TORONTO—There aren’t a lot of successful Canadian actors continually coming back from the U.S. to tell our stories. Scott Speedman will move back to the top of the list on Friday (May 11) when Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster is released. It’s not the kind of true story that Canadians are used to seeing on their small or large screens.

The hero of the piece didn’t make the list of CBC’s Greatest Canadians, several of whom have been the subject of biographical films in recent years, including Terry Fox, Pierre Trudeau, Tommy Douglas, John A. Macdonald, and Don Cherry. No, this time the protagonist is an antihero, a bank robber who was to 1950s Toronto what John Dillinger was to the U.S. in the 1920s. In fact, he was dubbed the city’s “public enemy number one”.

According to the film, Boyd was a Second World War veteran who couldn’t find a job and decided to rob Toronto banks. He put together a gang, and managed several successful robberies until the members were arrested and sent to prison, two of them charged with killing a police officer. Boyd and the killers escaped, and the manhunt became front-page news across the country. A then-princely sum of $26,000 was offered for information leading to the capture of the gang.

In Toronto for last year’s film festival, Speedman said that it was writer-director Nathan Morlando who convinced him to take on the role. Morlando had known Boyd before he died in 2002 in Victoria under an assumed name and had spent several years working with him on the script.

“Nathan conceived the story, and then he contacted Eddie and built the relationship, and they were friends from 1995. That relationship was a huge asset to the movie, although at some point it has to become less about me getting him exactly right and more about me getting to the bottom of what made him tick. He had a deep love for his wife and children, but he really needed the spotlight and wanted to be famous. He did what it took to get some level of notoriety.”

Surprisingly, given that he acts for a living, Speedman says he found that playing the theatrics of Boyd’s bank-robbing to be the toughest part of the job. Boyd would jump on the bank counters with a gun as though he was playing to an audience. Speedman says there was a line that he knew he could cross, given Boyd’s bravura style.

“Playing the flamboyance in the bank robberies was very difficult. He looked at it as a theatrical performance, and you don’t want to push that too far. There are a lot of movies where that doesn’t work. I wanted to play him as a larger-than-life character, but I wanted to keep it real, knowing that my performance could be easily picked apart if I didn’t get it right.”

Speedman has been helping Canadian filmmakers get movies made since he first came to prominence in the B.C.-produced Kitchen Party in 1997. He costarred in the U.S. series Felicity from 1998 to 2002, and he returned home for My Life Without Me the following year. He starred in the blockbuster Underworld and its sequel, then worked with Atom Egoyan in Adoration. He costarred in the Canadian production of Barney’s Version before returning stateside for this year’s The Vow. He says he feels that he owes his career to Canadian movies and that as long as the roles are good, he will continue to come home.

“To be honest, I have been very lucky with Canadian film. I have been given these great roles that have rejuvenated my career. I have been doing some interesting stuff in Canada, and I always feel that I am lucky to be able to come back and take on roles that are challenging.”

Watch the trailer for Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster.