Arts & Culture - Armenian Reporter

Two degrees of separation
Manuel Kanian is
currently appearing in The
Vampyre, at Pennsylvania’s
Footlighters Theater
by Elyssa
Karanian
PHILADELPHIA – It’s September 26,
2008, and I’m sitting in a conference room
interviewing Manuel (Mano) Kanian. Exactly
one year ago, Mano was sitting on
a plane, returning to the United States
after an extended stay in Armenia.
I met Mano for the first time while
we were both living and working in
Hayastan. My good friend Sevana, who
had been introduced to him earlier and
was surprised at my initial ignorance,
described him this way: “He’s the super-tall,
long-haired, European-looking,
diaspora-Armenian (hot) actor who was
in Mi Vakhetsir.” Confused by all the
“dashy” descriptions, and not even (at
the time) knowing what mi vakhetsir
(don’t be scared) meant, let alone that it
was a movie, I just nodded. Two weeks
later I met him and finally understood
the hyphenations. He was indeed a
quintessential cool guy.
Now, one year later, away from the
craziness of a summer in Hayastan and
ensconced in a quiet, air-conditioned
conference room in downtown Philadelphia,
I get to find out what is behind all
of Manuel Kanian’s hyphens.
Philadelphia and Toronto
Mano got his start in acting at the Armenian
Sisters’ Academy in Radnor, Pennsylvania,
where he frequently played the
leads in Vartanants shows. His interest in
acting remained piqued throughout high
school and Mano eventually found himself
declaring a major in theater at York
University in Toronto. During his freshman
year, Mano was acting in Hamazkayin
theater under the direction of Seta
Keshishian. At the same time, Atom
Egoyan was casting for Ararat. Egoyan
asked Keshishian if she knew anyone
who could fill the role of Raffi. She recommended
Mano.
Before the audition, Egoyan graciously
met with Mano several times to assist
him with the script and the reading process.
While Mano did not get the part of
Raffi, Egoyan decided to give him an “under
five” (a role with less than five lines).
Ararat was shot in Toronto in 2001,
when Mano was still an undergraduate
at York. “I learned a lot from being on
that set about how small film has to be,”
he tells me. “It’s all here,” he says as he
draws his hands to his face and makes
a finger-cage around his eyes. “It’s the
thought process that comes through
without dialogue. That much I learned
because I didn’t look the part. I learned
that by watching [Egoyan’s] films.”
Though he went on to perform in a
number of independent student films
and plays during college, the premiere
of Ararat, on September 4, 2002, marked
Mano’s first appearance in a professional
production.
Ararat opens doors
After Ararat, Mano worked with pop sensation
Arsen Grigoryan, appearing in an
ethereal (think tall, breezy grass, fields
of wildflowers, and wind-blown clothes
lines strung with white cotton sheets)
music video, alongside Nazenie Hovhannisyan,
for Grigoryan’s song “Yare Martu
Yara Gdah.” He also worked with Roger
Kupelian on the trailer of East of Byzantium,
and did commercial voice-overs for
Armenia Marriott.
Most noteworthy, however, and the
highlight of my friend Sevana’s initially
confusing description of the one-andonly
Manuel Kanian, was Mano’s work
on Mi Vakhetsir, Hrach Keshishian’s film
about the Karabakh war. Mano played
a principal role, appearing as the Diaspora-Armenian.
Mi Vakhetsir was shot in Karabakh
for nearly two months in 2006. The actors
and production crew stayed in Stepanakert
but filmed all over the country,
with a majority of the fighting scenes
Right: “The passion
to act was born within
me,” Mano says.
Left: Promotional
poster from Mi
Vakhetsir (Don’t
be Afraid). Below:
Mano appearing as
David Khan in the
play “Social Security”
which appeared at the
Footlighters theater in
Berwin.
filmed in Aghdam. Despite the somber
nature of the subject matter, Mano remembers
his experience as “fun.” “We all
lived together in one house and we became
a big family – we were like brothers,”
he recalls. “When we had days off, we
would go out and see plays in the city.”
Mano has fond memories of Armenia.
“The actors were very welcoming,”
he says. “They loved the fact that I was
there and trying to work in Armenia
and on the Armenian cause.” That love
The “Bacon Number”
The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a
game, invented in 1994 by three students
at Albright College, which is
based on the small-world concept and
the assumption that any actor can be
linked to Kevin Bacon through the
roles he or she has played. The “Bacon
Number” of an actor is the number of
the degrees of separation between he
or she and Bacon.
When I first tried to figure out if Mano
had a “Bacon Number,” I came up (excitedly!)
with five. Here is my chart:
1. Mano worked with Atom Egoyan
on the movie Ararat (2002).
was returned tenfold. Mano extended
his trip many times to accommodate
more work – including volunteering at
the 2007 Golden Apricot Film Festival
in Yerevan. (He had plenty of experience
in film festivals, being one of the original
committee members responsible for
starting the Pomegranate Armenian
Film Festival in Toronto.)
Eventually, though, it was time to return
to the States. “I regretted coming
home like three days after I got back,”
he tells me of his return to Philadelphia.
“In Armenia I really felt like I was an actor.
Walking around the streets, people
know you… and people would come up
to me, they would encourage me.”
That encouragement is what drives
Mano forward to achieve his “ultimate
goal of becoming a Yerevan-based Hollywood
actor.” But how does Mano deal
with discouragement “Look,” he says,
“much of my work has been historically
based. The problem with that is that
there is much more fuel for people to
judge and criticize. When you hear negatives
about your work, and your work is
about Armenian history, you take it that
much more personally… it matters that
much more. But my main reasoning for
getting into film is to educate. If I had
my choice, I would always do Armenian
stories. And I truly think the positives
outweigh the negatives.”
Mano will appear in the stage adaptation
of John Polidori’s thriller The Vampyre,
through November 1, at Footlighters
Theater in Berwyn, Pennsylvania.
For show times, dates, and tickets, visit
footlighterstheater.com.
f
connect:
mailme@manuelkanian.com
2. Actor Scott Speedman is staring in
Egoyan’s new film, Adoration (2008).
3. Speedman co-starred with Kurt
Russell in Dark Blue (2002).
4. Russell appeared in Vanilla Sky
(2001) with Tom Cruise.
5. Cruise appeared in A Few Good
Men (1992) with Kevin Bacon.
When I casually threw into a conversation
with Mano that his “Bacon
Number” was five, he corrected me:
“Nope,” he said, “it’s two. Kevin Bacon
played the role of Lanny in the
2005 movie Where the Truth Lies, written
and directed by Atom Egoyan. I
worked with Egoyan on Ararat.” Mano
ties with Michelle Pfeiffer.
C4 Armenian Reporter Arts & Culture November 1, 2008