Entertainment: Gary Levert sharing stage with big-name Hollywood stars

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Greg Mulock
The Northern Light

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An actor who originally hails from Bathurst is currently rubbing shoulders with some big-name Hollywood talent while on location in Malta.

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Chris Reardon/Tele München Group

Bathurst native Gary Levert, in character as Peth the blacksmith on the set of the new miniseries adaptation of the classic novel Moby Dick.

Gary Levert is part of the cast for a miniseries based on Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel Moby Dick, a cast that includes William Hurt (The Big Chill, A History of Violence), Oscar-nominated actor Ethan Hawke (Training Day), Saint John native Donald Sutherland (MASH, Klute, Animal House, Space Cowboys) and Gillian Anderson (The X-Files movies and TV series.)

"The casting is amazing. When I first heard that William Hurt was going to play Ahab "¦ I was like "¦ oh my God. The stuff that I've done with him (already), just from the read-through on, working with him "¦ is just going to be amazing," Levert said in a phone interview last week from Nova Scotia.

Hurt won an Oscar for best actor for his performance in 1985's Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Filming started on Moby Dick last month in Nova Scotia, before the cast and crew departed last weekend for Malta, located in the south of Europe on the Mediterranean coast.

"We're shooting in Lunenberg, an old foundry there and Shelburne in studio, then we're flying to Malta to shoot there for eight weeks, I'll be there for seven," said Levert.

Malta has been used as a location for such recent film fare as Alexander, Troy and Gladiator.

"I play Perth, the ship's blacksmith "¦ I'm sort of a loner on the ship, he's an old salt "¦ He plays well in the story itself," said Levert.

In the book, Captain Ahab feels a bond with the blacksmith who Ahab calls upon to craft a special harpoon with which to slay the great white whale, Moby Dick.

While he never studied the book during his days as a student at Bathurst High School, Levert has read the novel.

"I even enjoyed the first two-thirds of the book, which most people don't. But anything that's written on seven different levels of consciousness, you really have to pay attention to."

The production is a venture of the Tele München Group with a budget of US$25.5 million.

"It's a German-Canadian co-production," said Levert, noting that a distribution deal for North America has yet to be worked out.

Although he's appeared with big names before, he's still impressed with having the opportunity to work with the quality cast of Moby Dick.

"The cast is very deep. Anyone of the supporting cast that I'm a member of, these guys could be a lead in their own film," he said, pointing out such actors as Raoul Trujillo, who was in Mel Gibson's Apocalypto; and Billy Boyd, who played Pippin in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

A 1978 graduate of Bathurst High School, Levert appeared in various school productions under the direction of former BHS drama teacher Susan Hay. His parents, Ed and Jackie Levert still live here, as does his sister Tody with her husband P.J. Veniot.

Levert has been working full-time as an actor for years, dividing his time between Halifax and Toronto. His various past credits include the Kevin Spacey/Julianne Moore film, The Shipping News; Trailer Park Boys: The Movie; the mini-series Canada-Russia '72; and the 2005 CBC mini-series Trudeau II: Maverick in the Making, for which his role as Gerrard Pelletier earned him a best performance by an actor award from the regional ACTRA Awards for Atlantic Canada.

ACTRA is an acronym for the Aliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists.

Earlier this month, he was seen on PBS in the docudrama Darwin's Darkest Hour.