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Most Americans forget to thank our awesome “Neighbors to the North” for all the wonderful gifts they’ve given us over the years. But not I. Cross-dressing, beautifully offensive sketch comedy in the form of The Kids in the Hall, unforgivable pop perfection in the form of Tegan and Sara, and Meat Loaf loving, green-eyed talent monsters in the form of Kristopher Turner—all graciously bestowed to us by Canada. They get an extra box of chocolate for Kristopher, though.
The very un-28-year-old looking actor is probably best known for his role as music nerd and next door best friend, Jamie Andrews, on the hit show Instant Star, a Canadian teen dramedy about the ups and downs of instant stardom in the music business and, of course, delicious, convoluted, intersecting love triangles. But, Kristopher’s talent has only begun to be experienced. While he’s already making some noise in the mediums of film (Without a Paddle: Nature’s Calling, Everybody’s Doing It) and some headlines in pretty controversial stage productions (In Gabriel’s Kitchen), you can take my word for it that this is only the beginning for him.
After four years of unabashed crushing, I finally got the chance to go all aflutter with fangirlyness with Kristopher via phone as we talked about the Instant Star finale, Without a Paddle: Nature’s Calling, being a little too involved in someone’s act at a comedy club in North Hollywood, and where you can see his awesome face in the future.
[Note: The audio's a little fuzzier than normal probably due to our connection (there was a tiny lag as well) but, this is why I transcribe all the interviews, too. As always, this isn't a word-for-word transcription so to get Kristopher's awesomeness in its entirety, listen to the audio!]
Amanda Mack: I think the first thing I have to bring up is you’re incredibly baby-faced.
Kristopher Turner: [laughs]
AM: I bring this up because you have a birthday next month [September 27th] and you’re going to be twenty-eight but you don’t even look like you’re barely in your 20s!
KT: Which works for me and against me in this business.
AM: Also, in some of the stills and the trailer for Without a Paddle 2, I’ve seen that you have a bit of gruff around your face. Did they do that to make you seem a little bit older?
KT: Well, that was partly my choice and partly their choice as well. The character was supposed to be in his mid-20s which, of course, I am but don’t often look like. So, they let me grow out the facial hair and look a little rougher and hopefully that’ll make me look a little older.
AM: Do you feel looking so young hurts you or helps you when you audition for certain parts?
KT: It’s really helping me, actually, especially when I first came to Toronto and auditioned for shows like Instant Star. In that case, I remember going into a lot of audition rooms where I would would see kids who were 16-years-old and there with their parents and I would be in my early 20s having graduated university a few years ago reading for these same parts. So, to be able to look that age but have the experience of someone a lot older is quite to my advantage. Although now, I do start to find as I get older that I’m no longer…I hope no longer playing 18 years old.
AM: [laughs]
KT: People start to not buy you as your own age. You have to go to lengths of not shaving to go to the auditions just to play four years older than yourself.
AM: Like I said, recently, you did the sequel to Without a Paddle (Without a Paddle 2) and it should be releasing on DVD pretty soon, right?
KT: Yeah, that is correct. Last I heard, maybe around January.
AM: Can you tell me a little about your character and a little bit about the film?
KT: Sure. Basically, it follows two guys who were best friends in high school, myself and my buddy Ben [played by Oliver James], and we take sort of two different paths in our lives after school where he goes the more responsible route, going to law school and getting a responsible job and I sort of take the more relaxed route in life, playing softball, drinking beer with buddies and I end up working at a retirement home. And at the retirement home, there’s an old woman that says that she wants me to go find her granddaughter who has gone off into the wilderness in Oregon and it just so happens to be the girl that my buddy had a crush on while he was in high school. So, the two of us set off on an adventure and we are joined by a British step-brother of this girl and craziness ensues.
AM: You’ve done a good bit of stage and screen. Do you personally find the transition from one to the other a difficult one?
KT: I personally quite love doing both. It’s two different styles of acting but they compliment each other, I think, a lot. If I’ve been doing a play for a while, for the next couple of auditions I do for film, they tend to be like ‘okay, need to bring that back a little bit’ and vise versa.When I first get on stage after doing film for a while, they tend to want to see it a bit more. I started out in theatre and that’s definitely my first love and that’s the type of interaction I love with an audience. Being able to do it right in front of them and share that experience whereas, in film, that’s the one thing that I really miss—doing something and not hearing people react to it until 9 or 10 months later.
AM:You were on a little show called Instant Star and earlier this year, Instant Star had its season [meant to say "series"] finale. I watched the season finale and I think I can say that some fans felt a little confused by it, a little…incomplete, I guess. How did you and the rest of the cast feel about the finale?
