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	Television Interviews Canada A.M. September 1, 2004

A few days before the broadcast of the made-for-Canadian-TV movie, Bruce Greenwood gave an interview from Vancouver to a Toronto based CTV correspondent. The interview sparked a flurry of controversy when Bruce chose to include criticism pointed directly at CTV for scheduling the movie late at night on a holiday weekend and not allowing them time to properly promote the product. Following the interview were several follow up articles, mostly in support of Bruce's comments. The transcript and a video of his interview follows:

CTV movie a gritty expose of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Canada AM - CTV Television, Sep 1, 2004

HOST: Ravi Baichwal

GUEST: Bruce Greenwood, Actor, "The Life"

BAICHWAL: [Video excerpt] A scene from "The Life", a new CTV Signature movie coming this Sunday on CTV, talking about sex, drugs and harsh life on the streets. That's part of one of these great new movies from CTV. It is all set in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, focusing on two beat cops who take an experimental and very heartfelt approach to helping drug addicts. We certainly could do with more of that. Bruce Greenwood stars in "The Life" and he joins us this morning from Vancouver.

Bruce, thank you so much for getting up with this here on Canada AM. A gritty, Downtown Eastside movie, a story Canadians really do need to hear about. Tell me about your research process. How close to the story did you get?

GREENWOOD: Well, I didn't get terribly close to the original story because it's based on a documentary that was shot by Al Arsenault and Toby Hinton and a group of cops here in Vancouver called "Through a Blue Lens". And they followed several ddicts over the course of a couple of years, and some of those addicts had perished by the time we spent any time downtown. But we saw untold numbers of similar tragic stories down there during the time we did the research, which basically involved spending the night with these guys, walking the streets in downtown Vancouver.

BAICHWAL: Well, I had a wonderful opportunity to live there for several years. I know exactly of what you speak. Let's take a look now at a clip here from "The Life".

[Video excerpt]

BAICHWAL: Powerful stuff, Bruce Greenwood. Tell me about the cops that you play here. They're very compassionate. Were you able to find some in real life, essentially, that you were trying to base your character on?

GREENWOOD: Yeah, we met the guys that did the film originally, did the documentary. And all of these guys, the one thing they have in common is they have this tremendous sense of responsibility to the people they grow to know down there. So, when they pull on their flak jackets before walking downtown it's not as though they're expecting anything, but hoping for the opportunity to help these people out. It was a real eye-opener for me.

BAICHWAL: Well, tell me a little bit more about that. Because, you know, a lot of people would say that part of the problem with the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver is that a lot of people, you know, they just literally shun their eyes from this problem. Canadians need to know a little bit more about it. But why should people carve time out of their busy schedules to watch this movie in terms of the social issues at play?

GREENWOOD: Well, I think addiction, particularly down there where it surrounds everybody and they're all destitute for the most part, it's a lot like being caught in a riptide. Just the minute you begin to think that you can keep yourself afloat something else, a new surge, comes in and sucks you back in. So, for example, if somebody gets clean it's virtually impossible for them to stay clean if they don't have the support system of helpng them find a place to live, helping them find a job, helping them cope with their addiction, the ongoing problem they have with sliding back towards addiction. And the support system really isn't in place once people have sort of broken out of that cycle through their own personal strength to keep them from being sucked back into it. So, it's sort of a self-perpetuating whirlpool of misery down there. Without the support of the government, without people realizing that it's virtually impossible to pull yourself out of it, without our support it's just not going to happen.

BAICHWAL: "Self-perpetuating pool of misery" is probably the best way I've heard it described. Very quickly, it's been quite a summer for you. Starring with Will Smith in "I, Robot". Other good things happening. Life seems pretty good for Bruce Greenwood.

GREENWOOD: Yeah, I would say the only caveat would be that CTV chose to bury this movie on a holiday weekend where it's not going to be seen, and didn't give us the lead time to promote it properly, I think, which is connected to wanting to prove that American programming is really the only thing that's going to bring in the numbers. So, they make that a self-fulfilling prophecy by burying the Canadian programming where they shouldn't. And I think --

BAICHWAL: Well, we'll do our best. Sept. 5th on CTV, 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Check your local listings. Bruce Greenwood, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it very much.