Intro: He's played everything from a vampire to a Scotsman selling oatmeal. Tonight on Jane Hawtin Live, the versatile actor, author, director; Nigel Bennett.

(scene from FOREVER KNIGHT)

JH: You may know him best for that role, as the vampire Lucien LaCroix in FOREVER KNIGHT, but take away the yellow eyes and the fangs and Nigel Bennett can portray almost anyone.

(Oatmeal commercial)
It's na like any oatmeal I've ever seen before. Mm Good, an it's na like any oatmeal I've tasted before either. It's a bonny cereal but it's na oatmeal!

JH: But it is Nigel Bennett and he is in the studio, welcome. That's quite the contrast.

NB: It's different isn't it! (laughs)

JH: It must be really weird for people who've seen the oatmeal commercials and then they have the chance to see FOREVER KNIGHT

NB: Yes, well more people know me from the oatmeal commercials I'm afraid. It's terrible, you work for 25 years doing all sorts of different things and people come up to you in the street and say " you're the oatmeal guy., you're the oatmeal guy!"

JH: And how do you feel about that?

NB: That's okay. It's okay. It kind of shows what people watch on television more than anything else, which is the commercials, I'm afraid.

JH: Yes, but I'm sure that the commercial is in pretty high rotation so you see it everywhere.

NB: It's been going for five years now.

JH: Oh, is it that long!

NB: And there's five different versions. All sorts of people from his family and his past keep on turning up and helping.

JH: And your mother?

NB: And my mother, yes! What a wonderful woman!

JH: And who played the mother?

NB: Me!

JH: I thought so.

NB: With a little help, you know, but me!

JH: So, did they know this commercial was going to become a series like this? It's so popular with people.

NB: No, I don't think they did. It really took off, and the phrase has become part of the Lexicon now. It's part of the language. If something isn't quite right "that's na oatmeal!"

JH: Now, your career is really quite amazing, especially since you came to Canada. So, let's talk about the contrast. You've been here twelve years?

NB: Yes, about that.

JH: But in England you were primarily a stage actor.

NB: All stage, except for an episode of CORONATION STREET and I think one television play. That was all.

JH: Everything was stage?

NB: Everything was stage.

JH: And most of it was comedic?

NB: Yes, farce, classics all sorts of stuff but all stage and mainly funny. I came over here and I'm doing exactly the same thing I was doing in England all those years. And, suddenly, it's all television and film, and no stage.

JH: And mostly villains?

NB: Mostly villains, yes, bad guys.

JH: How weird is that!

NB: It's strange. I say it's the eyes. I say I have fish eyes, dead fish eyes. People like that in a villain.

JH: What brought you to Canada? Why did you come here?

NB: I was married to a Canadian. We're no longer married, but we have two children and we're good friends now. We work together looking after our kids.

JH: So you followed her out here.

NB: No, actually she was working on the West End, and so was I. And we met and we got married in her parents backyard. A year later we moved out here.

JH: Now, why have things gone so well for you? And I ask that only because we've had a lot of Canadian actors on here who, you know, whine a lot, to be honest, about how difficult it is to get work. Yet it seems every series that's going - you're on it!

NB: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why it happens. A lot of it is luck. I always think that, you know it's 90% perspiration, 10% inspiration, the work that we do. And I know that in this country there are hundreds, if not thousands of actors who are exactly as talented as me and who are just as available as me. And it is just that I was in the right place at the right time. And thank you who ever is up there for putting me there. And once it starts, you build up a reputation. And I think I have a reputation. A lot American stuff I do... a lot of American producers come up here and they me again and again and again and again when they come up.

JH: So, mention for people some of the American shows that you've done.

NB: Oh, Lord! (laughs) Lots and lots of movies of the week. ULTIMATE BETRAYAL I did. Let me think. I just did a show called DIFFERENT with Lynn Redgrave which will be on very shortly.

JH: MURDER AT 1600

NB: Oh, feature films - MURDER AT 1600, NARROW MARGIN, LEGENDS OF THE FALL.
We did - there are a series of movies of the week based on NAKED CITY - the old series.
HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS - which is actually made in Calgary but it is an American piece.

JH: Plus all of the Canadian shows.

NB: Yes, plus all the Canadian shows

JH: PSI FACTOR, FOREVER KNIGHT, NIKITA.

NB: There are very few of the series that I haven't been in. (laughs) And I won't mention the ones that I haven't done. (laughs) Serves them right!

JH:Yes, they don't get mentioned but you'll get on them eventually. (laughs) So -- let's talk about FOREVER KNIGHT and the whole vampire thing which you clearly have become associated with.

NB: Oh, very much! And my career really took off as a result of that. It has been amazing.

