Tabassum Siddiqui Saturday Post

Saturday, September 27, 2003

CREDIT: Photo Courtesy Canstage

Fabrizio Filippo, left, as Dennis, with Marcello Cabezas as Warren: "It's all about the story."

Toronto actor Fabrizio Filippo stars as Dennis in the Canadian premiere of Kenneth Lonergan's This is Our Youth, directed by Woody Harrelson. Better known for his film (Waydowntown) and television (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Queer As Folk) credits, with this play Filippo returns to the local stage for the first time in eight years. Also a Chalmers Award-nominated playwright, Filippo, 29, stars opposite Sophia Loren in the television adaptation of Nino Ricci's Lives of the Saints, which will air on CTV next spring. Filippo spoke with writer Tabassum Siddiqui at the Berkeley Street Theatre.

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The initial approach is not that different between theatre and film. I approach it pretty much the same way. I read the story, it's all about the story. I read once that Anthony Hopkins basically reads the script 200 times or something like that, and that's how he prepares. When I have time, I just read it as much as I can. So then I get the story inside, so that I know it really well. It starts with the arc -- where does the character need to be, how do you get from A to B?

A teacher and director of mine, Joanna McIntyre, once said she felt every character in every play gets what they want in the end -- even if it's not what they thought they wanted. And that's kind of how I go about it: I think about the "superobjective" of the play, and you see somebody trying to get to this point. And that's the fun of it. Then you just start digging deeper, you go with everything.

A lot of it has to do with instinct, especially at the beginning. How do you feel, what's your initial impulse? Ultimately, what I'm hoping to do is create happy accidents. That's when you're in the zone -- when you don't plan, you don't plot, you don't do anything like that. You just know it so well, and you live within the structure, and then all this shit comes out. It's great.

With this particular role, it was very interesting because we [the three actors and Harrelson] sat down at the table read [the preliminary read-through], and he [Dennis] came out immediately. It was amazing. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to do it, because I've rarely had that experience, where I just knew almost right away what to do. And with a play like this, it's so great because the dialogue is so incredible that it will literally carry you.

That's what they say about Shakespeare -- and all good writing is like that. You just stick to the words. With Dennis, it's a difficult character, so I built the abrasive side first, that sort of caustic bravado. So I had that in rehearsal at the beginning, and then once I felt like that was there, I went backward. I just went, where is he kind? Where is he a boy? Where is he lost?

I think that's one of the great things about Dennis: On the outside he's this teen god, but really he's just this broken boy inside.

You want basically to transport people. I paint for fun, and what I like about painting is that it's about layers. I have this one painting that I've been working on for years that will never end, and every once in a while I start to change it, and it has this texture that none of the other paintings do. So that's what a layer does -- nobody's supposed to see it. You're supposed to do all this work, and just trust that it's there, ultimately.

Leave a bunch of actors on their own, and they'll just emote like crazy. The director reins it in -- they're watching the story more, and you're watching the arc of your own character. Every actor thinks the whole story is about them, because you have to! In terms of Woody, he had this incredibly relaxed way of approaching stuff that made us free to experiment. There were certain points in the process, because I hadn't worked that way in theatre before, I was a little worried, like, "Oh, no, when is this going to come together?" But it just all fell together -- he knew what was going on, and he had this trust. It was incredible.

The theatre is representational; the theatre is metaphor. You want to be transported, but you never quite believe that you're there, because you're in a theatre. So there's a presentational quality to it. What I've figured out about film is that you just have to be as close to actually feeling what you're feeling as possible, because you're being captured in this very real way.

That's really the difference -- in theatre, it's more athletic, almost. You train in those four weeks of rehearsal, and then you do this thing. In film and TV you're like a jazz musician improvising: One, you rarely have time, especially in television; and two, it has to be spontaneous. In theatre, the spontaneity has to exist within this ultimate structure that you've created. In film, as an actor all you have to care about is that shot. Yes, you have to care about the story, there is a structure, but in [film] they say "Action!" and you just go.

I haven't done theatre in six years, so I'm only remembering now that it's a lot of work. It's incredibly taxing on the body. I've had to quit smoking every two days. In film, what's hard is the waiting around and having to be ready all the time. So when I'm playing an incredibly dramatic role, I find it really difficult because it sort of creeps into my life. I don't find Dennis creeping into my life in the way that it would if I was doing Dennis in a film. When I'm doing film, it changes my life in a certain way. When I'm doing theatre, even though it changes my life to a degree, it's never as much because ultimately you're performing. In a film you're not performing, you're being.

I love writing, and it's enriched my acting incredibly. It's a whole different zone -- I love the plotting and the planning. Not that as an actor you don't use your brain, but it's not in the same way. You don't construct something in the same way that you do as a writer. I love it, too, because you get into a zone, and you realize that four hours have passed as you've been writing, and it's awesome. And any of this stuff -- the beauty of it is that, ultimately, when it's great, you lose yourself. And that's the whole point.

When I'm having a great performance on stage, I don't remember any of it. There's no job like that. Or maybe there is -- in acting, they always say, "OK, now forget everything you've learned, and go out there!" and I laugh, because you don't want to be saying that to a brain surgeon! But at the same time I'm sure even brain surgeons that love what they do will lose themselves in it.

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