Victor Garber heads to screen as Ken Taylor

Canadian actor Victor Garber makes his next foray onto the big screen as Ken Taylor, the Canadian diplomat who sheltered six Americans during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.

Like many of the London, Ont.-born actor’s roles, it’s not a lead, but an important part of the ensemble cast of the Ben Affleck-directed film Argo, scheduled to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival.  

"I play Ken Taylor, who is a hero and a remarkable man and still with us, and I hope to meet him someday," Garber said in an interview with Jian Ghomeshi, host of CBC’s Q cultural affairs show.

He calls the story of Argo "crazy and captivating" but admits the movie version of the mission to get the six Americans out of Iran is partly fictionalized.

Garber talked to Q about his early career as a singer with folk band Sugar Shoppe, his first acting gig as Jesus in the legendary 1970s musical Godspell in Toronto and what he looks for when he takes a role.

Garber says his first love is theatre and his long career on the stage has seen him nominated for a Tony Award four times. On TV, he is most associated with his role as a spy and father on Alias, though he also had Emmy nominations for Frasier and Will and Grace.

He says he’s never had a role that catapulted him to stardom, but his turn as the ship’s designer Thomas Andrews, who awaits what he knows is the inevitable sinking with an admirable calm in Titanic, got him a lot of notice. Titanic returned to screens earlier this year in 3D.