Preproduction 4: Casting

Well, we have our cast! What a wonderful group of people came out to audition for Sisu. We have had three rounds of casting and have ended up with a very solid and interesting cast. Some folks have lots of film work under their belt, but some are very new to acting. We also have a couple of people who have more stage experience than time in front of the camera. There will be future posts about the workshops we'll be doing this summer.

So here are our actors for the main roles. How exciting!

Don Wood: Tom Sukanen (male lead)

I've worked with Don Wood for the past 15 years in both theatre and film. He is an immensely talented actor with a real gift for subtle performance, and he is just perfect for the role of Tom Sukanen. Don even flew to Finland on his own dime to meet me there in April, in order to get a feeling for the people, culture, and the accent. He's almost gotten down the rolling of the r's (which he practices by repeatedly swearing in Finnish: "Perrrrrrkele!") Talk about a dedicated actor!

Megan Fries: Mama (female lead)

I just met Megan but we were all so struck with her performance when she was auditioning for Katja that we completely switched our idea of the character of Mama as an older woman and decided to try her out as a young mother instead. During her callbacks she gave both Dauminique and me chills with one scene and made us tear up with another, which is a pretty sure sign that she is the one for the role. Megan has lots of film and theatre experience, not to mention years of singing training -- and she can jump from a one-story building. How could we not cast her!?

Brian Dueck: Vic Markula (male supporting)

Brian drove to Regina from Swift Current in a blizzard on a February night for a 10-minute audition for the role of Vic Markula, Tom's best friend. After about one minute I knew he was the man for the role. He is a very solid actor with a lot of experience under his belt. And I think he'll age up nicely too (Vic has to play various ages between 35 and 65 throughout the film). Here's an interesting bit of trivia: Brian is a friend of Wilf Markula, the son of Vic Markula, who Brian will be playing in the film. There are so many beautiful coincidences surrounding this project.

Lori Abbott: Katja Sukanen (female supporting)

Lori is pretty new to acting, but there was something about her during the first audition that struck all of us. She has a lovely mixture of strength and vulnerability and when I saw her playing Katja I realized that Lori had somehow been able to capture something in the character that I have never been able to visualize myself, and that I still can't quite define. We saw so many amazing actresses for this role and it was a hard decision, but after her callback we unanimously agreed that Lori was the actress to bring Katja to life.

Jonathan: Timo Sukanen (Tom's son)

Jonathan is an incredible actor. He has been gifted with innate abilities to not only understand lines and scenes, but also to evocatively and perfectly express his understanding in very subtle ways. The first time we met Jonathan we asked him to do an improvisation where he was asking his father (Tom) why he was leaving the family. Halfway through the scene most of us were in tears and it was obvious Jonathan had the part. He really loves acting. Jonathan's family is moving to Ottawa in July, but he has the best parents in the world, and they are willing to bring him back to Saskatchewan for the shoot.

Rod McLeod: Constable Fisk

I have never met Rod McLeod, but I cast him sight unseen. Sometimes a girl just has to go with her gut. Rod lives in Calgary, and had heard about the film. He emailed me asking for an audition, but I couldn't ask him to come to Regina for a 15 minute casting session. He has a commercial online where I could see his work, and after seeing that he is solid and comfortable on camera, and being excited myself by his enthusiasm for the film, I gave him the role of Constable Fisk, the RCMP officer who ultimately was sent to bring Tom in. And here is another beautiful coincidence: Rod is friends with Constable Fisk's son Jim, who has given me lots of great information about his father's involvement, prompting a second scene for the constable and a complete rewrite of the arrest. Constable Fisk was a sensitive and good man who did not want to arrest Tom and felt bad about it afterwards, and that's how he will be portrayed in this film.

Mark Claxton: Lloyd the General Store Owner

Mark is an experienced actor with stage and improvisation experience. When we saw him at the first audition we only had him read for a small role, but as soon as I saw him I thought he'd be great as Lloyd, the gossipy small town general store clerk. Mark and Lili (below) have a great scene together and watching them play off of each other was really fun during the call back. Having Mark in the store in his vest and apron is going to make the set feel real.

Lili Zwart: Marge Ingoll, farm wife

As far as I know, Lili has no training as an actor and has only been in one stage production, where she played Tom Sukanen's brother's wife (pictured above). We had tried a few actresses out in the role of Marge, the farm wife who gossips with Lloyd about the goings on out at Tom's farm, and we saw some good ones -- but somehow Lili just hit the character dead on. She was even better at the callbacks. I know she's going to be great as Marge, an important character who will help put a human face on the community's reaction to Tom's endeavors.

Gerry Coulter: Finnish Boss

Gerry Coulter is an incredibly solid actor. I have never seen anyone take better direction during a cold read in my life. Unfortunately we don't have a large role for his range, but he'll make a wonderful Finnish boss. In fact, after we cast him during callbacks, I went back and rewrote his scene to make it more pivotal, and to make the boss a juicier little role.