JH: But, ironically that goes back to when you had a chance to play Dracula back in England. You did a lot of research for that role.

NB: Yes, I did. I played the part of Plymouth in the largest pre-fabricated theater in Europe. It was thrown up on the Plymouth Hole after the War. And I really researched him at that time to try and find out who he was, rather he existed, what he was. It was an interesting show. My teeth got a credit. My shoes and my teeth. In one review the reviewer said "It was an interesting performance but his shoes squeaked." (laughs)

JH: What kind of interesting things did you find when you did the research?

NB: That he was probably Vlad Tepish. That he probably didn't drink blood in the way that vampires do. He was known as Vlad the Impaler for his habit of impaling enemies on spears and spikes and things like that and leaving them there to die. But that was no more cruel than anyone else at the time. That was no more horrible than a lot of the other things that happened. So he wasn't as bad as people make him out to be.

JH: You seem to have developed a lot of opinions about vampires and about why there is such a fascination with vampires.

NB: I think that just about every country has a vampire mythology. And *that* fascinates me. It's something in our psyche. It has to do not only with drinking blood, but it's to do with absorbing another person's life energy, life force. If you look at cannibalism, that's the ultimate form of it. And in a lot of other cultures people believe that if, for example, they hunted down a wild animal, a tiger or a lion and then they ate part of that animal, they would absorb its characteristics. They would become as strong as a lion or as clever as a tiger. I think that's what fascinates me about the whole vampire thing.

JH: But it's also very sexual.

NB: Yes, oh Yes! (laughs) The original Dracula novels were written at a time of great repressed sexuality. They were "hot stuff' when they were written. I mean, come on! It's a guy biting your neck! And then who knows what else. Or conversely, it's a girl biting a man's neck, which at that time was just outrageous.

JH: It was unheard of to have the woman pursuing the man

NB: Yes, the woman becoming powerful and dominant in the relationship.

JH: Now, you must be fascinated by what's happened with FK and the way it's seemed to have caught on even more in the States than it did in Canada.

NB: It's a minority appeal and I think the minority in the States are, in number, far larger than they are here because the population in far larger. I think people like romance and eroticism and it's a very romantic and erotic thing. And I think that in these days of the latter part of the 20th century we are lacking that in our everyday life.

JH: Eroticism?

NB: Romance!

JH: Oh, romance, excuse me. (laughs)

NB: (laughs) Not necessarily eroticism but romance, certainly. I think life has become very quick, very businesslike, very wham, bam and into bed and romance is lacking. I think people found it to be very romantic.

JH: And it that what you hear from people when you're on the Internet with them and from the kind of letters they send you?

NB: Yes. They've become very fascinated with the character. I've had letters from people who say that what I did on FK has changed their lives fundamentally.

JH: How so?

NB: There was one guy who was on death row in a prison somewhere in the southern states of America. He wrote to me saying ---he mentioned he had killed more than one person...I don't know how or why but he had done that. And, one way of committing suicide the prisoners on death row have is that they simply stop appealing. You can carry on appealing and put death off for years. And eventually they just get tired of that and they say, " Oh, the heck with it. We're just gonna stop this and let's go to the chair" Well he had decided to do that but he watched FK. He saw, in that series, he saw a man fighting against all the odds to try and change himself. To try and find some form of salvation. And that inspired him! Amazing!

JH: Is that a good thing?

NB: I don't know! (laughs)

JH: A good thing? A guy on death row fights to try and stay alive. Hmmm.

NB: Well, I don't personally believe in taking anyone's life.

JH: I don't either.

NB: Who knows! I don't know what he did. He wouldn't say. And there have been other people who have suffered bereavements. A set of twins. One of them committed suicide after a convention. I go to conventions quite often here.

JH: So, explain to me - are these FK conventions, or are they Sci-Fi conventions?

NB: Some of them are, some of them are fantasy, some of them are Star Trek conventions.

JH: But there are conventions just for FK?

NB: Yes, oh yes.

JH: Wow! And how many people show up at these events? Are they just little things?

NB: Oh, it can vary. It depends on where it is and how long it's been running. But it can be anywhere up to 5000 over a weekend.

JH: Wow!

NB: Yes, a lot of people, a lot of autographs to sign and pictures to sell.

JH: So, you were surprised by all of this? How it all of a sudden took off?

NB: Oh yes, absolutely. The first indication we had was at that Toronto Trek which is a huge Star Trek convention. This was years ago. I got an invitation from someone who said "Please come along. We're having a special FK "little do" and you can sign some autographs. I went along and it was like Whoa! Where are all these people from? And why are they here? (laughs)

And the interesting thing for me is they are not the "loony fringe." They are not the weirdos who spend all their lives in their basements. We did demographic surveys of the people who subscribe to the FK pages on the Internet. These people are nurses and doctors and librarians and computer technologists. It's like something in the show just really appeals to them.

