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Two pictures of Bruce from Scott's home video. | |
I was fortunate enough to get to meet Bruce Greenwood on the set of Heart of a Child on Thursday, February 3rd, 1994. At the time I was 13 (I am now 16) and in grade seven at Latimer Road Elementary School in Surrey, where I belonged to the school newspaper called The Latimer Times. I had been interested in film making for quite some time and had just met a family friend that past summer who was a Unit Production Manager in the local film industry. When she found out she would be doing Heart of a Child she asked if I would like to come out to set to see what goes on there and perhaps write an article about my experiences for the newspaper. I was very interested and she arranged for myself and two friends to visit the set.We arrived on the set, which was a house on a small farm in South Surrey, British Columbia (Canada), at about 9 am and they were setting up for the day of shooting. We were told to go two blocks down the road to the Circus Hazelhere R.V. Park; this was were the actors trailers were located and where we parked. We were greeted by the Third Assistant Director, and he started to give us a tour of the trailers.
It was so very cold that morning (the highest temperature that day was -1C) and while we were being given the tour I couldn't help but notice a guy down on the road talking on his cell phone. He wasn't wearing a coat like everyone else, just a sweat shirt. I figured he was just another crew member. We finished the tour and were going to head down to the set when suddenly we were introduced to the man in the sweat shirt. His name was Bruce Greenwood! He was extremely nice and offered to let us interview him for our newspaper, as we had a video camera with us. We gladly accepted his offer. We had never done an interview on camera before and had no idea how to set it up. Bruce jumped in and showed us how we could make it look really good. He suggested that we start in the field and walk towards the camera, then turn and finish up the interview in front of the trailers. I took the camera and my friend conducted the interview.
My friend was really nervous and couldn't think of much to ask Bruce, so soon Bruce took over and the interview became really fun. Bruce is really animated and has a great sense of humour. The L.A. earthquake had just happened and he told us what it was like: "I was lying in bed wearing nothing but a t-shirt, when the walls started to shake wildly! I lept out of bed and crawled along the floor to the window with my bum hanging out! When I got outside, I stood there naked and watched my house shake itself to pieces. Yeah, it was a lot of fun."
As the interview went on he joked around with the Third AD and then convinced the Producer to come over and take part in the interview. It was easy to see that he was liked by everyone. He let us interview him for quite a while and then they came to bring him down to the set. We rode down to the set with him and he introduced us to some of the other cast and crew, including his co-star Michele Greene. We hung around with him all day and he chatted with us between scenes. He was extremely nice to us and treated us with a lot of respect, not what you would expect from an actor.
He even talked to us after we really screwed up a shot by walking into it. It was the scene where he is walking out to see Karen (Michele Greene) in her pottery studio and he is petting the dogs on the way there. Just as he was petting the dogs we walked into the shot and the director yelled "CUT!!!!!!!!!!!!" We thought Bruce was not going to speak to us again after that, but he just laughed it off. We even sat around and joked about it afterwards.
I am very happy to have had the chance to meet Bruce. He is one of the nicest people I have ever met. I am waiting for Bruce to come back to Vancouver to do another movie, because I would really like to talk with him again. My friend who was the Unit Production Manager on Heart of a Child and made the whole trip possible, is now a Producer and I have had the chance to go to many of her sets, and I am always on the lookout for Bruce!
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Bruce with Executive Producer Michelle MacLaren | |
 Heart of a Child |
| BG Encounters |