Paul Gross is locked, loaded and gunning for laughs
Paul Gross the outlaw?
"It's happened at last," laughs "Gunless" star Gross, looking as shifty and dangerous as a poster boy for the Gap as he sits chatting in a sunny Toronto bistro.
As the fictional American gunslinger The Montana Kid, "Due South's" leading man ditches his do-gooding Mountie ways in this tongue-and-cheek western from director Bill Phillips ("Foolproof").
Gross' gun on the run is nothing like John Wayne's heroic Ringo Kid in "Stagecoach" or Clint Eastwood's seething outlaw Josey Wales.
He's a dung-smelling outlaw with hair extensions. He takes a bullet to the butt and recuperates in girly Chinese silk shirts. Worse still, he's dumped head-first by his horse into a sleepy Canadian hamlet where no one will fight him.
For a badass gunslinger that is the end of the line.
"Everything about Canada annoys this dude. That's where this story finds its charm," says Gross.
"The townsfolk are polite. The Mounties are so genteel it makes him want to scream. The only thing that scares the Kid is a picture of fat old Queen Victoria," says Gross.
"Everything about the classic western gets turned on its head here. That was just too hard to resist."
"Gunless" was also a welcome holiday for Gross after writing, producing, directing and starring in the 2008 war epic "Passchendaele."
"My biggest worry here was learning how to twirl a Colt .45," Gross laughs. "I showed up for work. People told me what to wear. It takes a lot of burden off your shoulders."
The break, however, was merely temporary.
Gross is back behind the cameras for a stretch. He is currently writing an ambitious Canada / USA television co-production called "Jerusalem."
The political drama is set just days before a peace plan is implemented in this troubled part of the world.
"It's all about politics with guns," says Gross. "The story is very tense and filled with people and forces that will never allow real peace to take hold here."
"Jerusalem" starts shooting at the beginning of 2011.
The return to TV does not signal Gross' farewell to feature filmmaking.
"TV and film are still equally appealing to me. It's just that TV lets you do things that film cannot," says the former "Slings and Arrows" star. "You can really muck about in a world for a good long time."
"Gunless" is the other end of the spectrum.
"It's like the rigatoni of spaghetti westerns," laughs Gross.
"If it works it's because I borrowed from Leslie Nielsen. I hung around with him a few years back and he taught me a lot about comedy," says Gross.
"A millisecond played in one direction and you've got a disaster on your hands. A millisecond in another direction and you've struck gold."
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