KT:As probably most people know, it wasn’t really designed to be a finale. I mean, as with any series, you never really know if you’re coming back the next year. We’d shoot the first year and cross our fingers and hope it does well and then, we got picked up for a second and then the third and then the forth and things seemed to be on a roll and then we found out it’s the end. I agree that it wasn’t very satisfying and in a way, it kind of works with Jude [played by Alexz Johnson] sort of going off on her own and it kinda ties up a lot of the loose ends but…I think we all were expecting to be back, finishing up some of those stories.
AM: I’ve heard a few stories of extreme fandom from some of your fellow Instant Star mates. Do you personally have any scary fan encounters or moments?
KT: I don’t think I have any scary moments. Earlier this year, I had a really interesting fan recognize me. I was at a comedy club in North Hollywood and was with a few people I had just recently met and we arrived late so, I got stuck in the front of the room which is always a bad idea especially at a comedy club, to be stuck at the front of the stage. So, the host of the night came on and proceeded to make fun of me and continued to do so throughout the whole night…but, he seemed to think that I was on a reality show or American Idol or something like that. And then finally, at the end, he came on stage and realized exactly who I was and this is someone I would not have pictured watching Instant Star. He was probably in his thirties and in North Hollywood and sure enough, he called me out saying, “Ladies and gentleman, this is Kristopher Turner! He’s on Instant Star!” and of course, this is a comedy club so there were crickets. No one there had even heard of the show. And he proceeded to talk to me and he’s like, “You play Jamie!” and “How’s Jude doing?” and he was just this massive fan of the show and he called me out in front of like 250 people at this comedy club. It was quite an embarrassing fan encounter but…I think with my day to day sort of things, you almost kind of forget that you’re on TV sometimes.
AM: And I’ve heard you say that in Canada, there’s not that fandom. So, Americans are a little bit more enthusiastic…and sometimes, on a scary level!
KT: I’ve never really encountered it on a scary level. I think there’s definitely a fan base for it here and the funny thing is now that the show has been canceled, it actually got picked up by a few other Canadian networks and the re-runs are playing here all the time now. It’s actually getting more air time now than it was when we were making it. But, I do find that there is something in the American culture that is more ambitious about being recognized and that kind of thing whereas in Canada, it rarely happens. Unless you’re a hockey player.
AM: What was your favorite romance that your character, Jamie Andrews, had on the show?
KT: You know what? I think I was the luckiest out of anybody! I think I got to be with the most interesting people on the show, in terms of characters. Working with Zoie Palmer who played Patsy was probably my favorite relationship. She was just so much fun and just brought that character to life and we just had a blast working together. You never knew what to expect from that one.
AM: Patsy and Jamie were so different that it really displayed that classic ‘opposites attract’ type thing.
KT: Absolutely. But it worked so well, I thought. They were so different but they sort of needed each other in a way. She needed to be brought down to earth a bit more and Jamie needed to be able to let loose a bit more.
AM: How did you feel when you guys found out that they were going to kill Patsy off?
KT: I was disappointed! I was sad…and everybody was. Linda Schuyler, our producer and creator, made it a special point to say that this Patsy character was supposed to come on for two, maybe three episodes and we just loved her so much, we kept her for a season and a half. So, by killing her off is not to say that we didn’t enjoy the character and didn’t love having Zoie around. It’s really a compliment that they gave her such a send off, too, and be the only character on the show to really be killed.
AM: Do you have any favorite song from the show?
KT: I get asked that a lot and the funny thing is is that after the first season, I really didn’t get to interact with the music as much.
AM: Oh, really?
KT: Yeah. The classic sort of Jamie theme that I have on Instant Star is standing in the audience, looking in awe at my object of affection on the stage, more often than not being Jude. I think I probably did that about 25 times in the show and that’s really the only time I get to hear the music. I’m not involved in the recording of it so I just get to see her perform it on stage which is awesome. But, I don’t have an intimate knowledge of all of the songs like I think everybody else does. I think a lot of my favorites, mostly for nostalgic reasons, are from the first season. The song “24 Hours” from the first episode will always bring back…I mean, that song just reminds me of the first time, seeing Alexz sing on stage. That’ll always have a special place in my heart, I think.
AM: I think it holds a special place in all the fans’ hearts because, I don’t know about in Canada but in the US, for The-N, for the teasers for the show they would play the video for “24 Hours”.
KT: You know, we never got that. They never even aired that in Canada.
AM: Really?
KT: You could see it online and I have seen it. But no, at least to my knowledge, I don’t think they ever did.
AM: Do you feel there’s a difference in the way that American and Canadian audiences responded to the show when it was on?
KT: Probably but, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t be the best person to answer that. Not having been around in the States, I don’t really know how it was received. I sort of see that presence online and certainly the e-mails that I get tend to be mostly from fans in the States which is great. I think it was on a network that paid it a lot more attention. We were on a great network here in Canada, CTV. It’s really the biggest network here in the country so in a way, we actually kind of got lost, I think, amongst all the other great shows that were on that network. Not to say that The-N doesn’t have other great shows but they sort of treated us as one of the more high points on the network which I think contributed largely to the fan base that we got.
