Barry Levy is an award-winning filmmaker, actor, writer, and the author of ‘The War Machine’. As a dual US/Canadian citizen, he has received numerous festival awards for his films and has had a diverse and extensive acting career. Over the years, he has portrayed serious roles such as the ill-fated pilot of Flight 93 (2006), appeared in comedies like Scary Movie 4 (2006), featured in The X-Files (1993), and had roles in action-packed shows like Scandal (2012) and Supernatural (2005). We had the pleasure to discuss his career and his new book ‘The War Machine’.
Thank you for agreeing to catch up with Occhi Magazine. For readers unfamiliar with you and your background, what drew you to a career in film and television?
I was working at a radio station on Ottawa – CHEZ 106 – making commercials and doing overnights on air, and it was killing me slowly. I had a close relative pass away who left me enough money to travel so I went backpacking through Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. This gave me a lot of time to think. And all I could think about was being an actor. When I got back to Canada almost 2 years later, I searched for schools to teach me the trade.
Who were your inspirations and mentors?
My first stop was theatre legend Douglas Campbell who was performing at the world-famous Stratford Festival 15 minutes away from my home town of St. Marys, in Ontario, Canada. He had me over for tea and told me about his on-the-job training with a touring company in England.
In the meantime, I got a part in the chorus of ‘Kiss Me Kate’ in my hometown theatre company, and auditioned for Canadian legend, Martha Henry, at the Grand Theatre in London and she liked suggested I call Larry Lillo and audition for him when I got to Vancouver.
All these steps led me to my audition for the UBC Theatre Program, where they offered me a place in their BFA Acting program – way more than I had hoped for. To be honest, I’d never heard of it, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know the terminology, the techniques, I’d never done improv, in fact I didn’t know what a BFA was. I worked hard, almost got kicked out at the end of the first year but hung on and made it onto the main theatre stage and played numerous leads before I left.
My acting instructor Arne Zaslove was really there for me at UBC, and I learned an enormous amount from Dr. Errol Durbach, Bob Gardiner, the wonderful Dr. John Brockington, and Stephen Malloy. I wrung every bit of experience I could from that place, took every role I could, and I still draw on it in all aspects of my artistic career. They taught me how to think like an artist and work as part of an artistic team. They taught me a process.
I was terrified until my last year when everything just sort of clicked and fell into place. I got an agent, took over a heavily indebted theatre company, and started my career auditioning for film and TV in Vancovuer.
The industry can sometimes seem challenging and competitive, particularly for young and emerging writers, actors, and filmmakers. What have been your challenges and how have you overcome them?
Most of the challenges in entertainment you just have to roll with. As an actor, the marketplace is always changing, and you as a product are changing as you age. The genre of scripts that are being requested is also changing all the time, so as a writer, you have to keep fresh things in your quiver all the time. Right now, I have a heist movie and creature feature ready to shoot, a sci-fi tv pilot, a romantic comedy, and my first novel just came out which I’ll be pitching as a tv series.
The entire industry right now is going through a serious shake-up. AI – which you could also call ‘plagiarism software’ – is moving at a swift pace to replace people working in the industry, and doing it by cribbing from everything that’s been made ever. For artists everywhere who trained and worked hard to make art, it is heart breaking. Talk about a bunch of nerdy tech bros who want to be seen as brilliant and creative.
Then there are the labor issues. The CEOs of major studios and networks tried to chase Netflix and lost their shirts, so they blamed their bad business decisions on actors, writers, and crew members. Last year’s SAG and WGA strike is still very much being felt. Budgets are falling and so are the number of productions being made.
No one knows at this point how it’s going to shake out, but you just learn to hang on. When things are going well in your career it’s easy to think it will just keep going like that forever, but there is always a rainy day as an artist, and you have to financially prepare yourself for the lean times. It helps to be stubborn.
Your career spans many roles, from serious portrayals like the ill-fated pilot in Flight 93 to comedic appearances in Scary Movie 4. What attracts you to a role?
I love life and death stakes, and I’ve come to really enjoy Hallmark roles because I’ve had so much feedback from fans who have so much bad going on in their lives, that watching something with a happy ending is keeping them sane.
I’m lucky I haven’t been pegged for one specific type of role. In the past few years, I’ve played Hallmark dads, a Russian general, a right-wing king-maker, construction worker, detective, chef, a murder suspect, a demon hunter, a white supremacist, secret service agent, and the guy who runs Dollywood. I have turned down auditions for roles that I think are distasteful or for scripts that are just not ready to shoot, but I’ve been lucky with what I’ve been offered.
