Thanks to Kat for this. It appeared in the Canadian TV Times this week.<\/p>\n
Alien Adventures<\/strong>
\nBy Alexandra Heilbron<\/p>\nRoswell has been a big career boost for Vancouver’s Brendan Fehr.<\/p>\n
Canadians are known for their politeness, right? If you need proof, just
\nask Brendan Fehr’s co-stars on the set of Roswell.<\/p>\nThey might complain about the heavy-metal music he plays loud enough to
\npenetrate the walls of his dressing room. Or the faces and rude noises he
\nmakes off-camera to distract them,. Or maybe even the jokes he tells –
\nwhich are, in his own words, “really sick”.<\/p>\nBut co-stars be warned: “I’m looking forward to pulling a big [practical
\njoke] this season coming up,” the actor says.<\/p>\nIt’s been quite a year for Fehr. The Vancouver native starts in the
\ncritically acclaimed Roswell, now in its second season. He also appeared
\n(with his Roswell co-stars) on the cover of Life magazine. And he had a
\nrole in the feature film Final Destination.<\/p>\nThat’s quite a leap for a guy who got his start by taking modelling jobs in
\norder to save money for university.<\/p>\nFehr, 22, had planned to become a math professor, but his agent sensed he
\nhad acting talent and sent him to audition for a TV series called Breaker
\nHigh. He landed a guest role and, from there, went on to film Disturbing
\nBehaviour. “I was basically an extra,” fehr explains. “I had, like, four
\nscenes, and two of my scenes got cut.”<\/p>\nNevertheless, the film’s director, David Nutter, took notice,. Nutter went
\non to become executive producer\/director of Roswell, and invited Fehr to
\naudition for the series. The actor ended up winning the role of teen alien
\nMichael Guerin.<\/p>\n“My character’s impulsive, spontaneous – ‘let’s do it now and deal with the
\nconsequences later,'” says Fehr. “It’s fun being an actor because you get
\nto play people that you never were. I was always the type to think things
\nout first.”<\/p>\nDespite his penchant for heavy-metal music and the joy he gets from
\ntormenting his co-stars, Fehr is actually a devout Mennonite who says his
\nfavourite pastime is playing Monopoly with friends. He enjoys living in Los
\nAngeles, but when asked if he misses Canada, he replies, “Oh yeah.
\nEverything. Family and friends,” but also “ketchup chips, sweetened ice tea
\nand cheesy chili fries.”<\/p>\nA cross-promotion with Levi’s – Roswell’s clothing sponsor – gave Fehr the
\nopportunity to make public appearances in New York and L.A. Thousands
\nturned out, bringing gifts of alien paraphenalia, Spiderman memoribilia
\n(Fehr is a huge fan) and Fruity Pebbles cereal (his favourite). Fehr has
\nalso been to two Roswell conventions in L.A. – most recently in August,
\nwhere, unlike his co-stars, Fehr wandered into the crowd of screaming fans
\nwithout a bodyguard.<\/p>\n“It’s kinda amazing that the fans like you and they appreciate you,” says
\nFehr. “If they’re willing to throw these parties and if me showing up
\nhappens to be synonymous with it being a good night, then you know, that’s
\nworth it.”<\/p>\nRoswell’s start was a rocky one – the ratings were lacklustre, despite the
\nfact that critics had nothing but praise for this unique show. The premise:
\nin 1947, the year of the alleged real-life spaceship crash in Roswell, N.M.,
\nseveral pods were hidden and in the 1980s, alien children hatched and were
\nfound wandering in the desert. Two of them – Max (Jason Behr) and Isabel
\n(Katherine Heigl) – were adopted by a nice family, while Michael (Fehr) went
\nto live with an abusice foster father. The teens keep their alien status a
\nsecret until one day, classmate Liz Parker (Shiri Appleby) was shot in a
\ncafe. Against Michael’s wishes, Max used his alien powers to heal her,
\nrunning the risk of exposing himself and the other aliens.<\/p>\nRumours of cancellation his Roswell fans so hard that they took action with
\nThe Roswell Renewal Campaign. They created a website
\n(http:\/\/wo.to\/save_roswell) and began an agressive letter-writing campaign,
\nbarraging The WB Network with more than 3000 bottles of Tobasco sauce (the
\naliens douse Tobasco on everything they eat, including cake and ice cream).
\nThe WB decided to rework Roswell, but is focusing on its sci-fi aspects
\nrather than the angst of teenage relationships.<\/p>\nWhether or not Roswell survives remains to be seen. In any event, the
\nfuture looks good for Fehr’s career. His eventual goal is to cross over
\ninto feature films full time. During the hiatus from Roswell, Fehr filmed
\ntwo features for release in 2001: The Forsaken and Take My Life.<\/p>\nFehr would most like to make movies like “Braveheart of Once Flew Over the
\nCuckoo’s Nest,” he says. “Something that will inspire someone – a movie
\nthat people will want to watch over and over again and it never gets old for
\nthem.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thanks to Kat for this. It appeared in the Canadian TV Times this week. Alien Adventures By Alexandra Heilbron Roswell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[2376,3],"tags":[9,641],"coauthors":[2273],"class_list":["post-1151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brendan-fehr","category-leading","tag-brendan-fehr","tag-tv-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28391,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions\/28391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1151"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}