JH: And how many of them believe vampires are real?

NB: I've had people come up to me and say "I am a vampire." At which point I say " Whoa! Get me out of here!" (laughs)

JH: How cool!

NB: Isn't it wonderful?! They're very committed to the whole thing. They are still, still !! I am doing 3 or 4 conventions this year and this is..we stopped filming 2 years ago. I think the first year was four years before that. So, it's still going strong. If you just log on to the Internet and punch in FK, thousands of references come up.

JH: Oh, we know, because we got email form the States because it went up on several web sites that Nigel was going to be on the show. So, we already have email that started to come from Americans who were not very happy about the fact that they could not see you on the show. There's a whole bunch of fans who have gathered at Legends to watch the show. So, hi to everybody!

NB: Hello to Legends!

JH: We are going to take a break. We will open up the phone lines. So, this is your chance to talk to Nigel Bennett when we come back.

(Scene from Forever Knight)

JH: Nigel Bennett and Geraint Wyn Davies on FOREVER KNIGHT. Our guest tonight is actor Nigel Bennett and we have an email that came in advance of the show:

Nigel, you are one of Canada's finest actors. What are your favourite memories of FOREVER KNIGHT? Also, do you keep in touch with Geraint Wyn Davies?
- Michelle

NB: Uhm, no. I don't keep in touch with Ger. He moved to the States soon after we finished FOREVER KNIGHT. He now does BLACK HARBOUR which shoots in Nova Scotia, so our paths simply haven't crossed since then. But, we're still friends, we haven't had a falling out. We just haven't bumped into each other. To answer the other half - the favourite memories. In that episode that the excerpts came from there was an interesting moment in the battlefield scene where I bite the neck of that unfortunate Russian gentleman. I'm sitting on a horse who was very highly strung, in the middle of the night, on a cold evening. The horse is fed up...

JH: Where did you shoot this?

NB: I have no idea! Somewhere out of Toronto. The special effects people had set up all these explosives and lights and all sorts of strange things. What was supposed to happen was....There's a horse wrangler who is holding my horse's head while I'm sitting there waiting. And the Assistant Director was supposed to say "Action". He gets out of the way. I trot the horse down as explosives go off, one after another going down the hill. I dismount, leave the horse and go to the guy.
The A.D. calls "rolling" which is called before "action" and at that point every one of the explosions went off all at the same time. The horse reared and took off and I go down the hill with the horse. So, I manage to stop the thing and the cameras are rolling at this point so we simply carry on.
And the horse wrangler had told me that to make the horse stop, what I do is get off and just pull back on the bridle and he would stay there. Well, I had made friends with the horse beforehand, you see, to get to know him. So, I pulled back and I walked away and suddenly there is a horse back here, behind my ear. He decided he didn't want to leave his friend out here in the middle of the cold night with all these explosions going on.

JH: So, did you have to reshoot the whole thing?

NB: No, no, they went with it. They said it was okay.

JH: Let's talk with Diane who is calling from London, Ontario. Hi, Diane.

Diane: Hi, Jane. Hi, Nigel.

NB: How are you?

Diane: Not bad! This is an honour, to talk to you.

NB: Well, thank you!

Diane: I just want to take a survey of your work. I enjoyed you in PASSAGE OF THE HEART. I liked the work you did in REILLY: ACE OF SPIES. The second episode where you played some kind of officer at Port Arthur.

NB: Yes, a shipping clerk or something.

Diane: We're going through and I saw your name and I thought "Oh, my god, that's LaCroix"!

NB: Yes, we shot that in England a long time ago with Sam Neill.

Diane: It's a beautiful role, I loved it!

NB: Thank you!

Diane: What I wanted to ask you: it seems to me that Ger never really felt comfortable as Nick. It seems like you were right there, you and Deb were right there. It always seemed to me that Ger was a little bit uncomfortable with it, with the work he was doing.

JH: Diane, do you mean his character seemed uncomfortable with being a vampire or do you mean as an actor?

Diane: As an actor. It always seemed to me that Ger never really quite "got" what he was doing. It always seemed to me that you were right there, Nigel. And Deb was right there. The first season was wonderful, But it seemed to me that Ger just went off into his own little reverie there.

JH: Let's get a comment on that.

NB: We can only work with what we are given. Basically, we have to work within the confines of the script. And Ger's character was very conflicted about where he was and what he was doing. And I think maybe that's what you were seeing in his performances.
I think it really says something about Deborah and myself that we get so really deeply into these awful people that we were playing. (laughs) Maybe we were living out our fantasies on camera. I don't know. I think Ger really enjoyed it. We certainly had a wonderful time and we were all very sad when the series ended.

