About the film Grey Owl:
This piece is old now, and I recently found a page for Grey Owl with updated info. You'll really enjoy it! Kimberly Last's Grey Owl page
For those arriving from Kimberly's page: You'll find stuff on the Native American actors on this site, for instance Nathaniel Arcand and Annie Galipeu. Just go to the Actor Directory for links on them and countless others.
Michael Greyeyes was very recently asked by the production company filming the new Pierce Brosnan flick "Grey Owl" to come and teach Pierce powwow dancing for a scene in the movie. Michael did so, and was very impressed at how hard Pierce worked to learn and honor the dance. Michael was also asked to dance in the scene but his filming schedule for the CBC miniseries "Big Bear" conflicted and he was unable to do this. More details on this experience are in the Michael Greyeyes homepage.
Re. the Pierce Brosnan "Grey Owl" movie -- I have no
way of verifying if the movie is dealing with this, but there
actually
WAS a historical figure known as Grey Owl, according to a search
I did on the Internet. In the early part of the century, there
was a man who called himself an Apache, somehow found his way up
to Canada where he married a Native woman, wrote books and
articles about preserving the environment, and when he died it
was discovered he was an Englishman. Apparently there has been a
lingering controversy over him, but this is all I could find out.
One of your Canadian readers might know more details. It will be
interesting to see if this is what the film deals with.
As told by Janice
Sent in by a fan (name withheld for obvious reasons...) Most of the info was gleaned from newspaper articles and then rewritten by the fan. Source material; Ottawa Sun and Ottawa Citizen. There's more in the online archives of Ottawa Citizen. Just do a search from their main page. Here are some highlights (hopefully the links still work). article1, article2, article3, article4, article5 (Nathaniel Archand, article6 (Annie Galipeau)
May 7th 1998
Some more info on the film shooting up here right now in Chelsea
(which is just across the river from me!) The crew will be here
till Friday when they move on to Montreal. It's being directed By
Sir Richard Attenborough and is apparently based on a true story
of a Brit who came to Canada and transformed himself into a
" native Indian", taking the name Grey Owl and marrying
a a local Ojibway woman. The film has a budget of $30 million so
it should be pretty good and they are using the "Historic
Wakefield steam train" which fits right in with the
period.Chelsea has been transformed into an early 1900's Hudson's
Bay post
Brosnan was quoted as saying " Grey Owl was a great man and what he stood for then is relevant, here, now, deforestation, pollution of the land. It's one of those wonderful stories that finds you in a time in life when all these things are mportant." Brosnan has been working out for the role and developing his physique not to mention growing his hair past his shoulders. There's a really nice picture of him, his hair in braids, in the local paper and if I ever get the scanner to run I'll send it to you. I guess the crew are getting tired of the sightseers turning up...but heck, I would be one of them too if Michael Greyeyes hadn't had a scheduling conflict!(Pierce Brosnan's OK but not a patch on Michael :))!
May 12th 1998
There was more info on the character being played by Pierce
Brosnan...that of Archie Belaney of England, who in the early
1900's came to Canada, called himself Grey Owl, and became, what
would now be called, an environmentalist. He (Grey Owl) then went
on to lecture on the environment in England, passing himself off
as an Indian. As Sir Richard Attenborough says,"He was, in
fact, a young boy, 17, 18 who lived in a tiny house in the south
coast town of Hastings, and all he really cared about were the
traditions and the customs and the history of the Indians. He
thumbed his way to Canada and was adopted by the Ojibway....He
never intended this to go so far, but it swept him up.
"Brosnan added that it was a challenge to play such a
complex character as Grey Owl, "He was a young man who
hitched his way to Canada with a dream of living in the
wilderness, with a dream of being an Indian. What was he running
from? He was running from his childhood, he was a lonely boy and
he was really a lonelier man." He went on to say,"...
and then there's just the physical side of canoeing, learning how
to canoe, learning how to skin a deer, learning how to snowshoe,
learning how to walk on snowshoes, learning...you name it...to
grow your hair!" Brosnan says his own life is now better
than it's ever been, and part of the reason is working on the
film Grey Owl. He had to delay the film twice to shoot James Bond
movies but Sir Richard waited for him.
Maniwaki native Annie Galipeau, was the actress chosen to play opposite Brosnan as his wife. A virtual unknown, she came to Attenborough's attention three years ago when he first planned to make the movie. He'd seen her in a small role in a film called "Map of the World". "I'd asked if we could meet her" Attenborough said. "She came with her mother, and into the room came a young woman who looked about 12." Luckily for her, the picture was postponed for three years and by then, Galipeau, at 20, was old enough for the part. "We tested Mr. Brosnan with five other girls and ...she just leapt off the screen" said Attenborough. Brosnan also had warm words for Galipeau, an Algonquin who lives on a reserve near Montreal. "Annie just shone amidst all the other girls and she's still shining brightly today. She's a joy to work with."
Production staff visited Ottawa's Odawa Native Friendship Centre in their search for extras to play the roles of porters and traders. Even for the extras, hair, makeup and costumes took two hours, right down to blackening the fingers so the extras looked like they'd spent a few weeks out in the woods. The extras said that despite the pay (8 dollars an hour) and having to get up at 3:30a.m. to start a 15 hour day, being on the set was a hoot. "Just being around a world-famous director and crew is exciting for me," said John Stevens, who was one of the extras selected at the Friendship Centre. He spent hours in a canoe one day as a scene was being shot. "You can't crowd the stars. You have to stay in your role and stay quiet.
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