X-MEN STAR SHAWN ASHMORE PLAYS A DIFFERENT KIND OF HERO IN BLOODLETTING & MIRACULOUS CURES

Naked Eye sat down with Shawn on the Toronto set of Bloodletting to talk about the series, the move into character-driven TV drama, and the legacy of the hard-drinking doctor.

Basically,Bloodlettingfollows three characters – Fitz, who I play, Ming, played by Mayko Nguyen, and Chen, played by Byron Mann. It’s a story of these characters, following them from med school, through residency, to them becoming real doctors. It’s an interesting arc, spanning a ten-year period. It looks at a more personal side of medicine. It’s not like a procedural medical melodrama. I mean, there certainly are some pretty amazing things we deal with in the hospital, but it’s more about what happens with these characters and the love triangle that develops between them.

Did you have to hang around a hospital or shadow anyone to get a sense of the character?

Years and years ago I did a show where I played a paramedic so I did ride-alongs in an ambulance here in Toronto, which was amazing. When we started getting Bloodletting together we hung out with some med school residents that were around our characters’ ages. We went out for drinks and they told us the good, the bad and the ugly. And to be honest, most of it was ugly. And we spent time with medical advisors learning how to do certain things so we don’t look like we’re faking it.

So if there’s a medical emergency on set, you’d be prepared?

I could take care of business, yeah. Or at least be able to convincingly pretend that I could.

In some of your bigger roles you had to play very iconic characters, whether they’re Marvel Comics characters or national hero Terry Fox in the 2005 TV movie Terry, also produced by Shaftesbury Films. Is it nice to come to a role where the audience may not place a burden of expectation on you?

Well, it’s a Giller-award-winning novel, so people definitely have expectations of it. You still feel like you don’t want to screw it up. But it’s not as bad. Playing Iceman, there are decades and decades of material and all these fans have all these different expectations. So there is a bit of pressure here, but maybe to a lesser degree.

How does the pace of shooting Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures compare to that of a feature film? I mean, with this you’re working 14- or 16-hour days, and a lot of the time you’ll be in every scene.

I prefer this sort of schedule. You spend all these long hours working and you’re always moving and forced to think on your feet. Sometimes you wish you had a little more time to do takes, but personally, this kind of pressure helps me step it up.

How does it feel to go from something like the big-budget X-Men trilogy to a series like this, which is a bit lighter on superpowers and special effects and is more character-driven?

It’s great. I think they’re two completely different ways of approaching character. But, I mean at the end of the day, whether I’m playing a superhero or an everyday guy, I approach them the same way. No matter who it is, if it’s Terry Fox or Bobby Drake or Fitz, I find something in that character that I can relate to. And I hope it will relate to how other people see these characters.

So what’s your angle with Fitz? What about his personality relates to you?

The three things I’m trying to hold onto are his sense of humour, his sense of loss and his sensitivity. On the outside he’s this gruff, cynical, alcoholic womanizer, but those are all symptoms of who he is at the core. It’s this core that I have to connect with.

Well, now you’re part of a great tradition of substance-abusing genius doctors, from Hawkeye Pierce right through to Hugh Laurie on House.

It’s very cool. It’s really fun to play those scenes when I’m inebriated in the workplace. I mean obviously he’s not wasted. But he has that ease with people. I saw an interview with the Coen brothers talking about The Big Lebowski, and apparently they told Jeff Bridges to always act as if he’d just smoked a joint. I thin