Let the shit hit the fan, says Scott Speedman

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      Scott Speedman’s come a long way since his first encounter with Tim Roth.

      “I saw him the first time when I went on an ill-advised first date to see Reservoir Dogs,” recalls the actor, laughing. “I was a teenager and it was not the best choice in a movie.”

      The relationship didn’t last (in case you’re wondering). A quarter of a century or so later, the Toronto-native had a more rewarding and definitely more enduring experience when he co-starred opposite the heavyweight Brit actor in the thriller, October Gale (now playing).

      “When you’re looking at doing something, you’re looking at who’s doing it with you,” states the actor, calling the Straight from his adopted home of Los Angeles. “And when you get to go up against a dude like that—not only him, but Patricia Clarkson…”

      Indeed, director Ruba Nadda’s tale—about a grieving widow (Clarkson) and the strange man (Speedman) who washes up at her woodsy lakeside cottage with a fresh bullet wound—hinges on its performances. Clarkson is typically wonderful. “Put her in anything and she makes it pop,” offers Speedman. Roth gradually arrives to add more menace to an already taut scenario; menace, of course being Roth’s default setting.

      “Knowing that you’re cut off and if something goes wrong you’re screwed—I like that feeling,” says Speedman, adding that the film’s Georgian Bay location felt a bit like going home to him. He even persuaded the management at nearby Muskoka Woods summer camp to give him the keys to their gym.

      “I’d go over there when the kids were eating dinner and work out and play basketball just by myself, which was great,” he says, “I definitely could spend more time up there than most people.”

      Sounds like a cosy setup, and a tad ironic; October Gale makes clever use of its remote setting, where a family cottage is either warm and familiar, or it’s a trap. If Speedman felt unreasonably comfortable up there, rest assured that others didn’t.

      “It’s always an adventure, man, it’s always an adventure!” he bellows. “Every movie has its own little challenges and this was no different; maybe even more so, just in terms of dealing with weather and needing the lake to be unfrozen when it wouldn’t unfreeze because of our Canadian winter. It was pretty brutal.”

      “But,” adds Speedman, who’s probably best known to viewers from his leading role in the Underworld films and a star-making turn on Felicity, “if it wasn’t like this, I probably wouldn’t be doing it. I always enjoy that part of making movies; just how it’s a crazy circus with things going wrong all over the place and still coming together—always exciting to me. It’s a nightmare for the producer and director but I always enjoy it when the shit hits the fan.” 

      Follow Adrian Mack on Twitter @adrianmacked.

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