Zach: Tom Sukanen as a boy

I first saw Zach during a reading of a new play by Trenna Keating at the University of Regina. It was a monster of a play with a cast of at least 30, and somehow, even though he had a relatively small role, Zach really stood out. I got his mother's email address from Trenna and she agreed to bring Zach to the auditions. We had seen a lot of boys for this role, but Zach was just great and, although we had to go through the formality of a callback audition, we all knew he had the part within a minute of his starting the scene. He will do a wonderful job with the role of Tom Sukanen as a child.

The Nurses!

There are four nurses in the film, and originally we were only casting for three as I was going to play one as a cameo, but we saw so many great women for these roles that we just couldn't narrow it down beyond four. Finally I had to step aside and cast the real masters for these parts. There were many more actresses who would have been great too and it was a real struggle trying to narrow it down even to four. I almost wrote a fifth nurse in because it was so hard to decide. Finally we went with the women who most resembled my original images of the characters.

Ellie Pearce-Ell, Porridge Nurse

Ellie has been a background performer on Corner Gas, among other appearances, and doesn't have a great deal of experience so far with speaking roles, but she's been a nurse and she knows exactly what we're looking for with our cranky nurses. Her work during the audition was almost scary, it was so natural. But she became sweet and funny again as soon as I called 'cut' so I know she's really a nice lady! She'll be the early morning nurse we first meet, who feeds Tom his porridge and calls him a Crazy Finn.

Geri: Sheet Nurse

We all enjoyed meeting Geri. She's been a background performer for awhile and doesn't have a lot of experience with speaking roles yet either, but was just a natural as a tired, overworked nurse in a mental hospital. Her delivery of some lines was so cranky that it actually cracked Raul up, who was trying to play a sick Tom Sukanen opposite her during the audition. She was definitely acting: she is really friendly and quite funny. She'll play the mid-morning nurse who comes in to change Tom's sheets.

Carol Krieser: Bedpan Nurse

Carol is an amazing actress. She has tons of stage experience, as well as a number of radio plays under her belt. She has solid acting and voice training and is just a master with performance. I wish we had a bigger role for her but she says she doesn't mind playing one of our grumpy nurses. We call this role the 'bed pan nurse.' She's the disgruntled night nurse who brings bedpans around. It's not a huge role but it's a fun one.

Jacqueline Patron: Night Nurse

Jacqueline is a strong actress with some real chops and solid stage experience to her credit, and she has a great sense of timing and line delivery. I really wanted to work with her, so I gave her my nurse role. I've asked her to be the nicest of our cranky nurses. She'll play the night nurse who helps Tom back to bed after he totters out into the hall during the night. It's not a huge part but it's a bit of a surreal one!

Jerry Paul: Salesman

Jerry first came out to the audition in the blizzard, and we all really liked him. He is a great guy and has some experience under his belt, and I really wanted to work with him just for his sheer energy, but we couldn't quite find a fit for him type-wise. Finally I asked him to take a smaller role, that of the salesman, which was the only speaking role left after we found the perfect guys for the other parts, and he says he'll be happy to do it, even though it's small. I know he'll be perfect.

We're also shooting one scene in San Francisco later this month. It's a scene from when Tom Sukanen first arrives in New York and can't find work in the shipyards or on the docks. We're shooting in San Francisco because a lot of the bars there are perfect locations, and also there are lots of great actors for whom a New York accent is natural. Don Wood knows a lot of great San Francisco actors and has helped me out by casting these two guys.

David Cramer: 'the old man'

David Cramer will be playing the character currently known as 'the old man' (although we really need a better name for him)...

Other people who will be helping out with non-speaking and other smaller roles are Wayne Slinn as the minister, Colton M. as a young boy, Dauminique Napier as his mother, and Lorne Allen-Fries as a tough guy, among others.

As far as extras, we are still looking for a few extra children, none of whom have lines, including a 7-9 year old blonde girl, a 3 year old blonde boy, and a modern 10-12 year old boy. Adult extras we'll need include three or four folks to walk in and out of the hospital in 1940's doctors' and nurses' costumes, a few solid farmer-types for the threshing machine demo, a couple of more tough guys, a priest, and maybe another few folks to fill up the barn dance.

We also need 3 old-time musicians who will be available for the barn dance as well as a studio recording, and I have been in touch with Chris Weber from CW Stringworks who says he knows the guys who would be perfect. We also need a few folks who can dance old-time dances to the fiddle music for the barn dance, and we have a lead on a ballroom dance group from Moose Jaw who sound just great.

The next step for our speaking role actors will be getting as many of the cast together as we can for a read-through of the script. This will be the only time some of them will meet each other until the wrap party, so I'd like to start with this old theatre tradition. Throughout the summer I will be running various workshops with the different actors, focusing on their different challenges with the project. Some of the theatre actors will get a class in acting for the camera, and some of the newer actors will also go through a character analysis class. All of the actors with the larger roles will of course be rehearsing as well, probably running the scenes a few times during the last week before we shoot, and all of them will be invited to any of the workshops that they would like to attend.

We are still on for shooting during the second half of August, and it feels like the roller coaster is just about to peak -- before the long fast run to the finish!!

What a bunch of good looking folks. I can't wait to start working with them!

Until next time... Sisu!