Transamerica star Kevin Zegers keeps head on straight
TORONTO (CP) - Kevin Zegers is getting critical kudos for his turn as a troubled teen in Transamerica, but so far the 21-year-old actor seems to be keeping his ego in check.
When asked at a press junket how he remains so grounded he said: "Every time I do great, my manager reminds me I suck just as often."
He even blew off the recent Elton John/David Furnish nuptials because his sister Katie, also an actor, was pregnant and it was near her due date.
(He has two sisters, Krista and Katie, who already has identical twin girls just over a year old.)
"I love being Uncle Kevin. I can't stand the thought of not being with them," he said recently from Woodstock, Ont., where he grew up.
Besides, he'd already spent two weeks with John and Furnish in their digs while shooting the London leg of It's a Boy Girl Thing, a U.K./Canadian collaboration produced by Furnish and shot principally in Toronto.
"I stayed at their house in London for a couple of weeks," Zegers says.
"I would consider them good friends; they are two of the nicest men I've ever met and really private about their personal life. We hung out, but I was mostly working. (He is the male lead.) We had dinner every night at their house, which is called Windsor Castle."
In Transamerica, Zegers plays Toby, a street hustler who goes on a road trip with Felicity Huffman's character Bree, a man waiting for the final snip of his sex-change operation.
Toby thinks Bree is just a weirdo with a do-gooder complex who bailed him out of jail. He doesn't know Bree is his father.
The film is generating great buzz and Zegers is getting attention from the right people.
"People I never dreamed of meeting," he said.
"Harvey Weinstein sat down with me and Spielberg's company is taking meetings with me."
Zegers has lived in Los Angeles for the past four years. He started acting at age six.
"I grew up in Ingersoll and moved to Woodstock," he says. "I never lived in Toronto - my mom drove me back and forth. I just remember always doing it (acting).
"There was never a moment of 'Oh my god, I want to do it.' I had this knack. I did stuff in London (Ont.), graduated to working Toronto."
In addition to his siblings, nieces and parents, Zegers was at the family homestead with his girlfriend, Marisa Coughlan from Boston Legal, and her mom.
"A friend of ours set us up," he says. "We've been together a year and a few months."
Zegers plays hockey in Los Angeles in Jerry Bruckheimer's celeb league made up mostly of Canadian actors and Denis Leary.
Oh, and he has a shoe thing: he told Teen Vogue mag, "I have 15 pairs of jeans and 30 pairs of shoes. I'm a total metrosexual."
So how did he win the role in Transamerica?
"I stalked the director," he says. "I wasn't a shoo-in; they saw everybody between 15 and 25. I'm sure some big names went for it. Friends of mine and sought-after actors did. It is 95 per cent luck. You just hope you don't screw it up."
Source: http://www.canadaeast.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060107/WHATEVER12/601070371/-1/WHATEVER
Home 
