Jason Priestley

by Jason Priestley

  What I remember most clearly from those days is sitting in a circle around our teacher, Corky, as he played his acoustic guitar while we kids sang “Up on Cripple Creek,” “Kumbaya,” and other folk songs. Corky had crocheted a brown vest for himself with a huge lightbulb shooting rays of light in yellow on its front. He wore that vest every single day, rain or shine, hot or cold. Deodorant was not something anyone at that school cared about. That was fine in the winter, but things got mighty fragrant in the spring and fall. Lunch was always raw almonds, millet, greens . . . which funnily enough seems quite trendy and acceptable now. But back in the age of processed foods? It was simply unheard of.

  Truly, there was a great deal of sitting in a circle and listening to guitar music, though we must have learned our ABCs and numbers and how to read somewhere along the way. I had a strong pragmatic streak even as a child; I knew this wasn’t exactly the way school was meant to be. Still, I went along with the program docilely enough for several years.

  During Caveman Week in the fourth grade, we all dressed up in ratty old furs and grunted, using sign language as we pretended to be cavemen in the basement of the school. We were given actual dead fish to use as props as we pretended to catch food by hand like real caveman did. The fish, our food, were then stored on shelves in our “caves.” Some of the fish, of course, fell behind the shelves or were discarded someplace else, and as the week wore on they began to rot. The whole place smelled horrible. Beyond awful.

  None of my fellow “cavemen” seemed to be bothered. When I tried to talk to them about how we should deal with the rotting fish and resulting smell in our midst, nobody was particularly responsive. That included the teachers. It was at that moment I realized it was definitely time to seek new educational opportunities.

  On the way home from school my sister and I talked it over, and that night I spoke to our mother. “Listen, Mom, I can’t do this anymore. I need to go to a real school. With classrooms and workbooks and stuff. I’m not learning anything at Windsor House.” It was agreed that starting in fifth grade I would attend public school, and Justine would join me there.

  It wouldn’t be until years later, when I had children of my own, that I would realize I was receiving a great education at Windsor House. I only had the confidence, as a nine-year-old, to question my mother’s educational choices for me because of the type of education I was receiving.

  Windsor House is still going strong and is a beloved and well-respected school in Vancouver.

  On Set

  Vancouver

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  Fletcher’s Meats was Canada’s equivalent to Oscar Mayer—a purveyor of breakfast meats. The company was looking for kids to star in a series of three commercials, and I landed one of the roles. A kid named Bernie Coulson was cast as my brother. We did look somewhat alike; he, too, had blond hair and blue eyes. The two of us hit it off right away. Bernie was fun. He had a mischievous gleam in his eye and was an explosion of energy.

  Seven years later we’d be in a crappy 1967 Coupe de Ville on our way to L.A., but for the moment we were ten- and twelve-year-old kids, wearing goofy ’70s clothes for “summertime fun” commercials. We all sang a song that went: “I love Fletcher’s, it’s the most fun you can eat; wieners, bacon and sausages, ham and luncheon meat. You can put it on the bottom, you can put it on the top, you can make it up all fancy, you can feed it to your pop. . . .” There was plenty more, but you get the idea. Dear God. It was all so very . . . 1979.

  This series of three commercials played constantly all summer; there was no escaping them if you lived in Canada and turned on your television. They didn’t do much for me besides get the crap beaten out of me in the school yard on the first day of fifth grade at my new school.

  I wasn’t paid a tremendous amount, and in Canada, with its significantly smaller population, residuals were not nearly what they would be for a commercial in the United States. Still, the money I earned on the commercials was enough to buy my heart’s desire: a YZ80 two-stroke dirt bike. It was pretty much the perfect vehicle for breaking your arm. I managed not to break any bones, although a couple of my friends did.

  While I enjoyed my new bike, Vancouver’s nascent film and television business ebbed and flowed; it went into a very quiet period for the next several years as the Fletcher’s commercials mercifully faded from the airwaves. I returned to my regularly scheduled childhood.

  Vancouver

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  During my high school years (the real ones), I kept myself busy in the theater department.

  Delta High School had a beautiful new theater and a genius drama teacher named Ilene Jo Roitman, who also taught the comedian and MADtv actor Will Sasso.

  The summer in between my junior and senior years I got a call from Fiona who asked, “Hey, what are you doing? Want to work as a stand-in on a film called Hero in the Family?” It made for a nice break from painting houses and crewing on boats at the Vancouver Yacht Club. I immediately accepted the job as a stand-in and stunt double for an actor out of New York named Christopher Collet. The film was a Disney Sunday movie of the week, a wacky comedy about an astronaut and a chimpanzee switching brains that also featured a teenaged Annabeth Gish, who later appeared on The X-Files and The West Wing. I kept my distance from the chimp and soaked up the atmosphere.

  An older woman, a British actress named June Whitaker, showed up for a few days to shoot a small role. I could see, just watching the few scenes she appeared in, that she really knew what she was doing. This woman could act, so I started paying attention to her off-camera as well. Before they called action, June stood off by herself making faces and gestures; I couldn’t imagine what she was doing, so I approached her one day and asked, “What were you doing just before they shot that scene?”

