirt that I borrowed, which has armpits that smell like a hamster cage, Bruce M., non-existent pockets, things that are yellow.
Ambition: Go down under to the fishin' hole and catch me a mess-o-catfish, lost arrow spire, the Harlin route on the Eiger with Labek, to do a dance routine with Ginger Rogers.
Likes: Mum's apple pie, soiled underpants, realized ultimate reality, pitons, Dougal Haston Laton Kor, John Harlin, John Travolta, violence directed toward minorities.Callum's Grade 12 Picture
ON LIFE
"Perhaps there has to be a struggle, in order for it (life) to be sweet."
"All I know is if I die tomorrow, I have lived for four years."
"I don't know the truth of my past, what it was that was driving me to
destroy me.""Alcohol seemed to be the solution but I am not sure if I have fixed the
problem. That is my greatest fear.""I'm an addict-print that!"
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
"When I was seventeen I drank a twenty-six-ounce bottle of vodka in a half hour and went into convulsions. I woke up in hospital. Alcohol became many things: an antidote to pain, a means of being more outspoken, a way to feel better than I did in my regular life. I 'm sure I laughed a lot, if only I could remember. I didn't see it as a problem until later on, until everything around me-relationships, trust- was destroyed. When did fun become fun with problems and then become just problems?"
"Oh God, you'll think I'm a slut machine."
ON FAMILY
"In the movie [For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down], Bines' main
motivation for going straight is to be a good father to his son; Rennie
says one of the reasons he acts is because 'my brothers both have kids.
I don't want to be seen as just a freaky uncle.'"
(TV Guide [Canadian], 14 December 1996)ON COLLEGE
"I had my hair in a Mohawk and got my ass kicked by a lot of folks who didn't get it."
(The Edmonton Journal, Oct. 5, 1996)ON SUCCESS
"When you're shiny, everyone wants to stand next to you." (Vancouver Sun, 01 April 1997)
"If I'd succeeded earlier I'd be dead...Now, all the fear is negotiable."
"I'm called 'bad boy' or 'the new James Dean' by those who want to
romanticize my past.""I wasn't a rebel, was a Revel and people used to lick me..." (Toronto Sun 1996)
"I'm not handsome enough for leading roles and not ugly enough to play criminals."
"There is always this perception that you want to shoot for the top, but I think there's this great place to shoot for the middle and get consistent work and try different things and do the work you want to do with the kind of people you want to do it with."
Rennie says, half-jokingly, that his ambition is to "rake in great piles of money."
ON BEING INTERVIEWED
"I hate being interviewed. I don't want to sound arrogant but I don't
want to sound like a pushover and I don't know who I am but I think I am
defined by my relationships but I don't have many friends."
(Saturday Magazine, March 1998)ON ACTING
"It's not about success or competition. It's about exploration and
overcoming internal fears.""I may move to New York and go to school - acting school. I suck."
(Canoe web site, 06 October 1997)"They'd rather have me in L.A. doing films. But I'm a good f------ Canadian.
Either that or I'm terrified. You don't have to write that. 'Callum's
terrified.' Don't write that.""I work in Cananda because I choose to. This is not a consolation prize."
"[It's] egomaniacal to decide all of a sudden you wanted to be an actor."
(Vancouver Province, October 15, 1996)"The work moves on a subconscious level into your life. It's not a process you notice,
but I'm often informed by the world around me that I start behaving differently -
whether the character is demanding, needy, evil, or maniacal. It's not by choice, it's a subtle envelopment." (Toronto Sun, December 8, 1996)"I'm 36 and I can do that stuff later if that's what I feel like doing. My interest is more
film and when you sign those deals [TV shows] you're hooked up for a longtime...
If it works out you might get over-exposed and I really worry about that. I worry
about being caught on a successful series... It's like William Shatner, it's like anybody
who was on MASH. They're doing dinner theatre. Television will pay you a lot of
money but there is a risk of having all of our chops seen."
(Edmonton Jounral, 15 December 1996)"The Vancouver-based Rennie adds that he often finds himself playing working-class types.
'They just seem to fit me,' Rennie says. 'They're not typically what you would consider the
leading man." And, he adds with a laugh, 'they hardly ever get the girl.'"
(Maclean's, 19 June 1995)ON STUNT WORK
"I enjoy doing all that stuff but they'll bring a stuntman in when the insurance calls for it
becuase they don't want the actors to hurt themselves and have shooting grind to a halt.
Strangely enough, the stunts that don't look like they are going to be painful are the
ones that actually are."
