THE Box Collector marks the fourth time Margot Kidder has come to Winnipeg to make a movie.
But the fourth time turned out to be the charm for the Yellowknife-born actress, who first came to town to star as a stripper in the locally made 1990 comedy Mob Story opposite John Vernon and Al Waxman. She subsequently appeared in smaller roles in the Winnipeg-lensed 1998 horror movie The Clown at Midnight and the 2002 TV movie Society's Child. None of those experiences were sufficient to give Kidder good reason to look forward to returning to do The Box Collector.
"I must confess, before I came up, I thought, 'What am I going to do in Winnipeg for two months?'" she says.
"But I haven't stopped," she says.
Playing the role of Beth, an overprotective mother with a sinister past, has absorbed much of her time. Kidder, 59, has done her bit to realize the character inside and out, including dyeing a white streak in her hair (which she refers to as "the Bonnie Raitt-gone-mad look") and inventing singular character traits, such as popping pills and washing them down with Pepto-Bismol ("Just delicious").
But she has also been absorbing all the cultural events the city has had to offer in the summer, including attending the Winnipeg Folk Festival.
And if you thought you saw the former Lois Lane at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival, you weren't imagining things.
"The fringe festival really knocked me out," she says, adding she made a point of seeing five one-woman shows "because I have some ideas but I can't tell you because you're the press," she says.
"There's some real talent here," she says. "It's a great city and I've fallen head-over-heels in love with it."
In fact, she admits, she is considering buying property here.
Kidder currently lives in Livingstone, Mont., near her daughter, Maggie Kirn, and her two grandchildren, as well as her first husband, author Thomas McGuane. But after officially acquiring American citizenship last year, Kidder says the time may be right to buy a property in Winnipeg.
"I am not going to be absent from (my grandkids) growing up, so it would be half here, half there, or something," she says.
"But I really am seriously thinking of it," she says. "Partly, I've really fallen in love with Winnipeg, but also there's part of me that's going: This is the only big city in Canada that's still wildly affordable."
"And it's so clearly on the rise, and I would say about to be discovered in a big way by a lot of people," she says. "It's a no-lose investment, this city. And culturally, it's thrilling.
"You get the feeling that it's about to kind of burst," she says. "I hope so."
The fact that the city has proven to be a draw for filmmakers is part of the attraction for Kidder, who has long nurtured dreams of directing her own movies.
"I spent a year in an editing room in Vancouver in my early 20s, learning to edit," she says. "I've been wanting to (make films) for a long time. I had started and then it all fell apart when my life kind of fell apart," she says, referring to a widely publicized emotional breakdown in 1996.
"I've had 11 years of being a solid citizen now and I'm ready to pick up that particular ambition again," she says. "I've been acting for more than 40 years and if I haven't learned how to direct a movie at this point, I must have no IQ to speak of."
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