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By LIZ BRAUN
Toronto Sun
Bruce Greenwood is busy. Bruce Greenwood is so busy that when he says he intends to take time off, people just laugh.
In addition to his frantic work schedule in film and television, Greenwood is a serious musician, producer, skier, golfer, sailor, general sportsman, skydiver and, for all we know, ballroom dancer or amateur nuclear physicist, maybe.
The man never stops.
The Canadian actor who made a name for himself playing villains is about to be seen on the big screen in an uplifting family comedy called Racing Stripes, a film about a zebra who longs to be a race horse.
It opens Friday. A sort of National Velvet meets Saturday Night Live hybrid, Racing Stripes stars Greenwood as a horse farmer, and Hayden Panettiere (Raising Helen) as his adolescent daughter.
That's the straightforward part.
Now about that zebra -- it can talk. And it does so in the voice of Frankie Muniz. The cast of Racing Stripes includes Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg, Joe Pantoliano, Jeff Foxworthy, Snoop Dogg, Joshua Jacson and Mandy Moore -- all of whom are the voices of various barnyard animals.
Steve Harvey and David Spade are the voices of two crude, hilarious horseflies.
Children and animals and Racing Stripes -- it's all a film first for the guy who sneered and twirled his moustache through Double Jeopardy, Rules Of Engagement and I, Robot.
But Greenwood is enjoying the whole Racing Stripes departure and really likes the final product.
"I'm usually so freaked out that's it's going to be crap that I normally can't enjoy what I do," says the charming and deeply un-villainous actor, "but within five minutes I was laughing my head off and pounding the seat in front of me."
Pounding the seat?
"I've been asked to leave movies occasionally," he says, cheerfully. "I'm such a good audience."
Greenwood, 48, was born in Quebec, grew up mostly in Vancouver and describes himself as Canadian, "through and through."
His path to acting began in university. "I needed three easy credits," he says, displaying the self-deprecating humour used internationally to identify Canadians. "I was taking a very heavy course load and I realized instantly that success in acting is completely subjective, so you can't fail, by definition. My other courses were economics, philosophy, physics --more than I could bear. So, acting: Yeah! I thought I could grab a B-plus without even waking up. But it was a lot of fun, and it played to strengths I didn't even know I had."
Greenwood didn't decide to become an actor all at once, mind you. His original plan was to be a professional skier. "But that didn't work out, because I broke too many things too often."
He first started acting in earnest at the age of 19.
"But after a couple of years in the theatre I decided, 'This is horrible. This is hideous. I'm destitute and working six nights a week. I'll have to have a straight job to supplement this ridiculous acting thing.' So I quit and startedworking up north on drill rigs. Good money."
Good money comes to Greenwood these days on the big and small screens -- he's been in 25 movies in the past five years, including Being Julia, Hollywood Homicide, The Core, Here On Earth, Ararat and 13 Days, in which he played JFK. From his start in Bear Island in 1979, Greenwood has appeared in some 70 films; if you've only ever seen him in big Hollywood outings, rent Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter and Exotica. Right now. Really. Go.
On his own time, Greenwood has always been a musician. The singer, guitarist and record producer is asked when his own CD might be coming out. "Never! I do it for fun. I sing at charities," he says, deadpan, adding, "I get turned down enough as an actor. I don't need to be ridiculed as a musician, as well."
Greenwood, who has been married to his teenage sweetheart, Susan Devlin, for 20 years, says he doesn't lead a "visible" lifestyle. "I lead my normal little life, away from the lights." But he concedes that fans confuse actors with their roles.
"And I've played killers," he says, laughing. "The number of people who saw Double Jeopardy compared to the number who saw me play President Kennedy -- I'm more likely to be confused with the guy who's going to take your money and your wife."
For the near future, Greenwood is hoping to take a bit of down time. He says, "I'm really trying to wean myself off that absurd mindset -- that I won't work again, or that you lose your momentum if you take time off. I intend to take some time off, dammit! I will work on my house, play guitar, read, and finally learn to speak Spanish."
Uh, huh. The new, relaxed, truly taking-time-off Bruce Greenwood will star in a mere four movies this year, including the much-anticipated Capote with Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
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