Yellowknife (July 23/04) - Director Chris Gamble recruited professional actors Liam Karry and Tennille Read to star in Versus Ivan.

All three are recent graduates of Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.

Karry plays Ivan Schulloppses and Read plays Miriya Huxley, Ivan's colleague and love interest.

Yellowknifer went on-set to speak with the sleep-deprived Karry and Read about the shoot, dragonflies and Western alienation.

On filming a scene in an alley where Ivan beats up a homeless man and throws him in a dumpster:

Karry: So I'm pummelling the bejeezus out of this poor guy and this random passerby walks up and starts taking off his coat like he wants to fight me. He says "Excuse me, but is that really necessary?" and I'm like stuttering and Robert (Butler) starts laughing.

Read: But it's good to know that someone would step in.

Karry: Ivan didn't beat up a guy randomly. The guy was stealing from him. He has one regular event in his day and the homeless guy disrupts it. Everything's going wrong and he fixes on this guy.

I've seen people do that in real life. Like, my life is all off-kilter, but (Karry grabs reporter's banana mocha muffin) if I have this muffin, it will be OK. If I have my muffin, it will be OK.

What will they do if you take their muffin away? They snap.

Read: Stop touching her muffin, she might want to eat that.

On not being from Toronto:

Karry: We went to this bar, and someone announced it was my birthday and people were great. I got a lot of drinks bought for me. But it was like "it's your birthday and we'll be nice to you, despite the fact that you're from Toronto."

Grand Bend is four and a half hours from Toronto. We hate Toronto. But that doesn't matter. Out here, if you're from Ontario, you're from Toronto.

On an all night shoot in Parker Park:

Karry: That was fun. I could talk about that for an hour.

Read: We all had the mosquito hats and jackets. There was plastic wrap over our apparatus, and with the lights and the people in what looked like biohazard suits, it made it eerie. It was like a totally different movie.

Karry: Just for the record, I wasn't wearing one of those. I'm acting and looking out at everyone else covered head to toe and I'm wearing this (Karry is in rolled up shirt sleeves, with tie and slacks). Since coming up here I've become a lot more pro-dragonfly.

Read: I want to breed them.

Karry: I love how monster-size they are.

Read: In the south they're dainty and colourful.

Karry: And here they're like massive. Someone told me they need to be that big to take out the mosquitoes. You go, dragonflies. Go get 'em.

On their Wednesdays off:

Read: We catch up on sleep. We've been boating and swimming in Great Slave Lake. We've gone mini-golfing. We've been to Bullock's, the Noodle House, Boston Pizza. I think we've eaten everywhere except A&W.

Karry: I've had a root beer there.

When I've been acting a solid 18 hours, I don't want to talk, I don't want to think, I don't want to feel any emotions myself. I just want to go home and play video games or stare at the ceiling.

On the shoot:

Karry: Everyone's first priority is the project. Everyone wants the project to succeed. It's a huge learning experience for everybody and all these people are really pumped about it.

We're all relatively young. The impressive thing is I honestly believe it's going to be a good quality product.

Read: I trust him (Chris Gamble). He's got this vision. You get on board with him and he'll make it work.