Music: {allcanada} At Cannes: Durand rises to challenge of pedophile role

Friday, May 16, 2014

{allcanada} At Cannes: Durand rises to challenge of pedophile role

Perfectly Sweet - Shop Jelly Belly Hello Kitty candies! Click Here

Sons of Anarchy / How I Met Your Mother / Work From Home

CANNES, France — The Cannes Film Festival amped the game on deplorable villains with Mika, a pedophile who kidnaps a young girl and holds her captive for eight years in the Atom Egoyan film Captives.

The job of portraying this horror fell into the hands of affable Canadian actor Kevin Durand. He has been the baddie before, notably last year as Officer Caruso in Fruitvale Station, which also played at the festival. He portrayed the psychotic neo-Nazi Jeeves Tremor in 2006's Smokin' Aces.

But Durand never has been as unfathomably devious as in the thriller that premiered in the Cannes competition. It is made all the worse as Durand has to play against all-around-good-guy Matthew (Ryan Reynolds) in the drama.

"I was terrified, horrified and honored that Atom (Egoyan) saw me as the perfect fit for this character," Durand said after the screening Friday with a nervous laugh. "I was pretty scared."

He said researching the role presented a world "that kept scaring me."

"But I felt it presented a great challenge, and what a journey to take," said Durand.

It is one of the most powerful performances in a competition film that received loud boos mixed with applause at an early morning screening on Friday. Steve Pond of the industry website The Wrap noted that the boos were deserved in a film which "in the end is pretty ludicrous." TheFilmStage.com called the film "aggressively stupid" in a review.

But Durand's performance is layered and complex as he reveals different, conflicting aspects of his repulsive character — in part kidnapper but also emotional captive in the strange relationship he has with young Cass (Alexia Fast).

Durand's Mika is outwardly functioning and financially well-off; he adores the opera and can hold down conversations at upscale social functions. He's not "some guy evilly twirling his mustache," as co-star Rosario Dawson, who plays the investigating officer in the film, says.

Reynolds gave props to his co-star, whom he believes somehow managed to give this horrific character "some empathy."

"I think Kevin has the most difficult role in this entire film. I don't know if I would have been up to the challenges, to do that role," said Reynolds. "That is a very difficult thing."

Reynolds says he has read a lot of scripts and has considered going against type to play a villain. But he wants to get a role where the villain plays a man of different convictions. Not one "where they wake up in the morning and say, 'I need to hurt somebody.' "

"What Kevin did was important," said Reynolds.

Egoyan said he was inspired to tackle this story by a real-life kidnapping in his home town in Western Canada. The young child went missing from a local park.

"The mother just turned her back for a moment. Every time I go back there are still posters. ... that story is really at the basis of this," said Egoyan.

Elementary / Curb Your Enthusiasm: Larry’s Top Picks