More precisely, Endings will premiere September 17 at 6:30 PM at the Roy Thomson Hall. At this point, we don’t know whether or not Tricia Helfer, as one of the film’s stars, is planning to attend, but although the TIFF website does not list Tricia as an “expected guest” (unlike e.g. director Sobol and co-star Harvey Keitel), the Sep 17 premiere is listed as a “Premium Screening” on the TIFF website, likely meaning it will be a star event. And if this of Tricia’s tweets via her Twitter account @trutriciahelfer is anything to go by…

Looks like I’m going to have to give it a try…or two : ) | torontolife.com: TIFF Cocktail List (Aug 28)

Unless Tricia confirms her attendance intentions explicitly via her various official outlets, we can’t say for sure she will be there, but keep your eyes peeled for pictures around September 17 anyway. After all, it is the film’s world premiere in her homeland of Canada… Fingers crossed!

The description as follows:

Duke White (Harvey Keitel) hasn’t been an ideal father to his five boys. An inveterate gambler who never experienced a windfall he couldn’t blow within twenty-four hours, he has come to the end of his rope, literally. Years ago, he signed up his three eldest sons for unsafe drug tests that turned out to have dire consequences: the boys’ life expectancy have been substantially reduced. Upon receiving the news after their father’s funereal, the sons return to their family home in Niagara Falls, where they respond to their eminent demises in different yet equally hilarious ways.

Womanizing Cal (Scott Caan) is determined to hook up with Miranda (Tricia Helfer), the one girl who got away. Cautious Jacob (Paulo Costanzo), the only son with a real job, is determined to take every risk he didn’t take earlier, usually accompanied by Duke’s youngest son, Todd (Siam Yu). And finally there’s his eldest, Nuts (Jason Jones), a boxer turned promoter who seems to have inherited his father’s love of the calamitous long shot.

Written and directed with a keen sense of father-son awareness, Jonathan Sobol’s A Beginner’s Guide to Endings features crackling dialogue and bravura performances. Keitel is hilarious and affecting as a man who can’t even broach a subject without calculating the odds. Caan is perfect as the cocksure Cal, who’s never experienced self-doubt and is now forced to wrestle with it. Costanzo is endearing as a man who never pursued excitement and now can’t get enough of it. Finally, Jason Jones delivers a letter-perfect incarnation of a man who finally realizes that his actions have an impact on others as well as himself. Rounding out the stellar cast are Wendy Crewson as Duke’s first wife and the always reliable J.K. Simmons as Uncle Pal, a preacher in a roadside chapel who tries to counsel the boys (usually to no avail).

A Beginner’s Guide to Endings is a bawdy paean to those of us who have never entirely worked out our relationship with our fathers (which may include pretty much everyone).

The 2010 Toronto International Film Festival runs September 9 through 19. Exact dates remain TBA, but tickets to the festival are now on sale on the festival website.

A Beginner’s Guide to Endings
Jonathan Sobol, Canada
World Premiere

Raucous, charming and very funny, Jonathan Sobol’s comedy A Beginners Guide to Endings follows three sons as they deal with their gambler father’s somewhat complicated legacy. Featuring the legendary Harvey Keitel, the film also stars Scott Caan, Paolo Costanzo, Wendy Crewson, Tricia Helfer, Jason Jones, and J.K. Simmons.

Additional details (such as exact dates) remain TBA. Hopefully this means we’ll be seeing Tricia at this year’s TIFF!

Meanwhile, be sure to keep an eye on abeginnersguidetoendings.com / dariusfilms.com/bge for an official site for the film. The trailer, if you haven’t seen it yet, is available for viewing at the Internet Movie Database.

“If you kill her, we can go.”
- David, talking about Lila

Check out these 915 site-exclusive 1080p Blu-Ray screen captures of Tricia Helfer as Lila in the Andrew Paquin-directed home invasion slasher thriller Open House, co-starring Brian Geraghty, Rachel Blanchard, Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin. Pending distribution, the film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last April, following which Grindstone Entertainment picked it up for a Region 1 / North American straight-to-DVD release.

