Recent History – 2004
By Gary Rusak, Daily News Staff
For Dawson Creek’s Citizen of the Year, working in the movies is not always glamorous.
“We were shooting at Stanley Park at 3 o’clock in the morning,” begins Ed Rosales, former Shaw Cable 10 broadcaster, recounting a day of shooting on the feature film Fierce People, to be released in December. “It’s April and all I am wearing is (body paint), when the director says ‘cut’ I had to run to the trailer and put a blanket all over me, it was so cold.”
The perils of acting are nothing new to Rosales. He was a respected radio and television actor in the Philippines before coming to Canada. In the Mile Zero city, when he could fit it into his busy work schedule, Rosales was known for his roles in local productions like Fiddler on the Roof, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Land of Smiles. After his retirement from Shaw last fall, he and his wife Nina decided to give acting one more shot and headed to Vancouver.
“The challenge is convincing the casting director that you can do it,” he said with a smile. “Just to get the chance.”
In a matter of months, Rosales was filling his schedule with a variety of background and extra parts in television shows such as DaVinci’s Inquest. Then, with the help of his new agent, the big roles started to come in.
“It was uplifting,” he laughed. “I wasn’t that surprised that I got the role, but I was happy about it.”
Rosales biggest role to date is playing a shaman in the upcoming Griffin Dunne feature Fierce People. Rosales appears with academy award nominee Diane Lane in the story of a woman who must travel to South America to save her son.
Although the Vancouver set was chock full of Hollywood heavyweights, Rosales was anything but intimidated.
“Donald Sutherland was there,” he said. “He is OK. We joked and we ate together. You have to act professional; you don’t ask for autographs or take pictures of them you just talk to them properly.”
On the heels of that role, Rosales began work on a television movie entitled Transplant. He says that the roles picking up and that in one day last week he got two calls from his agent about possible jobs.
“She said ‘be here on Monday for a audition for a series’ so I said OK,” he said. “So I have to drive down to Vancouver again in a day or so.”
The hardworking actor mostly spends his time in Vancouver but visits home occasionally to check in with family and friends. Next month he will be back to ride in the Fall Fair parade, a tradition for the Citizen of the Year.
“I come home to pay the taxes,” he cracked.