  “Preparing,” she said. “Working on my instrument . . .”

  I was lost. “What’s that?”

  “I teach acting, you know. Why don’t you come to one of my classes and see what it’s all about?” she said.

  “I will,” I promised her.

  I had taken lots of acting classes, with several different teachers, but there was something very special about this woman. She was approaching her work differently than I had ever seen before. I soon learned that June had arrived in Vancouver from New York five years earlier and opened an acting school. She was a part of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York for thirteen years prior to that and introduced a new level of teaching to Vancouver. Over the next five years, June’s school would produce countless successful actors from Vancouver: Bernie Coulson, Nicholas Lea, Christianne Hirt, and Martin Cummins, to name a few. Her teachings of the “Method” could be controversial, but also very effective. I met her at just the right time in my life when I was looking for more. I knew I needed to become a better actor. I knew I needed to grow in order to bring more to my work, but I didn’t know how. I was passionate about learning all that she had to teach.

  As soon as Hero in the Family wrapped, Chris Collet got cast in an episode of The Hitchhiker, and I moved along with him to serve as his stunt double/stand-in once again. Chris then returned to New York and completely fell off the show business radar. I returned to painting houses for the last couple weeks of the summer to earn money for June’s classes and prepared for my senior year of high school.

  By that time I was working steadily and traveling to Los Angeles to meet with agents.

  I was laser focused on the new life that would be mine in less than one year. Most of my friends were looking forward to enjoying a great senior year and preparing for college. Of course, my training didn’t end with June, but the time I spent with June and in June’s class changed the way I thought about acting. My path was set. I was a working actor already. I knew then that a move to Los Angeles was in the offing for me. It was just a question of when.

  Lower Lonsdale

  “North Van”

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  I enrolled in night classes at June’s school and was soon co
mpletely immersed in her training. I knew very little about Method acting, and even less about improvisation. June’s course involved a tremendous amount of improv exercises that threw me at first, but which I soon came to enjoy. We did lots of one-on-one and group improvs; I found them all to be incredibly beneficial. This training forced me to learn to think much more quickly on my feet, as well as how to be more naturally reactive in the moment.

  Who should show up in acting class right around the time I joined but my buddy from the infamous Fletcher’s Meats commercial, Bernie. Immediately, we were thick as thieves again, playing off each other at improvs, laughing, telling jokes, having a blast. There were other teenagers in our class as well as middle-aged moms, kids, and retirees: a full spectrum of ages. This wide cross section of people made our interactions very dynamic. June made sure everybody was matched with the right partner and groups to get the most out of the experience. She was an inspiring teacher and pushed me hard to excel. Every minute I spent in her class was valuable.

  IN THE FALL of my senior year, Fiona called me to alert me of a new FOX show called 21 Jump Street that had begun production in Vancouver. I auditioned for one of the first-season shows and was cast in an episode called “Mean Streets and Pastel Houses.” The show was about the punk rock scene and a group of disaffected middle-class kids who fall under the spell of an evil but charismatic punk rocker. I played a kid who called himself Tober—short for October, “the time of year when everything dies,” as one of my lines read.

  The company was shooting late at night in a local park. I parked my motorcycle on the street and walked over to where I saw a few guys I knew from around the Vancouver acting scene. We were all waiting to be told what to do when a young guy in a studded black leather jacket walked right up to me and said, “Hey, how are you doing? I’m John,” and stuck his hand out.

  We shook as he asked my name. “Jason, great. The director’s on his way over and we’re gonna get this thing going here in a few minutes. Need some coffee? It’s right over there. Sound good?”

  It was very cool that the star of the show was so warm and gracious. The way he greeted me that first night of work made quite an impression. Johnny Depp was a polite, friendly, all-around great guy. I was a high school kid, feeling a little uneasy my first time on a new set. Having the star of the show, the guy who was number one on the call sheet, come right up to me, ask my name, and shake hands set an example I appreciated and try to emulate to this day.

  Shortly, I was sent over to the makeup trailer. I had long hair at the time—actually, I had a mullet going—so it took a while to slick it all down and refashion it into a faux Mohawk. This is something that would never happen today; producers and audiences demand authenticity. Now an actor would have to shave his head and wear a real Mohawk for that part. But fortunately, this was the 1980s, and my beloved mullet was spared.

  As I sat in the hair chair being prepped, the trailer door opened and one of the most stunning girls I had ever seen walked in and plopped herself down in the makeup chair. She was young, as were all the cast members in this show about undercover police officers, but clearly a bit older than I was. Holly Robinson was the only female regular on 21 Jump Street. I could not take my eyes off her. Our eyes met in the mirror, and I smiled. She smiled back, then quickly looked away.

  A production assistant rushed into the trailer and handed Holly some new script pages. “Freddy’s done some last-minute rewrites to your scenes,” he said, and rushed back out.