Personally, I hugely enjoyed Tricia’s terrific portrayal of the unrestrained, psychologically twisted but ultimately quite insecure Lila. Although Lila is certainly seductive and therein reminiscent of e.g. Battlestar Galactica’s Number Six, what’s really worth noticing is the nuance in character Tricia displays in Lila when “no one’s looking”. Brian Geragthy delivers another powerful performance as Lila’s David, and I really enjoyed the overall attention to detail in director Paquin’s visual storytelling. (As an interesting sidenote, which might be worth keeping in mind if and when you get to check out the film for yourself, according to this DVD Talk review of the film, it’s revealed in the Andrew Paquin and Geraghty-narrated DVD audio commentary that Lila and David are actually siblings. This is only once alluded to in the film itself, though.)

Spoiler Warning: Please note that these screen captures, particularly caps 850-915, contain big spoilers as to the outcome of the film. If you wish to remain unspoiled and just watch the movie for yourself, you’ll have skip these. Sorry.

New Photo Albums:

• Film Work > ‘Open House’ (2010) Movie Screen Captures

Update Jul 3: Another two new reviews at Inside Pulse Movies and RockStarWeekly.com!

A couple of excerpts on Tricia’s performance:

“Where Open House’s strengths lie are in its cinematography and direction. Paquin shows potential in this first outing for sure. The film looks crisp, moody, and Geraghty’s character is admittedly unsettling. Tricia Helfer also does a good job as the sexed up murderess. No doubt she’ll win over some portion of male viewers. [...] For a debut film, Open House shows promise from Andrew Paquin, but as a psychological thriller and/or slasher film, there are far better movies in these genres that one might want to view. With that said, Brian Geraghty and Tricia Helfer put on wonderful performances and the Blu-ray from Lionsgate will certainly give you an excellent home theatre experience.” Full review > Blu-RayDefinition.com

“Since this is starting to read more like an essay than a movie review, I’m sure it comes across that I find Lila and David kind of fascinating on an intellectual level, I guess, but I don’t really care about them as characters. There’s not a strong emotional hook to drag me in, and what they do isn’t visceral enough to provoke a reaction in that sense either. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t have any gripes at all with Tricia Helfer or Brian Geraghty’s performances here. Helfer is certainly experienced at playing a manipulative vamp, and Geraghty captures the sort of stillness and lack of emotion I’d expect to see in a sociopath. So many of these types of killers in other movies devolve into dementedly over-the-top, scenery-gnawing cartoons, and I appreciate that Open House doesn’t tear off in that direction. I just never really connected with them, and I’m not sure how to describe it any more effectively than that.” Full review > DVD Talk

“It certainly helps that the three leads are so strong (particularly the domineering Helfer and the weak-willed Geraghty), that a few familiar faces pop up for a little carnage, and that Act III ramps up with some sincerely palpable tension. As to what the film is ostensibly trying to “say” about young couples, the dangers or real estate brokerage, or the sort of interior design a pair of his & hers lunatics might prefer, but as a handsomely-shot, generally simple, and enjoyably vicious indie horror flick, Open House may actually surprise a few folks. There’s something about an ugly presence in a beautiful setting that’s just sort of … interesting.” Full review > FEARnet

