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 Academy Award winning writer and director Paul Haggis gestures to his picture at H.B. Beal secondary school during a tour yesterday. (MORRIS LAMONT, LFP) |
"For the students: Live what you dream." -- Paul Haggis
That message, scribbled by the Oscar-winning filmmaker on a poster at Fanshawe College yesterday morning, doubled as the theme of London's day-long tribute to its world-famous native son.
During Paul Haggis Day, the homecoming hero made stops at three of his former schools before visiting city hall, where a London park was named after the director/screenwriter whose film Crash won the 2006 Academy Awards for best picture and top original screenplay.
The 53-year-old Haggis has lived a near-impossible dream that's seen him rise from obscurity to cop Oscar gold. At age 22, he left London to become a Hollywood screenwriter. When that goal was derailed, he launched a long, successful career as a TV writer-producer-director, which he abandoned, five years ago, to pursue his first love: making movies.
"I was an incredibly bad student so no one should follow in my footsteps," a humble Haggis confessed to students assembled in Fanshawe's broadcast centre. "It was here that I learned about film editing, usually messing it up. But I also discovered my love for filmmaking."
Fanshawe, in conjunction with the local public and Catholic school boards, announced the founding of a Paul Haggis Arts Scholarship. Beginning in September 2007, a deserving high school graduate from each of the boards will receive a $5,000 scholarship to pursue arts courses at Fanshawe.
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The college also awarded its most celebrated dropout an honorary diploma that Haggis will collect in November 2007.
"Don't ever let anybody tell you you can't do something," the balding, bearded Haggis urged his young admirers. "If you have a passion, follow it no matter what."
He repeated that inspirational advice during his stops at Catholic Central high school, where he viewed the Arts for AIDS in Africa exhibit, and H.B. Beal secondary school, where Haggis studied photography in 1970.
"I found out I was colour-blind but everything I learned here I've used in my work," said Haggis who co-produced and wrote the Oscar-nominated script for Million Dollar Baby, last year's best picture Academy Award winner.
It was his father, Ted Haggis, who backed his son's "crazy" Hollywood dream, 30 years ago.
"I sent him $100 a week for three years, four months and 10 days." recalled the 82-year-old Londoner. "I stopped sending him money when he wrote and sold a script for that TV show The Love Boat. But Paul deserves all the credit. For the most part, he's done what he's done on his own."
At London's city hall, Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best announced the nine-hectare park, located near a intersection of White Oaks and Bradley roads, will be named in Haggis's honour.
"With his films, Paul Haggis has put our city on the map, not just in North America, but around the world," said DeCicco-Best. "He is also so very proud to be born and raised here."
Admitting he initially viewed the Paul Haggis Day proposal as "silly," the filmmaker had a change of heart.
"I feel truly honoured . . . Halfway through the day, I was overcome with emotion," he said of the tribute which "walked me back through the places I walked many years ago."
Haggis, who will teach a film class at Fanshawe College this morning, leaves London tomorrow, bound for New Mexico.
It's the filming location of his next project, In the Valley of Elah, co-starring Charlize Theron and Tommy Lee Jones.