Spotlight

Mark Rendall’s on call

Mark Rendall was in Brooklyn, on his way to play pool, when he answered three questions that earned him the lead in director David Bezmozgis’s Victoria Day.

“The first question was ‘How long is your hair?’ The second question was ‘Can you skate?’ And the third question was ‘Can you play hacky sack?’,” Rendall recalls of his utterly chance phone conversation/audition with Bezmozgis.

Rendall, a 20-year-old Toronto actor (Childstar, Charlie Bartlett) had just finished shooting director Bradley Rust Grey’s The Exploding Girl and was heading out to shoot pool with Grey when the director got a call from his pal Bezmozgis, in a panic. Victoria Day was set to shoot in two weeks and Bezmozgis was still without a lead actor. “Brad just handed me the phone and was like, ‘Here, talk to David.’”

Those three questions were relevant to Victoria Day’s central character, Ben Spektor, the 16-year-old son of Russian immigrants who comes of age in the spring of 1988 (coincidentally, the year Rendall was born). The first and third questions had to do with the film’s era, and the skating question was because Ben plays AAA hockey. Rendall’s answer? “I used to, but I’d probably have to practice a little bit.”

The script was written by Bezmozgis, based on his own experiences, which is why Rendall had to look no further than his director for inspiration. “There were certain mannerisms that David had,” says Rendall. “Being very reserved in what he says and what he doesn’t say…. There was just a timbre in the voice, a sort of fluidity that I think comes from speaking Russian.”

Playing a version of your boss could be stressful, but it didn’t seem to faze Rendall, who says, “I didn’t fully realize that I was mimicking him until after the film.”

–Marni Weisz