dan macdonald

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Place your minds back to a certain first season episode entitled 'The Headless Nun'. If the words-' pirates' treasure' and' spooky catacombs' don't ring a bell, then maybe the images of Sydney abseiling down a cliff face or narrowly escaping a pitfall will help your recollection.

Set around a convent in Nova Scotia, the episode sees Sydney and Nigel helping a bunch of up-beat nuns in finding the remains of Sister Evangeline, whose body been missing for over 400 years.

In true Relic Hunter style, the episode flashes back to the past to the 1600s, where a bunch of pirates are roaming free on the coast of Nova Scotia.

A good time later in this very part of Canada a certain actor named Dan Macdonald was born. With forty years of experience in all aspects of the entertainment business, Macdonald's part as 'Paul Lapont' in Relic Hunter fitted snuggly in his vast and varied career.

As well as acting, Dan Macdonald is very active in the political side of entertainment and rather like our very own Sydney Fox, is a master at extreme sports.

is delighted that he is able to take time out of his busy schedule to talk about his part in 'The Headless Nun'.

1. How would you sum up your time on Relic Hunter?

It was a good experience. Both Tia and Christien are consummate professionals, and the whole production team was top notch. Everything was very smoothly organized and efficiently executed. That’s not unusual here in Canada, of course, but there are always unseen interruptions on any set. Relic Hunter had been in production for some time before I played the "Paul Laport" character, and our director was fully prepared, so it was like clockwork really. No hassles that I was aware of.

2. How did you go about learning your lines for the script?

I don’t learn "lines" for a part, I learn emotions. Once the emotions are understood for each moment in the scene, the words seem to come quite naturally. When I was approached to do the role, I was given background to the character and filled this in during my interview with the director and producers.

3. How did you find it playing this particular 'baddie'?

Actors are constantly being thrown into unusual situations. Relic Hunter was typical, in that sense. The only unusual thing being, perhaps, a kind of heightened "super reality" inherent in the series. My character was fairly straight forward, given that he was slightly weird to begin with, and I took my job to be to raise questions in the minds of the audience as I dropped bits of information here and there.

4. Did you find anything particularly challenging when working on Relic Hunter?

The most challenging thing on the shoot had nothing to do with the series. It was the weather in Toronto, where pretty well all my scenes were shot. The scene with Tia and Christien outside the gothic buildings (supposed to be a convent?) was filmed during a very hot, sunny day with temperatures off the scale and not a cloud in the sky. I think it was something like 37ºCelcius -that’s hot, hot!- and it was shot in relentless sunshine. You might remember I was wearing a fair amount of clothing. Between scenes, and anytime standing between takes, the crew would shelter us with sunshades and ply us with water. I think I lost a few pounds anyway that day. Tia and Christien fared better since they had breaks while another setup was done. Being in every frame of these scenes, however, I was unable to get away from the set much.

5. How did you find Tia Carrere and Christien Anholt, whilst working with them?

As I said earlier, Tia and Christien are real pros. Tia is less outgoing than Christien, although Christien seemed a bit shyer than Tia, come to think of it. I suspect Tia felt more the weight of the series on her shoulders. They got along splendidly and both were helpful and accommodating to others on the set, actors and technical people alike. The other actors in the episode I already knew and had worked with previously. Looking back on it, I don’t think I came in contact with more than one or two others. All my stuff was with Tia and Christien.

6. Did you watch the final episode. If so, what did you think.

I didn’t catch the final episode, unfortunately. The series seemed popular and interesting.

7. What are you up to at the moment?

I’ve just completed an episode on Doc, a series I think you can view on ABC (or PBS) and am hoping to do another series -on politics and political animals- out of the Maritimes this Fall. I’m at my summer place in Nova Scotia at the moment.