JH: It must be delicious though, to play the villain. The villains have more fun than the good guys.

NB: Oh, it's great fun. I always say at the conventions, comedy is a very difficult thing to play. Or, playing it straight so that people like you. What I say is; if you tell a joke maybe half of the people in the audience will get it and laugh. But, if you kick a baby nobody likes you.

JH: Right!

NB: You see, it's easier to be bad than it is to be good.

JH: To be effective as an actor.

NB: Oh yes, it's much easier.

JH: Let's talk to Andrew from Victoria, BC. Hi, Andrew.

Andrew: Hi. I have a question for you, two questions actually. The first question is:
Your character and Ger's character - how old were they, supposedly?

NB: He was brought across in 1228. I think I said that at the start of every show. However, that is Ger. I was brought across at the eruption of Pompeii. So, I was a lot older than that. I think that was 50 A.D. or something like that.

Andrew: And the other question I had was: Why did Ger's character have such a problem bringing people across? All he could seem to do was suck them dry.

NB: Well, he had...(laughs) he had no self control, that's what he had...

JH: You have to explain the vampire thing for people who don't get it. Explain how you can suck their blood without turning them into a vampire.

NB: Yes, you can but unfortunately,,,hhmmmm....What has to happen, if I can remember correctly - this is two years ago we stopped doing this - is that to make someone a vampire you have to stop before you suck all the blood out of them. Otherwise, they're just dead. If you want to just kill someone, you suck all the blood out of them and that's it, they're gone.
And Ger could never quite get it right. His character could never quite get the balance right. So, he was always killing people instead of bringing them across. Which is a real shame!

JH: Well, in the book that you've written...Did you really write this?

NB: Yes, I did.

JH: It's not a ghost? Not a ghostwriter or any such thing?

NB: No, no it's not. It's myself and Pat Elrod. She's had about fifteen vampire novels published before now.

JH: This is the first in the trilogy, Keeper of the King, which is out in paperback and is also on audiocassette.

NB: That's right.

JH: So is this a different kind of vampire that you're writing about?

NB: Yes, it is..

JH: Because they can suck blood and they don't become vampires and they don't die either.

NB: No, we decided as well that our vampires are actually good, rather than evil. The hero of our book was chosen to be a vampire because of his goodness. He was chosen to be a vampire as a defender of the Old Way.

JH: Of the Goddess' Way.

NB: Yes, there was a time when the major deities that were worshiped were female, not male. They were earth figures, they were mother figures. It's Mother Earth., we still call it Mother Earth. They were fertile and fecund and full of stuff waiting to be born. They were very creative.
And our character is recruited into the ranks of vampirism to try and protect that. King Arthur is on the throne in Britain and King Arthur has sworn to protect the Old Way. So our character becomes Lancelot, who is his protector. And then he just moves on after Arthur is finished.

JH: But in the audiotape, it is also you, playing all the roles.

NB: Yes, it is.

JH: It must have been a trip!

NB: It's amazing, it's amazing. The book itself is about 400 pages long. We had it condensed to just over 100. And I read it all in one day, in one session. And it was amazing. People were walking past the door of the control room which was open, and stopping and saying "What's going on in there? Whoa! What! Oh, this is good!" So, it was great.

JH: What was the phrase for when you become a vampire? You're "taken" over?

NB: You're "brought" over.

JH: You're brought over. Okay, we have a clip of where your character, the Richard Dun character, is brought over. This is from Keeper of the King.

"Now, my Richard............................................................wolf-like."

JH: And then you are taken.

NB: And then I'm over. (laughs) And who can blame me!

JH: What a riot! Because, when you are doing those voices you're the female and the male. It's not like there's a group of actors who've come together.

NB: No, no, you do the lot. You do them all. There's a West Indian guy there who is a "Rasta mon" and Irish people and all sorts.

JH: It's magical to listen to. Especially when you stop every once in a while and remember, "Oh, yes, this is just one person doing all these voices!" It must have been such fun to do.

NB: It was! It was wonderful.

JH: Let's talk to Scott who is calling from Toronto. Hi Scott!

Scott: Hi, Jane. How are you?

JH: Good, thanks. You have a question?

Scott: Yes, I do. But a comment first. Nigel, it's an honour to speak with you.

NB: Thank you.

Scott: I have to be honest with you. My reason for watching Forever Knight was to see Deborah Duchene.

NB: I don't blame you! (laughs)

Scott: My question is: How do you feel about the cult following FOREVER KNIGHT has taken on over the years? I mean, I got into the show later on, I'd say the second season. And I've been surprised by how many people are watching the show.

