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	Printed Articles & Interviews Globe & Mail February 10, 2004

For the love of acting By JENNIE PUNTER Special to the Globe and Mail

On a December evening in 2002, Bruce Greenwood is standing in the kitchen of an apartment-hotel suite, preparing a large pot of mulled wine for the crew to sip after returning from shooting on the streets of Toronto.

"This is for a bunch of guys who are going to be really, really cold later tonight," says a smiling Greenwood, who plays Tom, a love-and-marriage-addicted late-night radio talk-show host in The Republic of Love, the screen adaptation of the 1992 novel by the late Carol Shields.

The film, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, opens appropriately on the eve of St. Valentine's Day. It is a tale of romantic love-at-first-sight that hits the fast track to commitment.

Surrounding the couple — Tom (Greenwood) and Fay (Emilia Fox), a folklorist and academic, respectively — is a web of family and friends who support, advise and sometimes unwittingly thwart the pair's marriage plans.

Anyone who has seen Deepa Mehta's most recent film, Bollywood/Hollywood, knows the director is well-versed in creating a complex, whirling family dynamic on screen — a vibe that extends behind the camera as well.

"Deepa has a very tight crew around her, she's a great leader of a team," says Fox, sitting in the spacious washroom as her hair is being rolled up in curlers, the aroma of Greenwood's mulled wine competing with the scent of hairspray.

"When we first talked on the phone she said [working on the film] would be a very happy time, and it truly has been," adds Fox, last seen as Dorota in Roman Polanski's The Pianist.

The Republic of Love marks the first time Fox has appeared on screen with her father, Edward Fox, known for his work in such films as A Passage to India, Gandhi and, more recently, Nicholas Nickleby. "We've actually avoided working together because it does make you a sitting target for charges of nepotism," the younger Fox explains.

"The father-daughter relationship in the novel and the film is so particular, such a healing relationship, that aspects of our relationship did creep into it," she continues.

"It can be very nerve-wracking working with someone who knows you well. You ask yourself, do they think I'm being truthful? But Deepa encouraged us to get on with our own thing so that shyness soon disappeared."

For Fox, playing a 21st-century gal in this Canada-British production is a welcome relief.

"Well, part of being an English female actor is that if you've done the period thing you can easily become permanently corseted," says Fox, whose first notable appearance was as the younger sister of Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth) in the 1995 TV miniseries Pride and Prejudice. "I've made a conscious decision to avoid being tied at the waist, but I have done a lot of period stuff, which is probably what is known to people over here."

His performances in serious fare such as Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter or popcorn chompers such as Hollywood Homicide always turn heads.

The Quebec-born Greenwood, a small and big-screen veteran based now for many years in Los Angeles, breathed a sigh of relief when the role of Tom came his way.

"I finally thought, I've got to do something a little cheerier, not like some of those negative nutcases I've played," he says with a laugh. "And with this character I got to wear my heart on my sleeve and share a little joy. It's like using a whole set of muscles you haven't used in a while — and it feels good.

"Tom is a genuine guy, open to everything," he continues. "And even though he's been married a few times, that hasn't affected his belief that good things are possible. He's a romantic at heart and a believer in love."

Greenwood (who, by the way, has been happily married — to the same woman — for more than 15 years) is a reader, but hadn't encountered Shields's work until he signed on for The Republic of Love.

"I read the script first, got turned on to the character and the story, then read the novel," he explains. "A novel does give you more from which to choose and you can really evoke a sense of character."

Fox, who bought and read the novel soon after arriving in Toronto, says the "extra" material provided in a novel can be an asset so long as you don't bring it to the set.

"Early on I kept going back to the book, which didn't always work because you end up trying to fill one scene in the film with 10 chapters of the book," she says, laughing.

"What I like about the novel and the film is that there is a switch of stereotypes — it's the man who's searching for love and the woman who's frightened of it," she continues. "The thing about Fay is universal. We're all looking to fall in love, but it's frightening when you're with the wrong person, and it can be frightening when you're with the right person ... what if something goes wrong?"

Greenwood has made at least three feature films, including the highly anticipated sci-fi thriller I, Robot (starring Will Smith), since the night he stirred the mulled wine for the crew of The Republic of Love. But his memory is still clear on what scene they shot that night, as I discovered during a quick phone chat last week.

"It was insanely cold, bananas cold," he says. "We did the scene where [Fox and I] are walking along the park with a little kid after a birthday party and I ask her if I can hold her and suddenly, there we are, me in this little tuxedo and Emilia in an evening gown. I can't tell you how unbelievably cold it was."

Maybe not, but I'll bet that mulled wine went down beautifully.

The Republic of Love opens in Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal on Friday.

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