Hollywood actor turns heads in Iqaluit

PATRICIA D’SOUZA

Jason Priestly has an infectious laugh, a proud guffaw that lets anyone within earshot know that he’s there and he’s having a good time.

That laugh has been echoing across the tundra for much of the past week. The actor was in Iqaluit shooting Sleep Murder, a television drama scheduled to air on the CTV network this fall.

The film is based on a true story and casts Priestly as a Toronto lawyer who defends an Inuk, played by Natar Ungalaaq, charged with the murder of two family members.

Priestly is best known for his role as Brandon Walsh on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210.

The actor, who has also dabbled in directing and producing, grew up in British Columbia and has stayed true to his Canadian roots. He has directed a music video for the band The Barenaked Ladies, and heads to Calgary this summer to shoot a movie.

But this was his first time in Nunavut. “I spent my whole life looking at maps of Canada and I always thought it would be a really interesting place to go and see Baffin Island,” he said in an interview on Wednesday at the Discovery Lodge in Iqaluit.

He said the tundra appealed to him and reminded him of the desert outside his Los Angeles home. “There’s something very serene about the desolation. It struck me when I got here, it struck me like the desert. There’s a calm to the desert and there’s a calm to this place too,” he said.

“The weather has been sort of erratic while we’ve been here. I’m sure there are times of the year when it gets much colder. The dryness is something to get used to. It’s incredibly dry up here.”

But weather and landscape aside, Priestly said he was impressed by the people he met – particularly Ungalaaq, who he had previously seen in the movie Atanarjuat.

“Natar is a wonderful actor. And I salute his commitment, his commitment to that part and running naked on the ice for that role and falling in that pool of ice water – naked. He’s hard-core, man. That was awesome,” he said, breaking out in a grin.

But one thing that can’t compare to Hollywood, he said, is the Iqaluit nightlife.

“How can I put this delicately…” he began. “The one thing that’s cool about the Legion is that you get the young people and the old people all hanging out in the same place and all dancing on the same dance floor. That’s something you don’t see every day. It was fun to witness.”

And while he has stopped for many photos with fawning fans and signed many autographs, he said he had to step aside at times for the real star.

“I think Natar signed more autographs than I did,” he said. “It was a new experience for me.”