Thread by @markmackinnon

I’m very sad to read that Donald Sutherland has died at the age of 88. I don’t have many celebrity stories, but I do treasure my spectacular interactions with Donald in the summer of 2015. Please do read on. (1/16) theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/arti…

In July 2015, as a federal election approached, the Ontario Court of Appeal held up a move by Canada’s Conservative government to bar expats who had been living outside the country for five years or more from voting.

As a Canadian who holds no other passport, working abroad for a Canadian company, I was so outraged that I wrote a rare (for me) opinion piece about it: theglobeandmail.com/opinion/i-am-c…

Afterwards, I received an email from someone named “Frank Racette.” It was, Donald Sutherland explained, his “nom de whatever.” Turns out he’d been using the name (a takeoff on the name of his wife, Francine Racette) for years to check into hotels and the such, in order to avoid stalker fans.

He wanted @globeandmail to publish an editorial of his, also calling for the voting rights of expat Canadians to be restored. His arguments were similar to mine, but many, many more people read them when they were made by one of the most famous Canadians out there: theglobeandmail.com/opinion/im-can…

Donald, I learned, didn’t like being edited. The Globe’s Opinion Editor, Natasha Hassan, wanted to change ONE LINE in his piece. He had asserted in his piece that Stephen Harper’s government had “passed a law that denies its citizens around the world the right to vote” when in fact the government was fighting via the courts to uphold a 1993 law that had been struck down by a lower court.

Donald was furious that Natasha wanted to edit him and I was the one catching Frank Racette’s emailed rage. “I’m sorry. No, I’m not happy with it being published with that change. What I said originally was what is actually going on,” he wrote to me.

Thus began an exchange of dozens of emails that went on for eight hours before Donald backed down and grudgingly agreed to the change. The piece went online and the response was incredible.

I became something like Donald’s agent for a few weeks. Readers, fans and radio stations wrote to me, asking how to get in contact with the star of M.A.S.H. and The Hunger Games franchise who had revealed himself as a proud and very political Canadian.

I forwarded Donald all the emails – while keeping my promise not to introduce anyone else to Frank Racette.

A day after the Liberals won the 2015 election – vowing to drop the federal government’s court fight to bar long-term expatriates from voting – Donald wrote me again.

I replied that I thought he had played an important role on the issue of expatriate voting, and added that I hoped our paths would one day cross, perhaps “in a voting lineup some day.”

He replied “Or maybe over tea and sandwiches or a lunch or something next time I'm in town.” I suggested, jokingly, that Donald Sutherland/Frank Racette should drop me a line whenever he was next in London, England.

He replied immediately by inviting me to the upcoming premiere of final The Hunger Games movie, two weeks later on London’s iconic Leicester Square. Not just to sit in the crowd and watch the movie, but to join the VIP parties before and after with Jennifer Lawrence and the such.

My wife (@carwheeler) and I spent the intervening days preparing ourselves by watching every movie Donald had ever appeared in, lest we be revealed as only casual fans. We had plans to try and get through his son Kiefer’s oeuvre as well, but time was short and I also needed to rent a tux.

We arrived at the premiere – strutting the red carpet in front of rows of truly confused fans and paparazzi – and wound up clutching champagne glasses as the Hunger Games stars fluttered around us.

If you were there, I was the guy who tripped over Natalie Dormer’s incredibly long gown whilst trying to figure out where you’re supposed to stand at a party when nobody knows or cares who you are.

Creating a scene (by tripping over Natalie D’s dress) helped Donald spot me. He and Francine were sitting in a dark corner and invited us to join them. Carolynne and I were ready to talk movies. We had our questions ready. But all he wanted to do was talk Canadian politics.

Who did I think might be the new Foreign Minister? How fast would our right to vote be restored? What did I make of Trudeau’s declaration that “Canada is back”? Soon, the movie was about to start.

Donald and Francine shared another secret with us. They rarely watched the end of the movies anymore. And at ages 80 and 68, they didn’t go to the afterparties either. They gave Carolynne and I tickets to all the different parts of the evening (the afterparty was at the top of London’s pyramid-shaped Shard building) and told us to enjoy it all.

The entire Hunger Games cast then gathered in front of the theatre’s giant screen for something of a pre-showing curtain call.

Wearing a black overcoat with a red Remembrance Day poppt pinned to the lapel, Donald smiled and waved at his fans. Then the applause quieted, the lights went down, and the proud Canadian who happened to be a famous actor slipped away in the darkness.

The lovely @carwheeler has dug up the visual evidence that it all really happened…