New Canadian Film Centre program helps experienced actors

The Canadian Film Centre is creating a new conservatory to train and promote experienced screen and stage actors in the country.

The program, created at a cost of more than $3 million, will provide eight experienced Canadian actors with advanced performance training and real on-camera experience, while also engaging them in both the technical and business aspects of television and film.

The privately supported program comes at a time when the federal government has cut $45 million from arts and culture, a move that eliminated the $2.5-million National Training Program in the Film and Video Sector (NTPFVS) and the $1.5-million Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund.

Funding includes a $1-million gift from the Linehan Foundation, created in memory of celebrity interviewer Brian Linehan, who died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2004.

Linehan had once told entertainment lawyer Michael Levine he wanted "to create a star system" to groom the best of the best.  Levine is now the executor of Linehan's estate.

"It's not enough to train people. You have to train them, you have to give them good work, and you have to promote the hell out of them," said Levine in a statement released on Sunday.

The idea first came to the CFC in 2000 from Levine, acting teacher David Rotenberg and Montreal-born actor David Julian Hirsh, who were proposing a program patterned after New York's Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and on British companies that were training actors who could cross between stage and screen.

The late Lee Strasberg was known for the technique "method acting," in which actors are encouraged to use personal experiences to enhance and bring truth to their performances.

While other companies may focus on training new talent, this program focuses on experienced actors who want to keep honing their craft for film and television.