(TV Zone #104, July 1998)"I have to go now and kiss a serving wench."
ON PAINTING
"Painting puts me into an alpha state. It's a private event. I make all
the decisions in the process and never have to deal with the outside
world."ON CLOTHING
On what he was wearing: "I'm not talking about my goddamn clothes."
On what was in his pockets: "None of your goddamn business, really", but then he answered, "I've got a wallet I bought today, by a German company, Taschen, because the wallet I have, like, hurts my ass on long drives."
On which festival film he wanted to see: "I want to see State and Main, a David Mamet film with William Macy and Alec Baldwin." (Callum on StarTV's Toronto International Film Festival 2000 ep)Look! "Callum Keith Rennie is arguably one of Canada's most talented actors. He's
had a busy couple of years in both film and television and I caught up
with him recently on the set of Da Vinci's Inquest.
Q: How would you best describe your personal style?
A: Communist work wear (laughs). No, mostly now I wear a lot of corduroys,
jeans, ballcaps, that kind of thing.
Q: Where do you do most of your shopping?
A: I used to buy tons of clothes, mostly here, Toronto and in LA. I like
Gastown and Yaletown, stores like Vasanji and Zero Gravity. Vancouver and
L.A. aren't really big dressup towns -- they're way more casual, which is
good. I would pretty much describe myself as casual now.
Q: Any icons and influences?
A: Christopher Walken and Leonard Cohen.
Q: What can you not get rid of in your closet?
A: I can't get rid of my motorcycle jackets."
('Callum Loves His Biker Gear' by Susie Wall,
Vancouver Province section D2 , December 14, 1999)
ON BEING NEW TO DUE SOUTH"We tossed the coins and the show lost."
(December 1997, http://www.geocities.com/~uisgejack/dsouth/tvweek.html)"I was running around like Paul, Paul. Do you like me? Do I suck yet? Am
I fired?""The first couple episodes were tough because you've got a lot
of f------ people looking at you going, 'Oh, is he going to do
that?' I hate that. I'll never do it again because it's not wholly
ever going to be yours." (Canoe web site, 06 October 1997)"My idea about Americans is that they're sexy and dangerous, shooting first
and asking questions later. It's almost the polar opposite of Paul's
character." (From the Northern Echo)"I like working on lots of different gigs so that [Due SOUTH] was a bit hard.
You got to play a character and discover lots of different things about him
but there's also you can get, maybe, safe...." (Canoe web site, 06 October 1997)"The truth is it was the best working environemnt I've ever been in and that includes the
crew as well as the cast. Not to get mushy, but as an actor, when you have that
kind of backing, you feel as if you can do almost anything and we did."
(TV Zone #104, July 1998)'Two of Rennie's favourite episodes are Mountie and Soul
[...] and Ladies' Man. "Sure I pick the shows that feature me.
Hello, I'm an egomaniac!" laughs the actor.
"Seriously, you tend to feel more involved when a story
is running around your character specifically. I had so
much fun on all the other ones, though, helping to support
the action and throwing out the odd line every
now and then." (TV Zone Article, Interview with CKR)"Callum Keith Rennie, The Wild One His brooding manner and dangerous smile conjure up images of James Dean, but Callum - a former punk-rocker, bar-brawler and recovering addict - is every bit an original: rough yet compassionate; brash yet insecure."
(Canada's Top 25 Most Beautiful Star's http://www.star-tv.com/profiles/25-1.asp)".... A guy in Montreal who wrote Smash The State, the discography of
Canadian punk rock. He started asking me about different things. But there
really wasn't much in terms of the music scene. I can remember when there were
four punk rockers in this town. And I don't know that you would call them
punk rockers now. One of them was Callum Keith Rennie, the actor. He was
quite funny. He had his own bodyguard, a guy who's a cop now, but he needed
it! He would wear this blue blazer with a package of strawberry koolaid pinned
to his jacket, and he'd find glasses on the street and drive with them. He
drove his car into my house once.""
(Jerry Jerry Interview, Og Records by Michael Barclay, June 1st 2000 www.exclaim.ca)"Bruce: How to Break into Showbiz...
....You know, now that I think about it, I think it's very important to let liquor be the wind beneath your wings. Yeah, I guess I'd have to advise drinking a lot with guys like Callum Rennie and Terry Rockio and pissing out the back of a fast-moving truck. Oh, and if a policeman goes by, try doing this under your breath: "Pig pig oink oink bacon sandwich at 2:00"...."
