Another Sutherland falls for the family biz
Son of Donald, half-brother of Kiefer, Rossif fell in love with music, but acting eventually won his hear
By JENNIE PUNTER
Special to The Globe and Mail
Actor Rossif Sutherland possesses a luxurious, gentle baritone similar to the vocal tones of his father, veteran actor Donald Sutherland, and his older half-brother, Kiefer Sutherland (24’s Jack Bauer).
That distinctive “Sutherland” voice, not to mention his lanky 6-foot-5 frame and relaxed, thoughtful, almost dreamy demeanour, make a memorable first impression when the younger Sutherland stands up and greets the next interviewer during the Toronto International Film Festival last fall. He doesn’t immediately strike one as an actor who could convincingly play a fresh-out-of-prison boxer from a violent neighbourhood. But that’s exactly what Sutherland does in Clément Virgo’s latest film, the hard-knocks drama Poor Boy’s Game, which picked up four awards at the 2007 Atlantic Film Festival in October and also played the Toronto and Berlin festivals.
Although both his father and mother, Quebec-born Francine Racette, are actors, the 29-year-old Sutherland, a singer-songwriter (you can check out a few of his latest folk-tinged tunes on his MySpace page), didn’t heed the family calling from an early age as did Kiefer, who got his first starring film role at 18 in The Bad Boy. Rossif’s sole thespian credit from his teen years was a multipart role in a high-school play about the Vietnam War. “One of my characters had no legs,” he recalls. “I remember one performance I completely blanked and was so embarrassed I walked off stage. Imagine that - it’s a miracle!” he laughs.
During philosophy studies at Princeton University, Sutherland directed a short film. When the lead actor didn’t show up for the shoot, the director stepped in. “I showed that film to my father. He noticed the acting, not the directing, and said that’s what I should do. My father isn’t one to think everything his child does is brilliant, so it was a huge compliment. But I still resisted for years.”
Sutherland believes that his work as a musician and an actor are intertwined. “They’re both about being real and truthful and vulnerable,” he explains. “They are both an expression of myself, so although I’m playing somebody else, that person is rooted inside me.”
But it took him a while to understand the connection. “For a long time, I thought acting was just pretending to be somebody else. After taking some acting classes in New York, getting up there and getting over myself, I realized acting is an adventure in which you get to explore a part of yourself that is dormant,” he continues. “Then you can either keep it or defeat it or abandon it.”
Sutherland lobbied hard to win the part of Donnie in Poor Boy’s Game, a film about a community’s legacy of violence and one man’s struggle toward redemption that unfolds across the race divide in Halifax. Director Virgo (Lie With Me, Love Come Down, Rude), who co-wrote the screenplay with Halifax filmmaker Chaz Thorne (Just Buried), is a boxing fan and says, “I think viewers intuitively understand the metaphorical side of getting knocked down and getting back up again and going the distance.”
As the film opens, Donnie is released from prison having served time for beating up a young black man so severely it left him physically and mentally handicapped for life. Challenged by local boxing champ Ossie Paris (Flex Alexander) to a match he is sure to lose, Donnie ends up being coached, secretly, by George Carvery (Danny Glover), the father of the boy Donnie almost killed.
Virgo auditioned a lot of actors for the role, who played Donnie “tough and grunting.” Sutherland had something different. “He had a beard, was wearing a long coat and was about 30 pounds too heavy, but there was something about his energy I liked,” says Virgo, who flew to Los Angeles to hang out with the actor. “I told him, ‘You don’t look like a boxer, you’re too fat.’ Three months later, we went to a boxing gym and I was impressed. “Rossif’s gift is his ability to communicate through behaviour, finding ways to reveal character through action,” Virgo continues. “During the editing process, we constantly took dialogue away from both Rossif’s and Danny’s characters. They both have this great ability to tell us so much without speaking.”
Sutherland, who had never played a lead film role, describes Donnie as a “beautiful challenge. Here is someone who leaves prison and is actually rehabilitated, but the only way he can lead a full life is to go back and confront a past he wants to forget.”
The actor, who found he had to stop occasional bouts of shadow boxing because the character of Donnie wouldn’t leave him, is now playing Billy in Gary Yates’s screen version of the award-winning play High Life, which is shooting in Winnipeg. He still seems a bit surprised about his “discovered” profession.
“When I found I could sing, it was like love at first sight,” Sutherland explains. “But acting was more like falling in love with a childhood friend - someone I’ve grown up with and known all my life. One day, you look and it’s like seeing her for the first time - it’s a deep-rooted love.”
Posted under Kiefer Sutherland
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