To date, what has been your most enjoyable role and why?
I loved working with Chris Carter and his teams on The X-Files and Millennium, and I have a great time shooting Hallmark roles. The latter tend to give me a lot to do in a movie and larger roles than I usually get on TV shows. Plus the cast and crew are always fun. The X-Files was just super cool, and I was a hitman on Millennium which never got old. Bad guys are always the most fun to play. You have free reign to just be a completely evil with no negative consequences. I also love playing cops. General Burov on Arrow was the most fun I’ve had in a role recently. My Russian accent is pretty spot on.
To date, what has been the most important lesson learned and what advice would you give to young actors?
Don’t think it’s going to happen fast for you. Be prepared to do at least 100 auditions before you get a booking, possibly up to 200. It took me ten years to book a commercial, then it was gangbusters. I don’t know why. It’s competitive and you just have to focus on one audition at a time. Most importantly, you are not competing with the other actors auditioning for that role. You are competing with yourself. Just do your best to be your very best, and work on getting better with each one. And don’t be desperate. Ever.
Not all casting people will see you. When that happens focus on the ones who do see you. Try to improve with each read. The smallest audition can lead to good paychecks. My original audition for Scandal was one line, and it led to 7 episodes with the great Kate Burton and Tony Goldwin and lots of residuals.
The other thing is that when you are starting out get a job with some flexibility so you can get to shoots, and – I’m not joking – have a list of excuses for why you missed several days of work. I was fired from two day jobs, so that might happen too. Throughout history, the arts has always needs to be financially supported, so if you aren’t financially independent or have a trust fund, find a job that will pay your bills. You don’t want to be feeling financial pressure to book a job on top of the normal pressure of auditioning.
Thankfully, auditions happen at home now. You need to have someone to read the other characters’ lines when you tape at home. Your lighting and sound has to be good. It all can be done on a smart phone now, but make it look great, because they will judge you on that too. They may say they won’t, but they will.
The last piece of advice I can give is to grow skin as thick as a rhino, because it is an emotionally rough lifestyle. If you think you need counselling, find a shrink and get it done. Your baggage will deal with you, if you don’t deal with it.
Please tell us about the origins of your debut novel ’The War Machine’ and what readers can expect.
‘The War Machine’ is a spy-thriller about a Canadian who served as a sniper with US Special Forces and the CIA during the Vietnam War, and his post-war mission to expose Canada’s covert involvement in the war, and to honour the 40,000 Canadians who secretly served there.
The backstory of the main character is based on the true story of a friend of mine who volunteered for Vietnam and then carried on working for the CIA when the war was over. It’s also historical fiction and the story is peppered with secret facts about Canada’s involvement in the war.
At its heart, The War Machine is about pulling yourself back from the edge of despair and getting help, but the plot moves fast, the characters are unique and vivid, and it is a wild wild ride.
You’re an accomplished screenwriter with two award-winning produced features. Did your screenwriting experience enable you to comfortably adapt to writing a novel or was the process different?
I fought the concept of structure like a demon when I started writing screenplays. All it took was a stack of failures to smarten me up. I love structure now, and screenplays showed me why it’s so vital to setting you free. Without that education, I wouldn’t be getting reviews right now for ‘The War Machine’ that say things like, “riveting” and “can’t put it down!”
Writing screenplays also showed me the importance of characters that are unique, why extreme conflict and life and death stakes are vital, and how to write dialogue. My cheat is that I always write characters based on either people I know or actors who would play the character if it was a movie or TV series. It makes it easy to ‘hear them’ when you write.
What other projects are in the pipeline?
I’m currently working on the sequel to The War Machine, (no title yet), that will see most of the same characters re-unite to help Kick track bad guys across North Africa into the Middle East a year or so after we last saw him. The next project is based on a radio station I worked at in Montreal that was straight-up haunted. I’m not kidding. It was.
Where can our readers find out more about you?
- My personal website is: https://www.barrywlevy.com/
- Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/49074813.Barry_W_Levy
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barrywlevy
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barrywlevy/
- (Twitter) X: https://x.com/barrywlevy
- imdb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0506346/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_0_nm_1_q_barry%2520w%2520levy
Images: Courtesy of the artist and Helenna Santos Photography
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