  “Of course he has,” Holly murmured and shook her head, rolling her eyes just a bit, but only kiddingly. Freddy was Fredric Forrest, the actor who played the captain on the show for the first six episodes before being recast with Steven Williams. Apparently, last-minute rewriting took place quite frequently. Holly and I made some small talk about Vancouver and there was an obvious attraction between us. When my complicated hairstyle was done and I was summoned to the set, I made some lame comment about hoping to see her later and exited. Smooth.

  The crew had the scene all set up and ready to go. I sat in the backseat of a car, taking a last deep breath, when all of a sudden the door popped open and director Jim Whitmore jumped in, shoved me over, and sat down beside me. He looked me straight in the eye and demanded, “What the fuck is going on with you? Why the fuck are you saying this line? What the fuck is really happening? How the fuck are you feeling, and why? I want you to ask yourself . . . WHY!?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He scrambled back over me and out of the car, slammed the door, ran to his camera, and called “Action!”

  I sat there in shock, in my punk getup and fake Mohawk, wondering what the hell had just happened. He certainly got my attention . . . and a genuine reaction. I had never met a director like Jim before. The two of us really connected on that show. He energized me and inspired me—so much so that years later, on 90210, I recommended that he come and direct an episode. One episode became eleven episodes, and we worked together for years. I even got Jim to act in an episode I was directing. He was a talented and all-around good guy.

  Shooting that episode of 21 Jump Street was one of most fun weeks of my life. I became friendly with Johnny and his stand-in, Bruce Corkham. Johnny was at a great place in his career—a young star on the rise, for sure, dating another rising star, the stunningly beautiful Sherilyn Fenn. His fame was still quite new and he was still able to walk around Vancouver and live normally without being mobbed or needing security. He definitely had that 1980s bad-boy look down to a tee: off the set he always dressed in jeans, a black leather jacket, a bandanna, and combat boots.

  Johnny was not a guy who talked much, but he had some good stories when he got going. He had recently finished shooting Platoon, where he’d been basically one of the “kids” on the set observing Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe. He told us all about how exotic shooting in the Philippines had been, how hot and tropical the weather. As another “kid,” for real, I couldn’t get enough of these work stories.

  The week was tiring, as we shot all night and then I headed off to class every morning, but no sleep was a small price to pay. I soon learned that Holly had a boyfriend—of course she did—but that was okay for now. I had to return to high school.

  Downtown Vancouver

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  I made several trips down to Los Angeles to see Frank Levy. Frank was a producer as well as a manager. He had visited Vancouver during the winter of 1986 to produce a movie starring Ed Asner, a family Christmas film in which Ed played Santa Claus.

  “Kid, you’ve got something,” he had told me. “Come out to L.A. and I’ll introduce you to some people. If you move to L.A., you can take a real shot at becoming an actor.” He had a special corporate rate for his clients to stay at the Beverly Garland Hotel . . . I think it was $69 a night.

  I went on some auditions and met with some of the agents Frank recommended. The reception was good. Frank and I made serious plans for my move as soon as I finished school. If there was one thing I loved about Los Angeles, it was the weather. If there was one thing that surprised me, it was how spread out the city was. Immediately after graduation ceremonies, it was time to move to L.A. But first I had one more acting job—another guest appearance on 21 Jump Street.

  Vancouver in those days was a very small town, acting-wise. Every young person in the business passed through the 21 Jump Street set at one point or another. This episode was about the perils of underage drinking—in particular, teenage drunk-driving accidents. I played a cool high school kid with a truly impressive mullet. Pauly Shore appeared in a featured role as a hard-partying teenager named TJ, dancing around a table in a bar waving a pool cue.

  Holly and I did not have any scenes together, but I found out that she no longer had a boyfriend. On the set she gave me her number and casually said that I should give her a call sometime. Holly was twenty-two and I was seventeen. I was beyond psyched. I called; we set a date, and on the appointed night I rode my motorcycle downtown and met her for dinner. One date and I
was hooked. I could not wait to see her again.

  We had a couple more dates and I was falling hard, but the new life that I’d spent the past two years preparing for was beckoning. I sold my bike, packed up my possessions, and boarded a plane to L.A. It was time to see what I was made of.

  Hollywood

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  Seventeen years old, a brand-new high school diploma in my back pocket, and raring to go. No more room at the Beverly Garland Hotel for me; I was a resident, not a visitor! My manager, Frank, helped set me up in a small place in Oakwood Gardens on Barham Boulevard, an apartment complex where all the newly single dads and out-of-work actors in L.A. came to live. Another young actor from Canada whom Frank managed, Paul Johansson, was also renting there, so at least I had one friend in the building.

  Frank himself lived only a couple of miles away but a world apart from our drab housing. His house was in a gorgeous part of Toluca Lake, filled with tasteful, beautiful homes on large grassy lots. Kids rode bikes and frolicked with their dogs on perfect green lawns in what could have easily passed as a movie set for the ideal American neighborhood. I marveled at the beautiful suburban neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley and the endless sunshine.