The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 53

ART Section Editor: Catherine Lawson, 596-8509 Artsthecitizen.soutliam.ca THE OTTAWA CITIZEN, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1998 i i I'M Jv .1.,. 1 'r I A i 'Remaking a station from scratch' Come Monday, viewers won't recognize CHRO's newscast, reports Tony Atherton. When CHUM Ltd. announced its intention to take over CHRO in the spring of last year, it said the Pembroke station's nightly newscast would not become a clone of Citytv's informal, urban-oriented, self-consciously hip CityPulse. CHUM vice-president Jay Switzer, mindful of the station's rural base, said the newscast would continue to be studio-based with formally dressed anchors sitting behind a newsdesk.

And so it has been. But not for much longer. On Monday, Pembroke's CHRO officially becomes The New RO, an Ottawa-centric station with a sassy, new Ottawa-based, hour-long 6 p.m. newscast called NewSix-Ottawa. Gone will be the familiar Pembroke studio, the familiar Pembroke anchor (Cathy Cox ends her seven-year stint at the station tonight), and any hint of an anchor desk.

Instead, viewers will see co-anchors Caroline Redekopp and Robert Maxwell strolling around the RO "news environment" (read newsroom), taking cues from clipboards, and perching jauntily on the corners of reporters' desks. The pair will introduce videographers on location or chat up reporters at their desks. NewSixOttawa will be free-flowing, informal and just a little bit improvised. In other words, a clone of Citytv's CiryPuise. So why the change of heart? "The more we started to make subtle changes, the more we got positive feedback from viewers," says RO news director Richard Gray.

"More and more, we started hearing that viewers in the national capital region were looking for something more dynamic and we decided to take the next logical step." Getting to that step has been an evolutionary process. First came the videographers, then, last February, bright new graphics and a brash promotional push. Reporters who didn't fit the station's new style were turfed. Others were hired. And there was an ever-increasing emphasis on Ottawa news.

By this summer, the on-air staff located in Pembroke had dropped to four, all of them anchors: Cox on the 6 p.m. newscast, Redekopp at 11 p.m., Rhonda London at noon, and Dan Nyznik on the weekends. The station's reporters and videographers were all in Ottawa. Within two weeks, Pembroke's news staff will be down to one; Nyznik will remain in the Valley as a reporter. Redekopp has been moved to Ottawa.

Cox chose to leave rather than accept a reporting job in Pembroke (she's joining the new Crossroads Christian Broadcasting Network). But the Pembroke staff won't remain so lean for long, promises Gray. The station plans to hire another four or five reporters by the year's end, in addition to six more news staff in Ottawa, he says. "We're trying to assure the people in the Pembroke area that, if they are patient with us, if they give us time, they're going to see even more local news than they've ever seen Ed Norton had no problem playing the role of a feckless card sharp in Rounders. But first he had to learn to play poker.

What up, Ed? Edward Norton was creepy in Primal Fear and sweet in that Woody Allen movie. Now he's playing a card sharp with the soul of Bugs Bunny, reports Jamie Portman. before." But the news balance has been irrevocably tipped to wards Ottawa events, a product of a change of licence two years ago, which gave CHRO the right to erect a retransmitter in Ottawa and make the most of the Ottawa advertising market. NewSixOttawa is a major part of RO's aggressive campaign to win over the Ottawa audience. Anchor Cathy Cox wasn't deemed suitable for the new Jr t' i 111 wr- I show in part because she was so heavily identified with the old show and the old style, says Gray.

i 'She served us very, very well, but we're movmg a new direction." The search for new anchors wasn't completed until last month, and it yielded some surprises. "As we began searching for potential anchors, we came to realize that we could have one of our key team members right here on staff, and perhaps we weren't using her tal ents and abilities to the fullest," says Gray. Redekopp, an Ottawa native who's been with CHRO since 1996, took a break from her late-night anchoring duties last winter to serve as an Ottawa videographer. It was then that producers began to see her in a new light, says Gray. Robert Maxwell, who makes his RO debut Monday, comes to the station from The New VR, the CHUM-owned station in Barrie where Maxwell was the anchor of a simi larly unstructured late-night newscast.

It's a homecoming Los Angeles Consider these facts about Edward Norton: He holds a degree in history from Yale University. He speaks fluent Japanese. He's an accomplished stage actor and a member of the board of New York's prestigious Signature Theatre Company. He also serves on the board of New York's Enterprise Foundation, whose mandate it is to create decent affordable housing for low-income families. His first three movies Primal Fear, The People Against Larry Flynt and Everyone Says I Love You sparked a cluster of awards and were enough to cement his reputation as a striking new film presence.

He's a superb guitar player. He's 29 years old. But now, Norton has added a new string to his bow: He has all it takes to be a superb poker player. In fact, he's gone one step further: He knows everything there is to know about cheating at cards. It was all part of preparing for the role of a feckless character named Worm in his new movie, Rounders, opening next Friday.