NB: It's amazing. And it's still there. I'm very proud of them - of the people, actually, who became involved. Because what a lot of people don't realize is that when we do conventions, we raise a lot of money every time for charity. There is always an auction at the convention and it goes to all sorts of wonderful charities around the country and around the States. And these people give of their time and they give of their money and they give of their holidays to come along and see us and to contribute their efforts to that sort of thing. And I think that that's absolutely wonderful and long may it go on!

JH: So why did it only last for three seasons then?

NB: Oh, that was purely a financial decision made down in L.A. One of the networks decided...USA Network decided to pull the money from it and that was it. Gone! (shakes head) Strange!

JH: Was it too soon? Did it have enough time? Because the impact, the way it has built has been incredible.

NB: Well, they were showing it in a completely unique way. It was on twice a week. It was on first run on USA Network at the weekend. Then it was on syndication on Wednesday. What they had effectively done is split the audience. So the viewing figures were suddenly very much lower because it was being watched twice. The same thing was being watched twice. If they had just shown it one night a week, we would have had good, healthy viewing figures.

JH: That's too bad. When we come back, we'll take more of your calls and your email, for Nigel Bennett.

(Commercial break)

(Scene from MURDER AT 1600)

JH: That's Wesley Snipes, Diane Lane and Nigel Bennett in MURDER AT 1600. You're with Jane Hawtin Live and tonight we're talking with actor Nigel Bennett. What was the character you played in that one?

NB: He was called Burton Cash. He was a Secret Service agent. I always thought he should have been a men's tailor with that name. "Burton Cash, men's clothier" , or just Old Flat Top.

JH: What was the character - was he the bad guy??

NB: Everyone thought he was but actually he wasn't. He was the President's son's Secret Service agent. And, because they assumed the President's son had committed the murder, then he must be heavily involved.

JH: Was this an exciting project to work on?

NB: Yes, it was. Wesley Snipes is an amazing guy. He very much kept himself to himself but he's locked into the work there. When he went on set it's Bang, he's in there!

JH: So, what's the feel when you do a movie, a feature film like that, compared to doing a TV show?

NB: You have much more time. That's the great thing about it. You can do more. You can go into more detail. You can get more depth, more width. When I did NARROW MARGIN, Peter Hines directed that...

JH: With Gene Hackman?

NB: With Gene Hackman, yeah. We were doing an exterior scene near the train one night. And we're standing around and standing around. And it was in Vancouver in the middle of summer. In Vancouver the actual black part of night is about 4 or 5 hours. That's all, it's so short.
And we were waiting so I said to Peter "What are we waiting for?". And he said "I'm waiting to get the smoke right." He was smoking up, with smoke guns, the trees outside. So the smoke was disappearing all the time. He was willing to spend the amount of time it took to get exactly the right atmosphere and then film it.
We shot one page that night. In the TV series FOREVER KNIGHT we had 55 page scripts and we shot them in 6 days. So, we're doing at least 9 pages a day. So, that's the difference between TV and feature films.

JH: So, as an actor you just don't have to time to explore, to say "Can we do that again"?

NB: No, you have to make shortcuts. You have to rely on your own judgment, on your own skills much more as an actor when you are doing television because there's more pressure on your time.

JH: In the movies there is so much hurry up and wait.

NB: Well, they are all hurry up and wait. You rush through make up and you rush through hair and then you sit in your room for 45 minutes or an hour or 2 or 6.

JH: Right. Let's talk to Sue who's calling from Oakville, ON. Hi, Sue.

Sue: Hi. I have one question for Nigel. Remember a long time ago, you were substitute teaching on your time off?

NB: Oh, no! Were you in the class??

Sue: Yes!

NB: (laughs) Oh, No!

Sue: I was wondering, are you still doing substitute teaching?

NB: No! No!

Sue: You were my favourite teacher of all time.

NB: Oh, Thank you!

JH: Did you know, at the time, that he was an actor?

Sue: Oh, yes. We knew. He mentioned NARROW MARGIN when we were in school so we rented it.

NB: That's T.A. Blakeoff in Oakville. I was just at a loose end and had nothing coming up. I was asked to go along and be a substitute teacher for just one semester. So, I went along there and it was great fun. We did lots of neat stuff. And then, straight after that we started filming FOREVER KNIGHT. They wanted me to come back for another semester and I couldn't do it.

JH: It must have been so cool for the students.

Sue: We had a great semester.

NB: That's great! Thanks!

JH: So, you are a trained teacher? A history teacher?