AM: I imagine auditioning is pretty nerve-wracking no matter how many times you do it, which, as an actor, you probably do it a lot.
KT: Yep, sure do.
AM: Do you have any rituals or anything you like to do to calm yourself or prepare?
KT: Well, that’s a good question. My ideal audition ritual, I suppose, is being able to warm myself up a little bit. I love auditions I can walk to and living in downtown Toronto, that’s an opportunity that I can do quite a bit. I just like visualizations, ya know? The thing with auditioning is you can’t control what they want. You can’t control your look, you can’t control what their vision of the character is. All you can control is how prepared you are and your vision of what you want them to see. So, I just kind of like to visualize what kind of part of myself I want to leave them with in the room. And then, when you walk out of the room, if you feel like you’ve done that, then that’s when it feels like a successful audition.
AM: I’ve heard you say that Jamie from Instant Star was pretty close to your personality but which one of your past roles do you feel has been the absolute furthest from your personality?
KT: Probably a character I played on a series called Dark Oracle which I’m not sure if you got down there or not. I played a character who was sort of a comic book come to life, I guess. He was very much on the fence of being a good guy and a bad guy, kind of would always appear to be your friend but, underneath it all, just sort of hated everybody. Which was a fun character to play but definitely not like me at all.
AM: [laughs] Well, that’s good. That’s very good!
KT: There has to be an element of yourself in every character that you play, I think. It’s just how often you use that element in your everyday life, I guess.
AM: What’s one project that you’ve always wanted to do but have yet be able to?
KT: I’ve gotten to do a lot of really great things, ya know? To me, it seems to be the scripts that you read that you never even thought of wanting to play something like that and then all of sudden, you’re just entirely inspired to do that that sort of grab me the most. There’s projects that I’ve read for and characters that I love that I wish I was able to be cast in but I can’t say there’s a specific genre that I wanted to tackle that I haven’t yet. I would like to do more in the comedy projects in the future. That’s a side of me that I really want to explore a lot more and haven’t had much of a chance to yet.
AM: That would be great cause I think you’re absolutely hilarious so I would love to see that.
KT: I sort of feel like it’s a part of my personality that has always been there and I just, for some reason, don’t get cast as those characters as much. Without a Paddle had a little bit of that, I think. There was a good comedy element to it and a type of character that I hadn’t gotten to play before.
AM: Projects wise, what’s coming up for you?
KT: Right now, I’m back to square one, as actors do. I have two projects that will be coming out for you to see. One being, of course, Without a Paddle, the official title now being Without a Paddle: Nature’s Calling. That’ll probably be January ‘09, I believe. I also did a movie for The Hallmark Channel that’s called An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving. It took place in the 1860s and I got to star opposite the very wonderful and talented Tatiana Maslany who you might know on Instant Star as Zeppelin. I got to work with her again and the director of that movie was Graeme Campbell who I think directed about a dozen Instant Star episodes over our four years so, that was a great sort of reunion. Actually, that was my first project after finishing Instant Star. That should be, I think, on the Hallmark Channel November 22. But, as for creative projects to do in the future, I’m back to square one. I’m back to auditioning and looking for that next job now.
AM: Now, I know you’re a huge fan of music so I guess my next question is to indulge that a little. If you had to live the rest of your life with one song on infinite repeat, what would it be?
KT: Oh my God! One song on infinite repeat?
AM: Yeah!
KT: I don’t think any song would be good on infinite repeat!
AM: [laughs]
KT: Oh man. I don’t know. Have you thought of that? Do you have one?
AM: I do, actually. I was thinking about this.
[Note: I actually had a strange feeling that Kristopher would throw this question back at me hence I prepared an answer. Smart, eh?]
KT: Okay, you tell me yours.
AM: Well, mine would probably be “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes” by Modest Mouse.
KT: Okay. Modest Mouse. Alright.
AM: Yeah, I’m a huge Modest Mouse fan.
KT: Well, you know what? One of my favorite all time songs, and I don’t think it’d be great on infinite repeat but it would make life interesting, is “I’d Do Anything For Love” by Meat Loaf.
When I first get on stage after doing film for a while, they tend to want to see it a bit more. I started out in theatre and that’s definitely my first love and that’s the type of interaction I love with an audience. Being able to do it right in front of them and share that experience whereas, in film, that’s the one thing that I really miss—doing something and not hearing people react to it until 9 or 10 months later.
in a way. She needed to be brought down to earth a bit more and Jamie needed to be able to let loose a bit more.
of part of myself I want to leave them with in the room. And then, when you walk out of the room, if you feel like you’ve done that, then that’s when it feels like a successful audition.
AM: Now, I know you’re a huge fan of music so I guess my next question is to indulge that a little. If you had to live the rest of your life with one song on infinite repeat, what would it be?