The Outlaw
Paul Gross has been called the quintessential Canadian actor. Now, he’s playing a cocky American. What’s up with that?
It only took an instant for the cop to react as Paul Gross left his home in Toronto twirling a replica of a Colt .45 revolver through his fingers like a pistol-packing cowboy from the Wild West.
“Put the weapon down!” the cop barked, placing a hand on his revolver.
“What, this? It’s not even a…”
“Put the weapon down!”
A few tense seconds passed before Gross managed to muddle through an explanation: he’s an actor, practicing for a role in a western where he plays an outlaw who twirls a gun and he’s only practicing. After a sideways look and tongue-lashing, the officer unexpectedly offered to show Gross how to do it properly.
“He was just like a magician,” Gross says. “He spun the gun around behind his back, between his legs. It was very impressive.”
The movie that almost caused a real-life shootout for Gross, Calgary-born actor and star of the mid-1990s TV series Due South, is Gunless. The flick, which is due out at the end of this month, follows the Montana Kid, a notorious American gunslinger who ends up in the tiny Canadian hamlet of Barclay’s Brush. Immediately upon arrival, the Kid gets into a tussle with the town’s blacksmith, which leads the Kid to “call him out” for a gunfight. However, this is a problem given they’re in a gun-less Canadian town of 29 people.
“It’s lighthearted, fun and had some resonance underneath it,” says Gross. The movie makes fun of Americans and plays off the stereotype that Canadians are passive, polite and affable to the point of being annoying.
“That’s always been a source of good comedy for us,” he says. “One of the strongest elements of Due South was that it played on the comic differences between our two cultures.”
After starring in such Canadian films as Men with Brooms and Passchendaele, which he also wrote, produced and directed, Gross says it has been a relief going back to just acting.
“It’s kind of like a holiday,” he says. “It takes a lot of concerns off your shoulders.”
For Gross, Gunless was appealing for another reason: as a kid, his father had been in the military, which meant his family moved around and saw a lot of rural Alberta. Playing a gunfighter had always held a certain fascination for him. “I liked the story, the characters, but principally it was because I wanted to ride around on a horse with a gun,” he jokes.
Wielding a weapon on set also changed Gross, and not in a good way. “There is a rule: you’re never supposed to point it at anyone. Well, I just couldn’t stop,” he says. “I think I became unbearable. I just wandered around drawing it on everyone.”
As for the movie, Gross says while it doesn’t have the same crazy off-the-wall sense of humour you’d find in an old Adam Sandler flick or Dumb & Dumber, it’s a movie that should still resonate with movie goers.
“I hope everyone has a good time at it. It’s quite clever and even kind of cerebral,” he says, adding, in a self-deprecating tone, “It’s probably the first and last time I’ll ever be asked to play
a cowboy.”
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It only took an instant for the cop to react as Paul Gross left his home in Toronto twirling a replica of a Colt .45 revolver through his fingers like a pistol-packing cowboy from the Wild West.
“Put the weapon down!” the cop barked, placing a hand on his revolver.
“What, this? It’s not even a…”
“Put the weapon down!”
A few tense seconds passed before Gross managed to muddle through an explanation: he’s an actor, practicing for a role in a western where he plays an outlaw who twirls a gun and he’s only practicing. After a sideways look and tongue-lashing, the officer unexpectedly offered to show Gross how to do it properly.
“He was just like a magician,” Gross says. “He spun the gun around behind his back, between his legs. It was very impressive.”
The movie that almost caused a real-life shootout for Gross, Calgary-born actor and star of the mid-1990s TV series Due South, is Gunless. The flick, which is due out at the end of this month, follows the Montana Kid, a notorious American gunslinger who ends up in the tiny Canadian hamlet of Barclay’s Brush. Immediately upon arrival, the Kid gets into a tussle with the town’s blacksmith, which leads the Kid to “call him out” for a gunfight. However, this is a problem given they’re in a gun-less Canadian town of 29 people.
“It’s lighthearted, fun and had some resonance underneath it,” says Gross. The movie makes fun of Americans and plays off the stereotype that Canadians are passive, polite and affable to the point of being annoying.
“That’s always been a source of good comedy for us,” he says. “One of the strongest elements of Due South was that it played on the comic differences between our two cultures.”
After starring in such Canadian films as Men with Brooms and Passchendaele, which he also wrote, produced and directed, Gross says it has been a relief going back to just acting.
“It’s kind of like a holiday,” he says. “It takes a lot of concerns off your shoulders.”
For Gross, Gunless was appealing for another reason: as a kid, his father had been in the military, which meant his family moved around and saw a lot of rural Alberta. Playing a gunfighter had always held a certain fascination for him. “I liked the story, the characters, but principally it was because I wanted to ride around on a horse with a gun,” he jokes.
Wielding a weapon on set also changed Gross, and not in a good way. “There is a rule: you’re never supposed to point it at anyone. Well, I just couldn’t stop,” he says. “I think I became unbearable. I just wandered around drawing it on everyone.”
As for the movie, Gross says while it doesn’t have the same crazy off-the-wall sense of humour you’d find in an old Adam Sandler flick or Dumb & Dumber, it’s a movie that should still resonate with movie goers.
“I hope everyone has a good time at it. It’s quite clever and even kind of cerebral,” he says, adding, in a self-deprecating tone, “It’s probably the first and last time I’ll ever be asked to play
a cowboy.”
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