bio

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Callum Keith Rennie was born on September 14, 1960 in the industrial town of Sunderland in England. He has blue (-gray)eyes and blond hair. His mother was born in Inverness and his father in Aberdeen (both are Scottish) but they're separated now.

He has one younger and one older brother and both have children. Keith has a tattoo on his upper right arm of the Champion Spark Logo which is an homage to the American painter Stuart Davis. He's very interested in rock climbing and he likes baseball, too.

Keith is not married and has no children but he lived (during his drinking phase) for nearly two years with actress Babz Chula (who's 14 years his senior) whom he met at a Starbucks in Vancouver.

He purchased a black 1998 Ford Expedition SUV (in 1998) and he drove to Mexico in it and there, he had his first try at saltwater fishing. He said he caught a 300 pound swordfish. By now, he's living in Vancouver and has a cat named Cleek and a dog (Bull Terrier) called Alberta. He likes carrot juice, is semi-vegetarian, drinks a lot of coffee and he smokes. He also plays the guitar but he was never in a band.

His family moved to Edmonton (Alberta/Canada) when he was 4 years old.
He went to Strathcona High School where he met Bruce McCullough (Kids in the hall) who introduced him into punk music in the late 1970's.

Keith received a $5000 student loan to attend college but he used the money to purchase a truck and went fishing for a couple of month.

He had a strong alcohol problem until he was 33 years old ("When I was 17, I drank a 26 ounce bottle of vodka in half an hour and went into convulsions. I ended up in hospital" - Saturday magazine 1998).

He didn't get into acting until he was in his mid 20's but he thought about acting at age 18.
Some of his friends who had a radio station show at U of A (University of Alberta) campus radio station CJSR offered him a chance to do voice work.

While living in Edmonton, Keith appeared in theatre productions.
He moved to Toronto and tried his luck but it went nowhere fast.

He'd been working in restaurants and nightclubs (f.e.: Anza Club and Graceland in Vancouver), he laid railroad trucks, worked as a bartender, cook, construction worker and paper baler. When he was younger he wanted to be a rock climber.

Keith enrolled in the Bruhansk Theatre Studio in Vancouver, he took acting classes in the 1980's. On the basis of his first professional performance in the play "Lost Souls" and "Missing Persons", he was invited to work at the Shaw Theatre Festival at Niagara-on-the-lake.
After that, he went back to the west coast and his predilection for alcohol came with him. Keith: "I started working on a play, then I lost my mind, got on a bus and went to Seattle and flew to England in the middle of the rehearsal."

Once he ended up in jail for some hours in the afternoon after being napped for $2000 in unpaid parking tickets.

Things began to change for him in 1993. He went into a bar in Vancouver and ticked off a construction worker by flipping him the bird. The worker than punched his fist through a plate glass window and drove a sharp of glass into Keith's left eye and retina. That incident made him recognize he had to change and he said he hasn't had a drink since.

His career improved and he got guest appearances on series as Highlander ( he said it was a terrifying experience) and the x- files. He acted also in Canadian - made movies and his screen breakthrough came in 1994 with his role in Mina Shum's "Double Happiness" (the glasses he wore in D.H. were his own) for which he garnered a Genie Award nomination. There have been many other movies such as Curtis' Charm and Bruce McDonald's Hard Core Logo (1997). He got a starring role on Due South and paralleling his work on it was the limited run comedy "Twitch City" (also starring Don McKellar and Molly Parker), which aired on early 1998. Bruce McCullough appeared there also. Keith won a Genie Award for his appearance in Don McKellar's "Last Night" (Director: David Cronenberg) and the following year, Cronenberg cast him in a role in eXistenZ (also starring Jennifer Jason Light and Jude Law). He won a Gemini Award (1997) for his work in the children's TV series "My life as a dog". Keith also starred in Memento (with Guy Pearce and Joe Pantoliano) and Picture Claire (with Juliette Lewis).

Twitch City, with Don McKellar
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