NB: Yes, I am. History and theater. I went to the University of Wales and spent four years doing that. And when I came out of university my Mum was very insistent that I have something to fall back on. She didn't trust this acting "lark". So, she insisted the I teach for a year afterward. That's a probationary year in England, and then you can teach at any time you like after that.

JH: So that explains how you know all the background on the stuff that you do.

NB Yes. I'm still fascinated by history. History is just a wonderful thing to look at. It's just really exciting.

JH: Let's talk to Richard who's calling from New Brunswick. Hi, Richard.

Richard: Hi Nigel. How are you?

NB: I'm well, thanks.

Richard: I was just wondering, have you been in any recent big budget films in theaters? I've seen you on JOHN WOO'S ONCE A THIEF. You were quite funny.

NB: Thanks! (laughs)

Richard: I was wondering if you've been in any other shows like that.

NB: Like JOHN WOO'S ONCE A THIEF?

Richard: Yes, I know I've seen you in many things but I just can't think of them.

NB: I was in NIKITA. I did a couple of episodes of that.

Richard: That's a good show, too.

NB: Yes, thanks. It is a good show. And my films, the last big one to be released was MURDER AT 1600. And later this year there's a movie called THE HAIRY BIRD (STRIKE) which has Kirsten Dunst and Lynn Redgrave and Gaby Hoffman in it. And then there's another one called ONE TOUGH COP which has one of the Baldwin brothers - I can't remember which one, I think Stephen Baldwin, in it. They both filmed here in Toronto. They should both be out this year.

JH: So, what's it like? You've got three countries to compare acting in. Britain, Canada and the United States. Does it make you want to go "Here's where I want to be"?

NB: Where I want to be at the moment is here because the work is very good and also because it's near my kids. I don't want to leave them. I want to be a part of their life. In terms of acting, I think you are treated much better here in Canada than you are in England.

JH: Is that right?

NB: Yes. I remember being astonished the first time I actually did any filming here. I was sitting in my little room in the honey wagon. Someone came and knocked on my door and said "Excuse me, sir, we're ready for you now." And I thought SIR!! Whoa, where am I? This is great! And I've always been treated with absolute courtesy on any film set I've been on here. In England it's not always that way, I'm afraid.

JH: Oh, what's it like in England?

NB: Much rougher. It's "Come on, you lot! Get over here!" (laughs)

JH: And working in the States?

NB: I've never worked in the States. All these things are made up here.

JH: Even MURDER AT 1600?

NB: Yes, shot here.

JH: Really!

NB: Yes, they built a whole replica of the White House in a studio down by the lake shore.

JH: Wild! Let's talk to Anne who's calling from Ontario. Hi, Anne!

Anne: It's a pleasure and an honour to talk with you, Nigel.

NB: Thank you, Anne.

Anne: My husband and daughter and I have watched you since FOREVER KNIGHT and after that we started noticing you in the commercials. And, my husband does say "it's oatmeal" a lot.

JH: (laughs) But, that's not the way you say it.

NB: (laughs) No, no "it's not oatmeal"

Anne: Now we've had the pleasure of watching your performances in PSI FACTOR. I'm just wondering what your character on that is supposed to be. We've had some discussions as to exactly what kind of a fellow this man is and whether or not he's going to be on the show more.

NB: Oh, I wish! (laughs) He is an enigma. He is very much...no one quite knows, with Frank Elsinger, whether he is working with the team or against the team. He's very much ...he has his own agenda which he follows very closely. There are all sorts of shadowy areas about his character. And, I'm told, at some point this season - we're filming the third season now - that there will be an Elsinger episode where we learn a lot more about him. But, that has not happened yet.

JH: That means you know you're coming back, right?

NB: Yeah, but I don't know for how much.

JH: Let's talk to Darlene from St. Catherine's. Hi, Darlene.

Darlene: Hi. I'm calling to ask - I just saw the FOREVER KNIGHT series on American TV late at night - but I just saw the end of it. Now Showcase is running it from the beginning. I'm trying to figure it out. In the pilot, Nick Knight kills you off. He completely did you in. In the later ones you are back & alive in the present day. How did they bring you back?

NB: Just eating the right foods! (laughs) The explanation that we have is - if you look carefully at the episode where I'm speared through the heart with a wooden stake and burned? That's what he does to me. You see me speared in the body - not necessarily through the heart. And then a sheet of flames goes up and I've disappeared. Our explanation was that yes, he'd injured me badly. Yes, he had! But when the flames went up I got out of there real quick. Because vampires can fly in FOREVER KNIGHT. We just whoosh! and we're gone. That was our explanation. And the only reference...

JH: So, what? He missed your heart??

NB Yes, he missed the heart.

JH: Because we know that's the way you kill a vampire - straight through the heart!

