Christopher Morris for DESK SPACEDESK SPACE Who?
CHRISTOPHER MORRIS I am an actor, director and playwright living in Toronto and am the artistic director of the theatre company Human Cargo.
DS When did you start becoming interested in acting or get your first role?
CM My first official play was playing some kind of grave digging person in grade three in a version of A Christmas Carol at my elementary school in Markham, Ontario called Kateri Tekakwitha. My first "real" play was in grade nine in a collective abouhigh school called The Highschool Zone, I played a nerd and a tough guy.
DS Where do you come up with ideas for your characters?
CM I always get ideas about my character from the script. Sometimes I feel like I get too "outer" and looking for effect if I look outside the script.
DS Why do you work where you do?
CM On a smaller scale, I work in my small farm house in Toronto. It's a perfect kind of oasis from the city, at times I feel like I don't live in a city because it's tucked away off the street, but great because I can get right into the middle of the city whenever I want. Over the last few years I have been creating work with my company in places outside Toronto (some of them being - Nunavut, Iceland, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Republic of Georgia, Petawawa, Yellowknife). Working in places outside my culture help keep me off-balance in a way and make me try to find new ways in, or new ways to create things.
DS What was the last play or film you watched?
CM The last film I watched was Polytechnique, the last play I watched was Cloud Nine.
DS What are you working on now?
CM I am working as an actor on an extremely dirty adaptation of Racine's Andromache, and organising upcoming workshops for Human Cargo. One is called The Runner and is about ZAKA (I'm writing and acting in this), the other is called Petawawa and is about how the war in Afghanistan affects the families of Canadian, Pakistani, Afghan and Taliban soldiers (I'm directing this one).
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