(Exerpt from the Kids In The Hall sketch, How to Break Into Showbiz...Bruce McCullough http://www.kithfan.org/work/transcripts/three/showbiz.html)#3 CALLUM KEITH RENNIE - "Not much of an advertisement for Canadian dentistry, but you can't have everything. Slide him into a lumberjacket and the actor best known for Due South and Hard Core Logo resembles the scruffiest salesman on the Christmas-tree lot- the guy who reeks of rye and cops a feel while handling over the fir. Rennie's hoser accent is the dollop of whipped cream that puts this Canadian-made butter tart over the top." (Chatelaine Magazine May 1999, Canada's Ten Top Sexiest Men, Paul Gross was # 4.)
"Of course, in the Sinatra tradition of feigned indifference, everyone involved in Twitch denies being part of a celebrity clique. ... Rennie takes out his ubiquitous cigarette and does a spit-laugh. (He prefers to think of himself and Hard Core Logo's Hugh Dillon as a wolf pack of two.)" (Shift Magazine)
"It was the most potentially disastrous decision I had to make," says Gross, who doubles as the show's executive producer. "It's like a marriage. I spend more time with Callum then I do with my wife." But the partnership has clicked. "It has, on balance, been a riot," says Gross. "Callum's very daring physically, and that really benefits the style of the show. David didn't like to do stunts, which becomes very limitng. Whereas if you chucked Callum out of a plane, it would be fine." --Paul Gross on Callum's Stunt work.
(Macleans article, http://members.xoom.com/ckr/octmacleans.html)CKR: "I'm a partial vegetarian"
PG: "Yeah, he only eats the occasional cow!"CKR:"You fart hammers pull those weapons in Chicago..."
Spits the words across the barroom sleaze of the Due South set.
PG:"What the f**k does fart hammers mean?" demands Paul Gross.
CKR:"Creeps. It's in the Big Book."
PG:"Well," pronounces Gross, executive producer and senior writer
PG:"if it's in the Big Book I guess we'll have to let it go." Filming resumes.
PG:"Callum has a dictionary of American slang he carries around,"
Gross later explains.
PG:"We call it the Big Book, but he only has A to H; he's missing the rest.
We're going along and suddenly he will come up with something he's found.
What's neat is that I'd never write that; fart hammers is just not something
that comes to mind. It's not a big deal, it's part of a line yet it adds colour
that is perfect for the show. But nothing after H.""...enter Callum Keith Rennie ... whose disaffected intensity
and hungover good looks give the Due South duo a
cool factor that actually makes the notoriously
uncynical series a little bit hip." (E! Now, September 1997)"Suffice it to say that somebody went into his brain at an early age and
rewired everything and as a consequence he brings unpredictability to the show
that has provided us an enormous amount of excitement." -- Paul Gross on his
new co-star, eccentric actor Callum Keith Rennie.
(Canoe web site, 06 October 1997)"Despite fascination with self - "Being with Callum is about
Callum," says his friend, actor Sarah Strange - Rennie inevitably
seduces those allowed past his defences. Strange talks of his
"inexplicable unlearnable electricity. He wanders around simply
wearing it, this combination of wonderful and obnoxious things."
(Saturday Night Article)[Bruce and Noel are incredibly hung over and doing auditions for HCL]:
"The hours dribble by. The head clears. We've seen several possible
callbacks but no one who simply exudes the essence of any of the four
band members. Until late in the afternoon, when we finally see an
actor who does. Tall, blond, angular, unconventionally handsome, in
his thirties. But it's much more than looks that strike us, it's the
details of his attitude, his personal style. Unlike all the others
he wears brown, not black, and in a way that suggests he knows what
he's doing when he opens his closet in the morning. There is no
'uniform,' and he's not putting on any misconceived punk airs. Quite
the opposite. There's something spaced-out and fragile about him,
yet also something subtly impertinent and fuck-you in the way he
refuses to slate himself properly for the camera. He's got a wicked
smile. His name is Callum Rennie, he's reading for Billy, and I know
he's our man before he reads a word."
(From Hard Core Roadshow by Noel S. Baker)ON LAST NIGHT
(Smiling wickedly): "You can make even bad sex good."
(http://www.canoe.ca/Cannes98/may24_lastnight.html)Talking about his ass. "It's just I've never seen it in that framework
before. I don't want the terror of seeing my own ass on screen. What if I like
it -- a LOT?" (http://www.canoe.ca/Cannes98/may24_lastnight.html)Callum said that if the world was ending he would listen to
Fractured Atlas by Elvis Costello.
(http://www.canoe.ca/Cannes98/may24_lastnight.html)