Worm is a guy who lives on the edge. He's mouthy. He's been in jail. He's a disaster waiting to happen. And yet he's true to his own skewed principles: He believes in cheating as a way oflife.

"I'd never played a serious game of poker, not ever," says Norton. But he researched his role intensely and was determined to get into the right mind set to the point of having make-up artists put a temporary tattoo of the ace of spades on his wrist, to signify Worm's philosophy of life which is always to keep an ace up your sleeve. Before and during shooting, he was never without a pack of cards. Both he and costar Matt Damon spent a lot of time with fledgling screenwriters David Levien and Brian Koppleman, both of them accomplished poker players. "They were our initial guides into that world," Norton says.

But he wanted to know even more. "So I worked with some really top players. A couple of guys taught me the mechanics of cheating, of manipulating cards, of working with a partner." Director John Dahl, who made his reputation as a contemporary master of film noir, with such critically acclaimed items as Red Rock West and The Last Seduction, says he's in total awe of his young star because of Norton's ability to give a character a genuine inner life. "What's great about Edward is that he just doesn't embody a character he fills it up," Dahl enthuses. "He makes every character he plays believable and realistic." These were the qualities that impressed Paramount officials three years ago, when they were about to start filming the courtroom thriller, Primal Fear.

Leonardo Di-Caprio had backed out of the difficult role of the angelic-looking but dangerously schizoid choirboy who goes on trial for murder, and the studio was having trouble finding a replacement. Norton, whose entire experience to this point had been in the theatre, successfully campaigned for an audition and screen test. He did the test in character, right down to a Kentucky twang so credible that he even fooled star Richard Gere. His chilling performance in Primal Fear won him an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award and he followed it up with two other contrasting roles a love-struck for Maxwell; he grew up in Ottawa. Gray says he's still looking for a weathercaster, but he's happy with sports anchor Ken Evraire, the CFL veteran whom CHRO hired as a trainee reporter last winter, Evraire will also join Redekopp and Maxwell on RO's 11 p.m.

newscast. The changes are what validate the station name change, In American History Ed Norton, right, plays a neo-Nazi who discovers the error of his ways and tries to steer his younger brother away from the same path. says Gray. "Finally, we are doing enough at the station that is new for us to imprint it that way. We could have (called it The New RO) last November when CHUM officially took over, but the product on-air really wasn't new.

But, as of Monday, our program schedule is going to be new, our newscasts are going to have a dynamic new look, we will have a bunch of new people on board, and we'll have a new news Basically what we have done is all but started a station from scratch." young New Yorker in Woody Allen's musical, Everyone Says I Love You, and a dedicated lawyer in The People vs. Larry Flynt. For his collective work in these three films, Norton received Best Supporting Actor Awards from the National Board of Review as well as critics associations in Los Angeles, Boston and Texas. Yet, unlike Rounders costar Matt Damon who seems to show up in a new movie every three months, Norton has been off the screen for nearly two years. "I have to find something I feel strongly about," he explains.

It has to be something I really feel I can hook into to make it worthwhile. I don't really want to work for the sake of working." He also insists on adequate time to prepare and cites Rounders as an example. The movie is set in New York's underground poker world where the stakes are high and retaliation against those who breach the rules can be fierce and relentless. Damon is master poker player Mike McDermott whose compulsive gambling habits threaten to wreck his ambition to become a lawyer. One factor forcing him to remain in this ruthless world is the crisis facing his best friend Worm, played by Norton.

Worm is in terrible trouble with the big boys for reneging on his gambling debts; McDermott is the only person who can save him. "I don't think you can create really distinct characters if you just go banging from one character to another," Norton says firmly. It was during his preparation for Rounders that Norton decided his main inspiration for Worm was Bugs.Bunny. "I mean it seriously. I started thinking about lovable rogues like Bugs Bunny.

Bugs is always scheming and two steps ahead of a beating and always laughing and never taking anything too seriously." Norton is reticent with the press. For example, the tabloids may write about his friendship with Courtney Love, but he won't add fuel to the flames by discussing it. In any event, he's repeatedly argued in interviews that he's not that interesting a person. If anything, he seems the quintessential Ivy Leaguer with his soft dungarees and blue dress shirt casually unbuttoned to reveal a white T-shirt underneath. And his attitude towards Hollywood is almost academic: Just because you have to live with the reality that is Hollywood doesn't mean you need to be swallowed up by it.

"I'm a little snobby in the sense that I just want to make good films." Later this autumn, he'll be seen in the commercially risky American History in which he plays a ferociously intelligent neo-Nazi who discovers the error of his ways and makes a desperate attempt to prevent his younger brother from taking the same path. See ED on page F2 OtaO ltd i A 1 Sports anchor Ken Evraire and news co-anchors Caroline Redekopp and Robert Maxwell will front a sassy new newscast for CHRO..