“While fans of the HBO vampire series may be disappointed to learn the two don’t have larger roles, Geraghty and Helfer both do an impressive job as the film’s resident psychopaths. Quick to slice and dice any unlucky schmuck who wonders in to investigate the missing Alice, David and Lila ooze with repressed danger like a coiled rattlesnake. At once both sexy and extremely creepy, the two are a loosely defined couple — their true relationship never established. The hints the film provides, though, are enough to unnerve. [...] The biggest problems with Open House have to do with the weak script. Instead of building strong characters to inflict fear and danger onto, Paquin throws one-note paper dolls against an intriguing scenario and hopes they stick. The script focuses too much on the sexual chemistry seeping from Battlestar Galactica star Tricia Helfer as she seduces and then promptly murders man after man. While Helfer is able to channel the right combinations of sexy and deadly, her role does not have much depth to it. The movie is filled with characters with as much dimension as M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender in 3D. We don’t need to see an elaborate backstory behind the characters but if Paquin had given the actors a little more meat to work with Open House could have been a real winner.” Full review > Inside Pulse Movies

To refresh your memories, here’s the restricted trailer for Open House once more:

Question: How did you get your role in Dark Blue?

Tricia Helfer: I got involved through the normal audition process. It was pilot season in Los Angeles and I auditioned for the show and was offered it after auditioning. So I didn’t have a script to work off of. There was just four pages written for the audition. So after I was offered the role, then I spoke with the producers and writers about what they saw for the character for the season and I liked what they had to say and they held up their end of the bargain.

They definitely said she was going to be involved with the team and be a smart, fun, strong character and not just the FBI finger-pointer or that kind of thing.

Question: What drew you to this particular character?

Tricia Helfer: I’ve always had a desire to play a cop or FBI agent. I’m a bit of a tomboy so it’s fun and I think there’s a lot of challenges — emotionally and mentally — playing a role like that and trying to get into the character. This role is fun because there’s also going to be some undercover roles — so roles within the roles so to speak — which as an actor are a lot of fun to play. And then of course just the team that’s behind it — the Bruckheimer camp and Warner Horizon and TNT it’s a great group of people and companies to work with.

Question: Did you know from the beginning that you’d have good on-screen chemistry with Dylan?

Tricia Helfer: I think you never know. Chemistry is a hard thing. I don’t think you can force it and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to have great chemistry outside or whatever. It’s just something that kind of sparks on screen or doesn’t. And so when you’re kind of playing it you don’t really see what other people are seeing obviously behind the monitors.

But Dylan’s a great actor. During the scenes and working with him, it was great to work off of him and he gives you a lot as an actor and hopefully it was reciprocated.

It’s always hard stepping into the second season of a show because everybody else is already a team and working together and they know each other already so it takes a little bit of time to kind of settle in and get to know everybody personally. But it kind of worked for the first episode anyway because Alex was sort of just thrown in there, they meet undercover and the characters have chemistry but don’t really know each other.

And so what I was going through personally — and them as well getting to know me — kind of worked for the first episode because it was a bit what the characters were going through. Obviously without the one-night stand at the end — or what they thought was going to be a one-night stand.

But Dylan’s just a great actor and is somebody that offers a lot to be able to work off of. And I think that’s the most important thing when playing characters with chemistry is being able to work off the other actor and be supported in that way.

Question: How has the rest of your experience with Dark Blue been so far?

Tricia Helfer: I had a great experience on the show. I really like the character. I really like Alex. I really like playing her.

And it’s already done. We’re already done filming. We’ve been done for about a month now so it happens quickly. Ten episodes goes by really quickly, especially when you’ve got a really tough shooting schedule of seven-day episodes. For the three months you’re filming, you’re so immersed in it that you just eat, sleep and breathe it and then it’s done. So hopefully people enjoy what we did.

Question: How is your character going to challenge Carter?

Tricia Helfer: Alex is challenging Carter because he’s used to being the boss. I mean he’s headed the team in a joint task force between the FBI and LAPD that the FBI has the final say. And so Alex comes in and essentially is the boss but she’s smart enough to know that that’s not going to work with this team to just come in and say, “This is the way we’re doing things.” And so she knows and she wants to be part of the team and work with them, not just be their boss.

There’s definitely going to be moments of tension when they disagree on something or disagree how a case should be handled, and that’s a definite challenge for somebody as a strong character like Carter to be able to take an order to stand down or something like that.

