And then there's Geordie Johnson's latest TV project.
"He was the best actor I ever worked with. He was just great," Johnson jokes of Nicholas Campbell, his co-star in the dramatic monologue The Two-Headed Man, which airs tonight at 7:30 on Bravo's Spoken Art.
Although they share a shoulder in the piece, that's a gift of post-production technology. The two actors did not meet on the job.
"It was funny, you know. Because when I went in, they said, 'Which one do you want to read for? Which head?' "
Johnson chose the larger part of Samuel who, heavily bandaged, recuperating in hospital and facing a charge of manslaughter, tells us what drove him to sever his relationship with his abusive brother Simon. Their life as a twosome is recalled in flashbacks.
The first time he read Barbara Gowdy's short story from which the piece was adapted, "I went, 'Wow. What is this?' " recalls Johnson.
"I read it then a few times in a row and it still holds that wonderful mystery there. Sometimes you can read it through and your idea is very clear. You can think, 'Okay, this is just psychological. The guy is obviously just going through this all on his own.'
"Then you go, 'Okay, I'll read through again and look for evidence of the total reality of it.' And that just about holds up, too."
Working with only his imagination in the place where Campbell would be edited into the finished product wasn't a problem for the actor, accustomed to special effects and blue screen work from his lead role in the one-season syndicated show Dracula: The Series.
"With Dracula, we had a fair amount of that -- 'Oh my God, look at that monster!' " he says.
He's on the phone now from the Stratford Festival, where he's playing Biff in Death Of A Salesman, Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet and, beginning Aug. 8, a member of the chorus in Oedipus. This is his fifth, not consecutive, season in the Festival company.
His other credits include the role of Franz Liszt in The Composers Special Liszt's Rhapsody, guest parts on the series Kung Fu, Counterstrike, Beyond Reality, Ray Bradbury, Street Legal, Hidden Room and Alfred Hitchcock.
One credit of which he's more fond than proud is Bionic Ever After, the Bionic Woman-Six Million Dollar Man wedding movie.
"Just after it aired, I was in HMV and this clerk kept sort of looking at me. Finally he came over and said, 'You were in Bionic Ever After.' And I said, 'Yes.' And he said, 'Ree-a-lly cheesy, man.' "
On a more prestigious note, there was his small role in The English Patient, the closest he's come to a film with Canadian connections since he was in the Ned Hanlan bio, The Boy In Blue, 11 years ago.
"The thing I'd really like to do that has eluded me is Canadian film," he says.
"I don't know what it is. It's strange when I look at my international experience. The Americans regard me as British or middle-European. The English regard me as middle-European or American. And the Canadians don't know who I am -- but they don't think I'm Canadian."
Previous article
Next article
visitors since 31 October, 2000
View the 
... Please sign the
View the archived
© 2000 Please go here to contact me - Lindy
This page is not authorized by Mr Johnson, The Toronto Sun or any of the shows referenced herein.
