Russell Peters hates hockey. Or at least he did growing up in Brampton. Now, he says he’s still not a fan. It’s a strange admission given that the comedian and actor is the star of Breakaway, a hockey-themed comedy set to have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Set in the Indo-Canadian community in suburban Toronto and tinged with the same sports-and-cross-cultural conflicts as Bend It Like Beckham, it features Vinay Vermani, the film’s co-writer, as an aspiring Sidney Crosby.
His Stanley Cup dreams are at odds with his family’s traditional expectations, which leads him to form his own all-Sikh team.
“It’s a good family film, and I’m not saying that to be facetious,” says Peters. “I’m not saying it’s the next Godfather, but it’s good.” Then, not missing an opportunity for a joke: “When they showed me the final film, I wasn’t mad at them.”
Although Peters admits he’s not a hockey fan — “I hated hockey, when I was a kid, and I still don’t like it,” he says — that didn’t stop him from executive producing Breakaway with his brother and collaborator, Clayton.
“I got the script and really liked it and thought it was a story worth telling, even with the hockey stuff in there,” he says.
Breakaway also stars Camilla Belle (Push; 2005 TIFF entrant The Quiet), Anupam Kher (Bend It Like Beckham), Noureen DeWulf (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past) and Rob Lowe (The West Wing).
“Before I met Rob, I thought, ‘What a good-looking … bastard. I hope he’s a douchebag.’ But he’s not, damn it. He’s so nice,” says Peters.
In addition to walking the red carpet at TIFF, Peters will also be putting on a show of his own when he’s in town as the host of the 26th annual Gemini Awards gala honouring the best in Canadian television.
Peters is no stranger to the Geminis — he won once for best performance or host in a variety program or series and has been nominated four other times.
“This will be a great warm-up for when I host the Emmys,” he jokes. Joking is something the stadium-filling stand-up comic does well — and often. Case in point: He’s on the phone from his home in Las Vegas and says, “I’m in bed, actually, just waiting for your call.”
While Peters is the funniest thing Canada has produced since Jim Carrey, he says this in such a way that it’s unclear whether he’s actually joking.
Unlike his stand-up routine and bedside banter, in his films, Peters has been portraying characters that have been anything but funny.
In the recent sci-fi thriller Source Code, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, he plays a passenger on a train that’s doomed to explode over and over again. And in Breakaway, he plays a New Yorker who moves to Toronto to marry the cousin of the hockey-obsessed Sikh with NHL aspirations.
The characters, according to Peters, are a sign of the times.
“We live in a time [that is] all very surface and shallow,” Peters says.
“When I grew up, we definitely — and definitively — liked things, and we liked them deeply. Whether it was rock or punk or new wave, you were into it and you knew about it. We searched it out in record stores and on university radio stations. Now kids don’t have depth. They trust the radio to tell them what’s good and cool.”
The “douchefestation,” as Peters calls it (a word he is apparently quite fond of), extends beyond merely the kind of music young people are listening to, and it’s not simply a matter of youth, either.
“There are douchebags everywhere,” he says, without continuing to elaborate on his impromptu field guide on the subject. “I work in show business so I should know.”
As Peters runs out of steam on this particular word, which oddly, but perhaps not unexpectedly, happens before he mentions Charlie Sheen, whom Peters joined on Sheen’s Winning tour, he switches gears to talk about his successes and upcoming projects.
He’s one of the most successful comedians in the world, with sold-out tours of North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
His DVDs are best-sellers, as is his recent memoir, Call Me Russell. Forbes magazine ranked him seventh on its list of highest-earning stand-up comics. And he’s got two Hollywood films awaiting release, See If I Care with Eva Mendes, and the ensemble rom-com New Year’s Eve, starring Ashton Kutcher, Katherine Heigl, Zack Efron, Sofia Vergara and Jon Bon Jovi.
He’s also developing a sitcom, I’m With Russell, based on his life.
One thing Peters still hasn’t gotten used to is the fame that comes with his success. “It’s very strange to be recognized by complete strangers,” he says.
“People often say my material back to me, like, ‘Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad.’ I don’t hear that enough. I’ll tell you, when I’m going to mind is when people don’t want to take their picture with me.
“That’ll be bad.”