If you thought being the parent of a teenager was hard, try being the director-dad who has to tell his 14-year-old daughter that her scenes in his movie are on the cutting-room floor.
“It was by no means a reflection on what she did, she’s super-talented,” says Vancouver native Gil Bellows, co-director and star of 3 Days In Havana, which opens across Canada this week. “It’ll never be harder than that.”
The film was a family-and-friends affair from the beginning, when Bellows got his first real acting gig on a National Film Board project alongside fellow fledgling actor Tony Pantages. The pair made a pledge that they’d find a way to work together; little did they know it would happen 25 years later.
A lot happened in between: Bellows had a breakout role in The Shawshank Redemption, was Ally’s forever love — Billy Thomas — on Ally McBeal, starred in another several dozen film and TV projects, and won an Emmy as executive producer on HBO’s Temple Grandin. Pantages left acting and became a successful music video producer.
It was after the success of Temple Grandin and an “angel investor” that Bellows had the freedom to plan his next project. The result is 3 Days In Havana, about a businessman named Jack Petty who blows off his insurance conference to see the “real” Havana, thanks to a beautiful woman in an airport bar and travel writer Harry Smith, his hedonistic new BFF. The hijinks turn dark after a case of mistaken identity, and Jack finds himself on the run.
The film stars Greg Wise (Sense and Sensibility), Phyllida Law, Christopher Heyerdahl and Rya Kihlstedt (Dexter, Home Alone 3), Bellows’ wife offscreen.
Englishman Greg Wise and Bellows are also longtime friends who had plans to collaborate. (“Greg should’ve been James Bond, in my opinion, great guy”); fans of the usually reserved Phyllida Law will be surprised to see her play a baddie for a change, even dropping an f-bomb: “I know, right? How cool is that?” says Bellows, “it was one of those moments when she did it, I thought ‘that’s a little piece of cinematic gold!’”
Not everyone finds the director’s chair roomy enough for two, but Bellows and Pantages co-directed 3 Days In Havana peaceably and with their friendship intact thanks to a “shorthand” that offset a lot of challenges. Plus, while he was interested in directing, Bellows “didn’t want to be the guy in a scene then yelling cut and breaking down other actors’ performances.” This is especially true when those other actors include your spouse: “I do think there were moments when Rya wanted to take a bat to me,” he laughs. “At the same time I will say it’s great to have a partner who’s also an artist, and has an appreciation of what it’s like to step outside of that comfort zone.”
Filmmakers had three days to scout locations in Havana, a few more to lock in the sites, and then one day of casting that typically took place in a courtyard. Kihlstedt and Bellows’ daughter and son were on location with them. “It was a whirlwind, incredible,” says Bellows of the process. The shoot itself was a marriage of structure and spontaneity, a well-planned shooting day with a dose of filming-on-the-fly that Bellows endorses: “I think is necessary for some of the magic and energy you see in films.”
He says he’s not hooked on cigars after enjoying them onscreen, but Bellows admits a good cigar is an added bonus to making a movie in paradise. “There is something great about having one the terrace in Havana after a long day of shooting, watching the sunset, the waves against the Malecon, people with their sun-kissed faces... the women looking dynamite. A cigar at that point is pretty damn good.”
The actor has played his share of cops, agents and assorted do-gooders, though his sympathetic bad guy in Love and a .45 with Renee Zellweger is still a fan favourite. Speaking of good guys: with the resurrection of Ally McBeal in boxed sets and Netflix, does he still get Billy fan mail? “Yes I do. Part of doing this job is that over the span of your life you get to be involved in projects that mean something to people out there, and it’s fantastic.”
“You have to write your own story” is a line from the film as well as a credo in which Bellows believes, and which came in handy when breaking that bad news to his actor daughter. “Do what you love, but create your own work. Then you’re not vulnerable to other people determining your future, absolutely.”
3 Days In Havana screens at International Village.
