When Kevin Durand told his mother he’d landed a role in Canadian director David Cronenberg’s upcoming movie Cosmopolis, she had but one question for him: how was Cronenberg going to kill him off?
“I’ve been stabbed in the throat, shot in the face. I mean, the amount of ways that Hollywood has come up to kill me, to dispose of me, is unreal,” said Durand, a St. Ignatius High School grad who will turn 38 years old next month.
Mom, who keeps a photographic shrine to her son in the basement of their Thunder Bay home, has become rather blasé about her son’s roles these days. Impressed and immensely proud, yes, but when your son’s resume lists the likes of Robin Hood, Smoking Aces, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and TV’s critically acclaimed Lost, it’s easy to see a new role as just another job.
It doesn’t mean she always likes the outcome the scriptwriters and directors pen for him.
Cronenberg was no exception.
“Before I could say anything else, she said, ‘How do you die?’ She doesn’t get excited about the roles, she just asks, ‘Do I have to watch you die?’
Imagine the shock when he told her he survives the length of the film, based on Don DeLillo’s novel and starring Robert Pattinson, Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti and Oscar winner Juliette Binoche.
Working with Cronenberg was a dream come true for Durand, who was given three days to submit an audition tape to the inventor of the body horror genre, whose best-known works include 1986’s The Fly and Naked Lunch, the 1991 adaptation of William S. Burrough’s drug-addled tale.
“He’s developed such a huge international following because he tells stories the way he wants to tell them. And no one tells him how to tell his stories,” said Durand, home for the holidays with Sandra Cho, his wife of a little more than a year.
“So you always get a really unique experience, a unique perspective watching. He sees the world the way he wants to.”
The three-day window was a little much for Durand, so he took his time and the chance that Cronenberg would excuse his tardiness.
Durand, who wants to premiere the movie in Thunder Bay, had no other choice, he said.
“The dialogue was so terrifying. I actually took two weeks and thought, ‘Oh, I’m not going to get it now.’ But I didn’t want to send anything to David Cronenberg unless it was fantastic. Luckily that paid off.”
The film, scheduled for release in 2012, tells the tale of Eric Packer (Pattinson), a multi-billionaire who treks across New York to get a haircut, ferried around by Durand’s character Torval, his limo driver.
It’s one of several interesting roles his fans can expect to see him gracing the silver screen in the next year or so, the busy actor said.
He’s playing Lenny Jackson in Nathan Morlando’s Edwin Boyd. Boyd was a notorious Toronto gangster who terrorized southern Ontario in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Durand has also just wrapped filming on Resident Evil: Retribution, the fourth in the cult classic series.
Hollywood’s resident bad boy character actor, the Real Steel star says his most recent four roles are a bit of a twist for him, getting to play the good guy for a change.
In fact, Durand said, the roles are coming fast and furious these days, with directors and producers seeking him out for specific parts.
It’s a luxury he likes.
“A lot of people are coming and just offering us parts. Now it’s just trying to make the right decisions from an artistic perspective,” he said.
“It’s very tough. It’s a very delicate line to try to figure out what’s the right thing to do. Because sometimes something might not be truly resonating with you artistically, but if you look at it from a business perspective then you’re thinking, if I do this, then I’ll have more power to do the artistic things.
So you’re always trying to find that balance and keep moving forward, hopefully evolve in a good positive way that we can all be proud of.”
Durand said he plans to take the next couple of months off before deciding on his next role.