NB: Yes, straight through the heart.

JH: That's the way it works.

NB: Yes, and the only reference we made to it in the second season was when I came back he said "You're alive!" And I said (deep voice) "Yes, I am far too old and powerful for that!" is what I said. So, there we are.

JH: That's the way it works. I like the part where vampires can rejuvenate. They have very good healing powers.

NB: Yes.

JH: When we come back we'll take more of your calls for Nigel Bennett.

(Scene from PSI FACTOR)

(Commercial break)

(Scene from LA FEMME NIKITA)

JH: That's Nigel Bennett and Peta Wilson in LA FEMME NIKITA.

NB: Isn't she gorgeous!

JH: She's wonderful. We had her on the show not too long ago. We had a blast!

NB: Oh, she's just such a lovely lady!

JH: So, how many accents do you do?

NB: (grinning) Oh, whatever they ask for.

JH: Just whatever one you want

NB: That was ze Russian accent...

JH: (laughs) Let's talk with Patrick from Toronto. Hi, Patrick.

Patrick: Hi Nigel. I haven't seen you on any appearances on TV or in the movies, but I am in your son's class.

NB: Great!

Patrick: He told me about a movie you'll be directing called AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK.

NB: Yes, that's right.

Patrick: So, I'd just like to know who will be in this and when it's going to be released.

NB: Well, we haven't finalized people yet. We have a letter of intent from Anthony Stewart Head who's in BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. We have interest from Juliana Margulies.

JH: From ER?

NB: From ER, yes. We have Frank Gorshin. We have Gary Sandy. We have Michael Burgess. We have lots of people who are very, very interested in doing it. We hope to start shooting in October. The financing is just about in place. So, it's really an exciting project for me.

JH: And you're going to be directing?

NB: Yes.

JH: You directed some episodes of FOREVER KNIGHT.

NB: Yes, I did.

JH: And what about PSI FACTOR?

NB: No, not yet. We're working on that at the moment.

JH: So, why do you want to direct?

NB: Oh, It's like being a kid in a candy store!! It's just wonderful.

JH: You get to be in control.

NB: Absolutely! And you can say "Can we try this? Yes? Ooo!!" (laughs) You can let your imagination just go. It's fabulous!

JH: Tell me what the movie is about.

NB: It's about an Englishman in New York. He is a poet and a professor of English Literature at Oxford University. He believes he's always found his "muse" and his inspiration n the arms of a woman. One night he is in the arms of a woman and suddenly his muse and his inspiration deserts him. He thinks "Oh, in that case I have to get in the arms of more women" which is quite wrong. And he gets caught in bed with the dean's wife. So he's given a choice of either being fired straight away or being sent on a teaching sabbatical to NYU. He chooses the latter.

JH: Is it a comedy?

NB: It's a romantic comedy, yes. But really what it's about is a man's journey to find himself. As a whole person. What happens to our hero in ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK, to Tony Falco, is that he does down. He goes down as far as you can go. He's sleeping in a park, on a park bench. He ends up posing for S&M photographs, trying to make some money. His clothes and his money are stolen. He's beaten up. He goes right down to the bottom. And then one day in this bar where he is getting drunk just as usual. A girl comes in delivering pizza and the first thing that happens when he sees her is he says a line of poetry.

JH: His muse has returned.

NB: (smiling) Absolutely.

JH: You are a romantic, aren't you!

NB: Oh, yeah! Absolutely! Yes, I am.

JH: And you've always been that way?

NB: I've never admitted it, but yes. Yes, I am. (laughs) It's just not the sort of thing a man admits. Well, in the 90's maybe it is.

JH: So, what does that mean if you're romantic? How do you behave if you are a romantic man?

NB: It's difficult because as someone once said "All cynics are disillusioned romantics".
Hmmm - how do you behave if you're a romantic man?? Well, you buy lots of flowers.

JH: You buy lots of flowers and put together candlelight dinners and all that kind of stuff? That's what you do?

NB: Yes. I think it's being more aware. We men at this end of the century are in a really difficult position. A lot of men are. We're told we have to get in touch with our feminine side. We are being told we have to be more sensitive and more caring and more attached and open to our emotions. And I think a lot of men are trying to do that.
But what a lot of men are doing is throwing out the male side to get that female side and that's as bad as the other way around. I think what men have to learn to do is to celebrate everything that they are. All the man's sides: the anger and the passion and the aggression and all the parts of the warrior spirit that were appreciated in times past. And at the same time accept the female side, the feminine side of themselves. To accept their emotions and their feelings and not be afraid to say "This is what I feel" rather than "This is what I think". Talk with a guy. Most guys say, if you ask them about something "Well, I think that it's this". Why not say "I feel that it's this"?

