11.26.98

VALERIE PRINGLE: [video excerpt] That is Canadian actor Scott
Speedman, 23 years old. He's one of the stars of this hit series
"Felicity" which you can see on CTV on Sunday nights, the story of a
young college coed, Felicity -- she's the girl, Keri there. She
follows Scott's character whose name is Ben to university in New
York City and is madly in love with him. But, you know, he didn't
even know her name in the first episode although he signed her
yearbook.


I know about this from my kids who adore this show.


SPEEDMAN: They like it, huh?


PRINGLE: Yeah.


SPEEDMAN: Alright, that's good.


PRINGLE: Well, they don't seem to be the only ones.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, it seems to be a very specific audience -- 18-
year-olds to 22-year-old. Girls, I find most. But your kids --


PRINGLE: Well, you'd know.


SPEEDMAN: But your son likes it.


PRINGLE: Yeah.


SPEEDMAN: Does he really?


PRINGLE: Yeah.


SPEEDMAN: Always surprises me when guys like it.


PRINGLE: But it's so interesting, eh, that they can say, "We're
going to make a TV show for 18- to 22-year-old girls." And they can
nail it.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, they've got it down. Especially down at Warner
Brothers, WB, they seem to have that demographic down. They know
exactly what they want, they know exactly what they're going to
watch.


PRINGLE: And they're going to watch you.


SPEEDMAN: I don't know. I guess so. I don't know, you know, I don't
know.


PRINGLE: Well, because there was a profile of you that Sandie
Renaldo did [overtalk] -- WFive.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, I saw that last night.


PRINGLE: But the most wonderful thing on it, I thought, was your
little debut with Speakers' Corner. You went down to CITY-TV, put
your loonie in and went --


SPEEDMAN: Yeah.


PRINGLE: What did you say?


SPEEDMAN: Honestly, the first time I saw it was last night -- ever.
I did it five years ago and the first time I saw it was last night.
It was shocking. I couldn't believe it.


PRINGLE: You tell the people what you said.


SPEEDMAN: Well, what did I say?


PRINGLE: Look in that camera and pretend you're -- come on, come
no, you're an actor.


SPEEDMAN: [laughs] What did I say? I just basically said where I
lived and my phone number and my address --


PRINGLE: And what you wanted.


SPEEDMAN: And I wanted to audition for Boy Wonder for "Batman
Forever" --


PRINGLE: Were you insane?


SPEEDMAN: It was a dare. I was going to Hamilton to see my best
friends in Hamilton who were on the swim team and I was going up to
visit them.


PRINGLE: Because you were a champion competitive swimmer.


SPEEDMAN: I was a swimmer, yeah. And I was like stuck in traffic
and I just double-parked, jumped out of the car, did it in like 30
seconds, and jumped back in the car and went. I didn't think
anything of it.


PRINGLE: So, everyone just burst out laughing when you did it.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah. I told my friends and they made fun of me for weeks
and then [unclear] called my mom up and my mom sat me down and gave
me the message and she thought -- she didn't want me to go to the
audition because she thought it was in a hotel room and --


PRINGLE: It was entrapment.


SPEEDMAN: She thought it was for some porn movie or something that
they were going to --


PRINGLE: You'd wonder.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, it was in a hotel, this woman calls up, tells me to
be there.


PRINGLE: And who's watching CITY-TV?


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, who's watching CITY-TV? Nobody. [laughter] Nobody
watches CiTY-TV. So it was a little strange.


PRINGLE: And from that -- "Hi, I'm Scott Speedman, I'd like to play
the Boy Wonder, here's my phone number" -- you got called by a
casting director, you did a few teeny-weeny little things, something
at the Jewison Film Centre --


SPEEDMAN: Yeah. I mean, I'd done some stuff. But the stuff I'm
really proud of is the stuff I'd done at the Jewison Film Centre.
That was good stuff.


PRINGLE: Do you know anything about acting?


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, I do. I know a little bit about it. I mean, I was
doing it, I was still trying to get back into swimming and I wasn't
really into acting and then I started taking this class with a guy
in town called David Rotenberg. He was a great, great, great
teacher. So it was an on-camera class. So I started doing these
great scenes and that's when I really started falling in love with
acting and seeing that I could do it and seeing what I liked about
it.


PRINGLE: Which is?


SPEEDMAN: I don't know, just --


PRINGLE: Being rich and famous?


SPEEDMAN: No. I mean, when I quit swimming acting was something
where I could find life again. Like, I could really concentrate on
something and I could find life again in it.


PRINGLE: Because you obviously have discipline. You're obviously
competitive. All that stuff that you did for swimming.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah.


PRINGLE: But it wasn't necessarily in school or other things.


SPEEDMAN: No.


PRINGLE: It's only certain things that you -- well, which is the
same for most people. You find what you love, you work your ass off.
But other things you won't lift a finger.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, if I don't like it it's always a disaster. And
school was a disaster.


PRINGLE: Well, how dangerous for a personality like that is it to
get a fabulous job like this so easily and such success so easily?


SPEEDMAN: Right.


PRINGLE: I mean, I know everyone's saying it to you,including your
parents, everybody's like --


SPEEDMAN: Cautioning. Being very protective about it.


PRINGLE: Because a) you could be such a jerk or b) you could fail
almost instantly and spend the rest of your life being "Oh."


SPEEDMAN: Well, I guess growing up, being a swimmer and being
surrounded by those people, I mean they don't care about this at
all. When I see them they don't even mention the show at all. They
don't care at all about it. So when I go home it's a real reality
check.


PRINGLE: This is good. All fame is fleeting. It's like Caesar's
slave or whatever, just reminding you.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, it can go away like that. I mean, you go down to
LA, it's a crazy place, and you see people are so screwed up down
there. The actors are all just so involved with the acting and so
involved with trying to get fame and --


PRINGLE: Well, and also I guess with being beautiful too. You hear
about the cast of "Friends" who are terrific and have done
terrifically well: they all got thinner and thinner and they all got
-- I mean, this how you look --


SPEEDMAN: Affected.


PRINGLE: I mean you can't not be because everyone then is just
projecting stuff on you.


SPEEDMAN: What happens is, I mean, you know, to a degree it happens
with our show: the more attention you get the more you realize that
people are watching you, you start to get more self- conscious.


PRINGLE: [pretending to look into mirror] "Oh, I have another
highlight." You can look at yourself and say, "Oh, I have a glint
here. A diamond in my tooth. Lose another pound or so."


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, and you notice the guys aren't any better, man. I
mean the guys are just as bad.


PRINGLE: Of course.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, it's weird. But I'm not doing that.


PRINGLE: You say!


SPEEDMAN: [laughs] I'm not. I've been pretty good with that, all
that stuff.


PRINGLE: But you don't know what's going to happen. The show's so
far really a success.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, it's doing well. I mean, the show is going well,
we're making good shows. I don't know what the ratings are but we're
making a good show, so.


PRINGLE: And you're working seven days a week.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah, pretty much.


PRINGLE: And even on American Thanksgiving --


SPEEDMAN: American Thanksgiving.


PRINGLE: -- you're here, back home seeing the family in Toronto.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah.


PRINGLE: And coming onto Canada AM.


SPEEDMAN: Yeah.


PRINGLE: Well, we're grateful to you. It's really nice to meet you.
I'll get your autograph for my daughter.


SPEEDMAN: Oh, sure, sure. No problem. Nice to meet you.


PRINGLE: Thanks, Scott.


SPEEDMAN: No problem.