How much did Larysa Kondracki, the co-writer and director of the new political thriller The Whistleblower, want David Strathairn to play a brief but pivotal role in her film? Enough to write a letter to the Prime Minister, asking for an exemption to the rule that limits the number of U.S. actors who can work in Canadian co-productions. (The film also stars Rachel Weisz and Vanessa Redgrave.) Strathairn’s character, an internal affairs agent who helps (or does he?) blow the lid off a scandal, “needed a lot of layering,” Kondracki said in a phone interview. “It needed to be off-balance, subtle. I knew David could pull it off. And boy, did he ever.”
The Whistleblower, which opened in select cities yesterday, is a small-budget movie about a huge, harrowing subject. It’s the true story of Kathryn Bolkovac (Weisz) who, while serving as a United Nations peacekeeper in Bosnia, uncovered an entrenched tangle of human trafficking. To her dawning horror (and ours, watching the film), she learned that not only was there a thriving trade in underage girls forced into becoming sex workers; but also, their clients were the very forces who were there to protect them, including local police and UN employees. When Bolkovac tried to alert the UN, her files were closed, she was fired, and the colleagues she’d accused were reassigned. Eventually, she brought a wrongful dismissal case in the British courts (DynCorp, the for-profit contractor who hired her for the UN, is based in England) and won. But the story hasn’t received much attention in North America – until now (see sidebar).
“So there I was, writing, ‘Dear Prime Minister, you may know David Strathairn’s Oscar-nominated work in movies such as Silkwood, The Firm and Good Night, and Good Luck,’ ” Kondracki said, laughing. “Silkwood is one of my favourite movies of all time. And I love the whole era of seventies filmmaking, all those paranoid thrillers with something to say. David was part of that; he has that prestige and experience. The concept that he was going to do my movie, for scale, was ridiculously great.”
That’s the thing about Strathairn – as familiar a screen presence as he is, you feel like you’re always seeking him out, always discovering him. No matter who he’s playing, he radiates something thoughtful, private, spotlight-shunning. To interview him, I had to wend my way through a maze of corridors in the Toronto studio where he’s currently shooting a series, Alphas, for the SyFy network – past the trailers and offices, deep into the set, dressed to look like a Brooklyn office. A wraparound photograph of the Manhattan skyline, lit for night, pulsed outside the “window.” It was lunch hour, so all was quiet, except for one unseen crew member wailing away on an electric guitar somewhere in the maze.
Finally, at the centre, there was Strathairn, 62, sitting very still on a sofa. His posture was perfect, his manner shy but cordial. He has a soft, throaty voice, square, elegant hands and a good head of hair, now grey. “I was lucky to have this role find me,” he said, with typical modesty. “I read a lot. I like to see what’s out there. And the whole project really felt like Larysa grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and said, ‘We’re going to do this.’ Her passion, dedication and fortitude was evident throughout.
“It’s a nervy film,” he continued. “She isn’t pulling punches. You hope it creates that little man on everyone’s shoulder who should be tapping you, saying, ‘Read between the lines. Why don’t we know about some of these things? What are the forces that keep it from us?’ Very often whistleblower movies have a kind of melodrama to them. But there are such real moments in this.”
