by Jay Bobbin -- Tribune Media Services
Vital
Statistics – Duncan Regehr.
Birthplace: Canada
Current Residence: Los Angeles (though he intends to return to his native Canada soon).
Appearing
in: “Zorro,” the new version of the classic adventure saga airing each
Friday, Saturday and Sunday on cable’s Family Channel (Cable ch. 28). (The final
showing of the first episode is slated today.) Regehr plays the dual roles of
the aristocratic Don Diego and his masked nighttime alias, the avenger of
wrongdoing who uses his excellent swordsmanship to carve his trademark “Z.” Also
a regular in the series is Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Playing his father.
On playing the new Zorro: “What makes it interesting is that
it’s kind of a two-character role, and that makes it a fine line to walk. I
changed a few things. Rather than playing Don Diego as the typical ‘Scarlet
Pimpernel’ fop, I made him more of a renaissance man. He’s more bookish and more
learned, interested in the arts and science and music, and just about anything
else you can name. That’s also valuable to the other character, because he’s
also a scientist, and he can use whatever he learns as Don Diego. I wanted to do
something new with both characters, and (the producers) said, “That’s fine.”
On updating the Zorro legend: “Some of it can’t be too different. A lot of it relies upon the audience’s acceptance that they know Don Diego is Zorro, but the townspeople don’t know. It’s just as if you looked at Christopher Reeve playing the two characters (of Superman and Clark Kent in the series of ‘Superman’ movies). It would take an idiot not to know that one wasn’t the other, right?
Notable past credits: Regehr’s natural athletic tendencies have come in handy not only for the revival of Zorro, but for many other roles that he’s had during the past decade as well. He played perhaps the ultimate swashbuckler, actor Errol Flynn, in the TV-movie “My Wicked, Wicked Ways”; he was cast as an ancient gladiator in the miniseries “The Last Days of Pompeii”; and he had further physical adventures in two other miniseries, “Goliath Awaits” and the original “V.” A former Olympic boxing contender and champion figure skater, the actor also has appeared in the Disney-produced TV movie “Earthstar Voyager,” the series, “Wizards and Warriors” and TNT’s recent film “Billy the Kid.” A veteran of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Regehr’s theatrical movies include “The Monster Squad,” and he’ll soon be seen in the movie “The Last Samurai.”