Oshawa This Week, Friday, February 9, 2001

Gross Directs and stars in curling movie

'Due South' star set to appear in 'Men With Brooms'

By Brian McNair, Staff Writer

Paul Gross is familiar with sweeping successes.

As Benton Fraser, the Mountie played for three years on the television show 'Due South', Gross has become recognizable in more than 200 countries, where the show now appears in syndication.

Playing the lead role in Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' last summer at the Stratford Festival, the 41-year-old Toronto actor packed the crowds in, even if some were slack-jawed women primarily there to gawk at the blue-eyed hunk.

Now, Gross hopes to have success sweeping on the silver screen with 'Men With Brooms', a curling movie he has co-written with John Krizanc and plans to release before Christmas.

Gross, who whill also direct and star in the film when it begins shooting in April, was in Oshawa Sunday learning about the game at the M & M Skins event featuring some of the top curlers in the country.

"It's hard, really hard," said Gross, referring to the game's level of difficulty, not rehearsing lines for the film. "It's going to take a little practice, I think - or I'm going to have to get a double."

With the film still in the pre-production stage, Gross is just starting to familiarize himself with the game.

"I've actually never been to a live event bfore," Gorss said before Sunday's final game at the Oshawa Golf Club. "It's fantastic."

Set in a fictitious town in Ontario, the movie will feature Gross as the skip of a team getting back together to honour a former coahc, who requested in his will that his ashes be placed under a curling rock.

The beauty of acting, in the world according to Gross, is that he simply has to look like he knows what he's doing. In other words, get the form down pat and let the film editors put the rocks in the house.

"We don't have to actually be very good at it - we just have to look like we're good at it," he said. "That's the difference between film and really curling."

The timing of the film, believed to be the first to deal with the sport, couldn't be better. Already gaining in popularity worldwide, curling will be an official sport at the Olympics for the just the second time in Salt Lake City soon after the movie's relase.

"We're breaking ground. Hopefully we'll establish a new genre of film-making," said Gross, showcasing his dry sense of humour.

"It's going to be a monster hit worldwide, I'm sure of it," he added, "I haven't seen any movies on curling and that means the rest of the world hasn't either, so it should be a hugely exotic film for most people."