But generally they have a pretty good working relationship. They respect each other and I think that’s the key to successfully working with each other is that they respect each other and their abilities.

Question: What did you find challenging about the role?

Tricia Helfer: What I find challenging is just trying to bring a truthfulness and a realism to it. Obviously not having been undercover FBI myself — you obviously want to bring a truth to it — it’s great to have a consultant on set. We have a consultant that was an undercover cop for many years. And aside from doing reading myself and reading on the role — the type of job you really obviously haven’t done the job yourself. So you just want to bring a truth to it and you kind of always challenge yourself that way.

Physically, I guess it was fairly recent after I had gone through massive back surgery a couple of months before and so I was still in recovery. I had four discs replaced with artificial discs. So I could do some stunts, but luckily for me it just worked out that the ten episodes there wasn’t that much. I could pretty much do everything except for a fall down the stairs. I couldn’t do that but I wouldn’t have done that anyway even without back surgery. So physically I just had some challenges going in. But it’s been a fun character to play.

Question: How did you hurt your back?

Tricia Helfer: How I hurt my back is a mixture of things. I think being very tall and thin growing up and being very athletic and kind of abusing my body in some ways, crashing into walls, diving on floors to hit that volleyball and things like that. And then just a mixture of a car accident that got whiplash and doing all my own stunts on Battlestar really helped kind of solidify needing surgery.

So, yeah, it was just a mixture of a few things. And then somebody dropped a suitcase on my head on an airplane and that didn’t really do my neck any good. So unfortunately just a series of things that resulted in four discs being replaced.

Question: Can you tell us about your future plans and whether they include another season of Dark Blue?

Tricia Helfer: If Dark Blue comes back, fingers crossed, yes, you’ll be seeing more of me. Unless something happens or stuff I don’t know about, I will be back and glad to be back.

What I have coming up next? I have a couple of independent movies coming out — one with Brian Geraghty from the Hurt Locker and Stephen Moyer called Open House. It’s coming out on DVD in I think August. And I’ve got another film that we’re waiting to hear if it gets into Toronto with Harvey Keitel and J.K. Simmons and Scott Caan called A Beginner’s Guide to Endings that I shot last Fall and so I’m looking to shoot a few more independents this Fall.

Question: Did you get to wear any wigs in Season 2 of Dark Blue?

Tricia Helfer: No, I didn’t have to wear any wigs. A couple of different hairstyles mostly in the first episode but no wigs, which I’m not too upset about it. It’s quite an ordeal putting a wig on.

Question: What drives you to succeed?

Tricia Helfer: I want to be challenged. I want to be proud of what I do and I want to learn. I want to learn new things and keep learning and growing. I kind of am a bit of a workaholic and I like to keep busy and active so I think that’s what drives me.

[An excerpt from co-star Dylan McDermott's interview in the same article, on Alex Rice and working with Tricia:]

Question: How does Tricia Helfer’s character challenge Carter this season?

Dylan McDermott: This is exactly what I thought this show should have — a love interest for Carter. I think it’s just much more dynamic to have him in a relationship. I think Tricia is a beautiful woman, and she’s really talented, and she can stand toe to toe with Carter, which is not an easy thing because he is brooding at times. He is difficult and you need someone who can come in and go toe to toe with him.

So I think that she’s going to challenge him in ways that I don’t think he was actually prepared for. In season one, he was sort of closed down and not willing, and we find him in season two in a garden, which is really a metaphor for him that he is attempting to change, and he is attempting grow, and she is a big part of that. You know she is going to open him up. I think that something had died in him long ago and he had given up on himself somewhere, and I think that she brings all of that back to life.

Updated Photo Albums:

• Film Work > ‘Open House’ (2010) Posters & Promotional Photography
• Film Work > ‘Open House’ (2010) Posters & Promotional Stills

New Photo Albums:

• Photoshoots & Outtakes > Photoshoot #030