David Alpay's journey from unknown Toronto biology student to rising star of Ararat came almost by accident. He was searching for actor Bruce Greenwood, and ended up finding filmmaker Atom Egoyan.

"I'm a big fan of Bruce Greenwood's from (the TV drama) Nowhere Man and everything like that," said Alpay, 22, settling into a club chair in a quiet corner of the Top O' The Senator lounge.

"I saw that his name was attached to a movie called Ararat, and that triggered something. So I looked into it and about a month later, I saw they were doing a casting call for extras. I thought it would be kind of neat to be an extra in a Bruce Greenwood movie."

This was at some point in 2000; Alpay's not sure exactly when. At the time, he had virtually no knowledge of Egoyan, the Toronto writer-director who was making Ararat, and who is one of Canada's most celebrated cultural figures.

"I had like a vague concept of who he was, but nothing really concrete," Alpay sheepishly admitted, running nervous fingers through his dark shaggy hair.

He has a good excuse. He's been sequestered within the walls of academia, spending more time in laboratories than on movie sets. Alpay is currently in his fourth year of a University of Toronto undergraduate program, majoring in human biology and zoology, with a minor in French. He's in the midst of applying to graduate schools in both Canada and the U.S., where he hopes to pursue his interest in neuroscience — the study of behaviour and learning — and artificial intelligence.

He considers himself no actor, despite the strong critical notices he's received for the pivotal role of Raffi, the young Armenian Canadian who acts as a catalyst for much of the drama in Ararat, Egoyan's multi-layered remembrance of the 1915 slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkish troops.

"I've got nothing on my CV," Alpay said. "I have no idea why they chose me for Ararat."

It's no joke. Alpay's previous acting experience prior to auditioning for Egoyan's film consisted of a small role in a production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, staged by the Hart House Drama Society.

"I played The Tramp," Alpay said. "It's like a 30-second bit. Acting for me was just a diversion, something that I could do between November and February when school was getting a little repetitive. It was a good way to spend time with a group of people whom I wouldn't have met otherwise."

Talking to Alpay is like a replay of the airport interrogation subplot of Ararat, where Raffi is grilled by a suspicious customs agent played by Christopher Plummer. Alpay is so modest about his acting, it's difficult to get him to open up about his experiences. Dressed in regulation student slacker garb, he looks as if someone just abducted him at gunpoint from the U of T campus, even though he arrives at the interview in a white limo.

He's exceedingly vague about that day sometime in 2000 and "somewhere in Scarborough" where he first auditioned for Ararat. He didn't think he'd made much of an impression, until he got The Call.

"About a week later, they asked me to come back in to film something. They got me to read some lines. Within days, I got a call from the casting director to see if I wanted to talk to Atom. He invited me over to his house that night and we just talked for hours, over coffee and Armenian pizza. It was the first time I'd met him."

Egoyan saw in Alpay the combination of innocence and truth-seeker he had envisioned for the character of Raffi. Alpay's lack of experience would also mean a lack of guile, both bonuses as far as Egoyan was concerned.

"This whole project was full of many gifts," Egoyan said. "Most extraordinary of which was discovering David. From the moment the casting director singled him out from the extras session, I knew I had found Raffi. For many of the characters I wrote I had actors in mind ... but at the heart of it all was this actor whom I had to find. There was this moment of complete despair as I saw the production date creeping up and realized I still hadn't found Raffi."

Once the choice was made, Alpay quickly proved himself to be a diamond in the rough.

Said Egoyan: "David is completely miraculous. Especially when you realize that all of his major scenes are with such seasoned actors. Especially the long scene with Christopher Plummer — David could hold his own, thanks in no small part to Christopher's amazing generosity."

Alpay is every bit as complimentary about Egoyan. "He reads so much," Alpay said of Egoyan. "And he sees and he hears so much. He's like a sponge; he sucks it all up. Mention a book and he's read it. Mention a song and he's heard it. Mention a musician and he's either met him or is about to."

It helped the cause that Alpay is of Armenian descent, like Egoyan and his actress wife Arsinée Khanjian, who plays Raffi's mother. Ararat is the most personal of all Egoyan's films, addressing the issue of an Armenian genocide that much of the world has either forgotten or refuses to acknowledge.

"What's remarkable is that David's parents came from Turkey,'' Egoyan continued. "Alpay is a very common Turkish name. His family has land deeds to the property that they lost to the Turks. In a way, he embodies much of the journey of the Armenian diaspora. His personal background has a profound effect on the alchemy of the film."

Alpay, who was born two years after his parents immigrated to Canada in 1978, seems reluctant to talk about his family history. He doesn't want to pretend that telling the story of the Armenian genocide means as much to him and his family as it does to Egoyan, but the tragedy of their shared history made a deep impact nonetheless.

"It wasn't the kind of thing where my parents would be talking about it all the time," he said. "They kind of kept quiet about it. My mom's dad — my grandfather — was orphaned by the genocide, and my dad's side of the family has a similar past. That sort of affected the family in weird ways. It doesn't really bring them any joy to talk about it. Not that the need isn't there; quite the contrary.

"But the task is so demanding and huge and important. Do I really think that I'm the right person to work on it? Ultimately, it's Atom telling the story. I'm just one of the people who help out with that task."

Alpay doesn't see himself going much further with acting. His science career beckons, and that could mean eight more years of school.

He also has a passion for running and cycling, having participated in last summer's Peterborough duathalon and last year's Canadian International Marathon (his 2:02 time for the half marathon is respectable).

"It was really fun being in Ararat, but it was a diversion for me. I don't mean to sound dismissive, but this isn't what I plan to do with my life."

He may be more open to future acting work than he realizes, as a final comment about his Ararat experience revealed. "The irony of it, of course, is that I never had any lines with Bruce Greenwood. Maybe next time."