JH: So how does this fit together with the charities you support? I noticed one of the charities you do support is the White Ribbon Campaign which is ending violence against women.

NB: Well, it's more than that. It's men against men committing violence to women. So, it's very much a man's organization. I became involved several years ago when it first started. I'm now vice president of a charity in the U.S. which is the Motion Picture Industry Charitable Alliance. Every year we have auctions. We have one coming up in Toronto in October.
What we auction are scripts and memorabilia from films, from series, from television plays. Anything we can get our hands on that is personalized. And what we try to do as well is to get the people who personalize them to come and auction them.
Our first one was a year ago January in San Ramon in California. Over a weekend we raised, from auctioning stuff that would have been thrown away at the end of FOREVER KNIGHT, we raised $48,000 US. And we gave that to Casey House and the Canadian Diabetes Association.

JH: Cool!

NB: So, we chose two new charities this time.

JH: OH, I see. It goes to different charities each time. But the White Ribbon Campaign is something you are also involved in on an ongoing basis separately from this.

NB: Yes, I simply donate. (laughs)

JH Let's talk to Nat who's calling from London, Ont. Hi, Nat. Do you have a question for Nigel?

Nat: Hi, Nigel. I've seen you out and about and I like you, especially the part you acted in MURDER AT 1600.

NB: Thank you.

Nat: The question I'd like to ask is about oatmeal advertisement. Are you really Scottish?

NB: You are, aren't you! Well, I can tell that you are. I'm half Scottish. My father was Scottish, so I've got that.

Nat: Well, there ya go!

NB: But I'm not complete, full-blooded Scot.

JH: But, Nat, has he got the phrase down?

Nat: Oh, ya! He's got it. I thought that he was really Scottish.

JH: Thanks for calling. Now, let's talk to Carole who's calling from Toronto.

Carole: Hi. Mr. Bennett, I've enjoyed you a lot on FOREVER KNIGHT and a few other things.

NB: Thank you.

Carole: I'm wondering, did I see you in an episode of the HIGHLANDER?

NB: No, you didn't. Sorry!

Carole: Would you ever like to do it?

NB: Oh, I would have loved to do it. We had a tentative arrangement for me to direct an episode as well. What was going to happen was, I was going to act in an episode and do the prep. You have to do a week of preparation before you start shooting. I was going to act and do the week of preparation while I was performing and then direct the next episode. Unfortunately, the dates clashed. I was working, probably on PSI FACTOR, maybe on MURDER AT 1600. The dates didn't fit in so I never got out there. Which is a shame. I would have loved to done it.

JH: What's your attitude about acting? Are you one of those actors who - well, you are obviously working a lot - but are you one to take every job because you don't know when the next one is coming?

NB: (laughs) Well, there is some of that in there.

JH: Are you afraid to say no? Is it hard to say no?

NB: Uhhm... Yes, it is. The problem is that once you say no, people tend to think twice about asking you again.

JH: Do they really?

NB: Well, at least that's what I've convinced myself of. Maybe I'm wrong. I find it hard to say No and I think that comes from years - 15 years of doing theater work in England.

JH: Which didn't pay the kind of money you get here for television.

NB: But, I think in that 15 years I was probably out of work for 6 months. I just went from job to job to job. I enjoy doing it, as well. It's very flattering to be asked to do these things again and again. I think it is a real claim to fame, a great feather in one's cap if one can say that most of the time one is working.

JH: Let's talk to Matthew in Sudbury. Hi, Matthew.

Matthew: Hi. I'd just like to say that I think you are an excellent actor. I'm really glad to hear you are contributing to the charities out there. I tip my hat to you.

NB: Thanks.

Matthew: Okay, Sir.

JH: Okay. Thanks for calling, Matthew.

NB: Thanks so much.

JH: So, we should talk about your passion for golf. You got your first hole in one this year.

NB: Yes, I did.. Blue Spruce Ridge, first hole, 120 yards, par 3. The pin was down in the dip. You couldn't see the bottom of the pin. I played my pitching wedge off the tee and landed on the green. The ball ran towards the pin. I was playing with two other people.

JH: So you did have witnesses.

NB: Yes, I did. And we walked up to the green and there was one ball on the green and there should have been two. So I start looking in the fringe because I thought the ball had run off. And there it was in the hole! We yelled "Wow! Excellent!".

JH: Uh-oh, that means you're a good golfer. And you and I will be golfing together in a charity golf tournament August 11th.

NB: August 10th - for the Children's Wish Foundation.

JH: But it is best ball so they can team me up with somebody good.

NB: It will be 5 players to a team.

JH So it won't matter how bad I am.

NB: It should be great fun.