His stock is up at
Traders end
By Claire Bickley
-- Toronto Sun
David Hewlett's a hot
film commodity
It's 10 a.m. in
Toronto. In Mexico, apparently, it's 1997.
"Three years after the fact, we're still getting flown around. It's great.
That film will never die," says actor David Hewlett, down south
recently
with director Vincenzo Natali for the opening there of their three-year-old
film, Cube.
Time is up, however, on another of Hewlett's enduring assignments. The
final episode of Traders airs tonight at 10 on Global. For five years, he spent a couple days a week shooting his supporting role
as oddball high-finance computer wizard Grant Jansky, a part and a schedule
the 34-year-old actor considers his "dream job."
"I think I'm quite happy to move on from an acting perspective but, boy,
there's some great people who I'm going to really miss on that show, both
actors and the crew," he says. "I think I'm going to look back and it's
going to be one of those magic moments."
During the Traders' hiatuses, Hewlett filled his resume with indie film
projects. He recently completed work on The Ice Men,
Thom Best's film drama
about five male friends' tumultuous cottage weekend. Before that, there was
Jerry Ciccoritti's The Life Before
This, Michael Kennedy's Joe's Wedding and
Chris Grismer's Clutch.
Hewlett and Cube co-star Andrew Miller have also written and produced two
dramatic shorts, scripted three yet-to-be made features
and are now
developing a Canadian TV series Hewlett describes as "a sort of Mod Squad in
cyber space thing." He wants to produce
but might also appear in it. If it proceeds, it would
likely be made next year.
And it turns out that it wasn't that big a stretch for Hewlett to act like
Grant Jansky. He's been computer-mad ever since he was a kid
with a
Commodore 64 and even spent two years managing the technical operations
department at the messaging network Voice-Tel Canada.
His own company, Darkyl Media (named after a horse he had when he was
little) designs Web sites for the film and TV industry. He's
also a founder of fusefilm.com, a Web site that serves as a networking
forum for filmmakers, writers and directors.
"The tagline is, 'There's Power in Numbers.' I think we're sort of like a
motorcycle gang of filmmakers for the Web," he jokes. "Hopefully
not so violent. 'Don't f--- with me.' People would be going,
'What are you gonna do, film me to death?' "
Hewlett's girlfriend, actress Soo Garay, just finished the critically
acclaimed run of the play Belle at the Factory Theatre, and was
recently
seen doing something naughty with a stuffed animal on the Comedy Network's
Puppets Who Kill. Now Hewlett's younger
sister Kate is considering following him into show business, of which he
says, "She is just hilarious. I keep telling her she'd
better
not do better than me or I'll be very upset."
Hewlett, born in England and raised here, is the eldest of six children and
the only son.
"I couldn't be macho if I wanted to be," he says of the result.
"God, the way I used to dress in the '80s. All our family photos are like
album covers. (People say,) 'Oh, who's your other sister?' I'm like, 'That's
me.' "
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