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TORONTO -- Paul Bernardo may be the best part that actor Jason Priestley never gets to play.
"It would be a phenomenal role," Priestley, 31, told The Sun on the set of Darkness Falling, the first of two films he's starring in here this summer for Norstar Filmed Entertainment Inc., the company that now seems to have abandoned plans for a feature film about the serial killer.
"I don't know if the project ever will resurface again. Certainly I'll revisit it then," Priestley said.
Word that a Bernardo film might be in the works drew widespread criticism last winter. Representatives of the families of Kristin French and Leslie Mahaffy, the victims of Bernardo and his wife Karla Homolka, decried it as exploitation of tragedy. NDP leader Howard Hampton wrote Mayor Mel Lastman asking him to keep the production out of Toronto. Premier Mike Harris pledged to prevent government buildings from being used. Manitoba also put out the unwelcome mat.
You'd think those in the arts industry might be a little slower to embark down that slippery slope of de facto censorship, but even on the Darkness Falling set, several crew members said they'd decline work on a Bernardo movie.
Priestley is sensitive to the emotional reaction over such subject matter.
"It was a great tragedy here in Canada and one of those things that, as Canadians, we grow up thinking can happen in the big ugly country to the South and they don't necessarily happen here. But unfortunately they do happen here," said Priestley, who grew up in B.C. in the era of Clifford Olson's horrifying crimes.
He listed some of the acting greats who have taken on and won acclaim in roles of real-life killers, from Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty as Bonnie and Clyde to Tony Curtis as The Boston Strangler. He points out movies made about Charles Manson and the Son of Sam.
"Let me put it to you this way: Probably the third-largest tourist attraction in England still today is Jack the Ripper. You know what I mean? Is it right to get upset about the fact that there's a commercial side to serial killers? There always has been and there always will be," he said.
The Bernardo script, which he read at the request of Norstar chairman Peter Simpson, was based on Stephen Williams' book Invisible Darkness.
"The script was very well-written. It was more an examination of the two people and less an examination of the unfortunate girls who were murdered. It was more a psychological examination of these people, and it also got into how poorly our government handled it," Priestley said.
"Maybe you've just got to wait 20 years. I think that whole situation is just a little too fresh here in Ontario. It's a great tragedy. The other thing is it stays so fresh in everybody's mind because of the way the government is handling Karla (Homolka), letting her have birthday parties. I mean, she cut the greatest deal ever in the history of cutting deals."
Priestley has already made two movies with Norstar, The Highwayman three years ago, and The Fourth Angel with Jeremy Irons and Charlotte Rampling last year. Monday, shooting begins on the comedy feature Call Me Irresponsible.
The now-finished thriller Darkness Falling, which also stars Janet Kidder and Patsy Kensit, is set in the world of sexual fetish clubs. Priestley plays one of its least kinky characters.
Which suits him fine.
"You know what? I don't trip through the fetish world at all in this movie," he said, with a smile. "That's all right. I have a computer."
August 21, 2001
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by
Claire Bickley
Sun Media |
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Actor Jason Priestley.
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NBC Photo
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"It was a great tragedy here in Canada and one of those things that, as Canadians, we grow up thinking can happen in the big ugly country to the South and they don't necessarily happen here."
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