In the ensemble drama Sisters&Brothers, Cory Monteith plays Justin, a hot young Hollywood star who’s surrounded by groupies, drugs and other temptations. Although the actor’s achieved overnight fame with a certain pop culture phenomenon called Glee, he admits he’s not much like the movie’s character.
“But I see a lot of that in Hollywood,” he says, sitting in a private room in the Hazelton Hotel restaurant and looking as boy-next-door wholesome as Glee’s Finn. “It’s something I hope I never turn into. I hope I never get that far away from what matters.”
Working with director Carl Bessai’s technique of improvisation, Monteith helped develop the character with friend Dustin Milligan, who plays his brother Rory, a has-been actor who’s recently devoted his life to charity work in Africa. In real life, the two have known each other for years. As struggling actors, they roomed together in Vancouver and waitered in the same restaurant while trying to secure auditions.
Monteith, who’s never improvised before, said the two actors worked out the basic dynamics of the sibling relationship beforehand.
“What was really freeing was the amount of input we had on the storyline,” he says. “It felt like Dustin and I really shaped where we were going to go in this relationship, and what milestones we’d hit in that brother relationship.”
And how does he keep his perspective when he can barely walk a block without getting recognized by Gleeks? (By the way, he’s tight-lipped about whether next year will be his last one on the series.)
“I say ‘No’ to a lot of shit,” he says. “I think that’s where [irresponsible behaviour] starts: in the land of ‘Yes,’ in the land of ‘Everything’s free and everything’s yours.’ I have very specific boundaries.”
He also says that while his life has changed a lot in the past few years, many other things help keep him grounded.
“I still get up and put my pants on one leg at a time,” he says, laughing. “There are always the great equalizers: things like laundry and airport security lineups.”
Sisters&Brothers screens again Tuesday (September 13), 8:30 pm, at the AMC 6, and September 17, 3:30 pm, at Jackman Hall.
