Identity crisis: Scotland tale could be about Canada.
The first time the world noticed Charles Martin Smith was in 1973, when he played one of the innocent teenagers - a quirky little guy called Terry (The Toad) Fields - in the breakthrough teen comedy American Graffiti.
Smith has done a lot since then, including his performance as the quirky little accountant in the Brian De Palma version of The Untouchables in 1987. He also branched out into writing and directing movies, including the 1997 family comedy Air Bud, about a dog that plays basketball, and the 2003 Arctic adventure The Snow Walker.
His new film, the romantic caper The Stone of Destiny, is a return to his roots.
"In some ways, I think I was trying to echo my own experience in American Graffiti, where George Lucas took a bunch of young kids - I was 18 and Ron (Howard) was 18 and I think Richard Dreyfuss was 23 or 24, so was Cindy Williams,'' Smith recalled recently just before The Stone of Destiny screened as the closing-night gala at the Toronto International Film Festival.
"I was trying to capture that same exuberance of youth that I think that film did.''
The Stone of Destiny, based on a memoir by Ian Hamilton, tells the real-life story of four young Glaswegians - three guys and a pretty girl - who in 1950 broke into Westminster Abbey and stole The Stone of Scone, a symbol of Scottish independence that had been carried off to Britain 700 years earlier. The theft, which came at a time of Scots nationalism, was meant to rouse the population to assert the independence of the country and it worked so well that the stone, which weighs 150 kilograms, is now on loan to Edinburgh Castle (it is to be returned to England to be part of any coronation ceremony.)
Smith first heard about the story eight years ago when a producer friend optioned Hamilton's book. "I just thought it was a great story, thought it was a great yarn,'' Smith recalled.
"He told me about this story and I just fell in love with it on the spot: it's a heist, it's a caper, it's got all the classic elements of a caper but it's not about stealing diamonds or money or something that was going to make the thieves rich. They're doing it for a higher cause, to bring back the nationalistic, patriotic feeling of the Scots . . . this is true, people were dancing in the streets. It meant so much to them.''
Filmed on location in Scotland and at Westminster Abbey ("their attitude was that this really happened, and as long as I portrayed it accurately, they had no grounds to object'') the movie stars a group of rising stars - much like American Graffiti did - playing characters who are getting into fairly innocent trouble. They include Charlie Cox (Stardust) as Hamilton and Billy Boyd (Pippin in Lord of the Rings) as Bill, another one of the thieves.
The liberation of the stone was a crime, but Smith says it was an understandable one.
"It was a gesture that these kids made at a particular time. To me the movie is about passion of youth. Youth overcoming obstacles. Maybe it's the 60s radical in me.
"The other thing is, it's completely non-violent. They didn't blow anything up. They didn't hurt anybody. It was a non-violent act designed to do exactly what it did: bring back people's patriotism. But a good kind of patriotism, you know? A pride in your country, not an us-against-them thing.''
Smith was born in California 55 years ago but he now lives in Vancouver, and while The Stone of Destiny is a Scots tale, it has echoes in Canada: "It was a little country to the north of a big country gradually being absorbed, and fighting for their own identity,'' Smith says. "It's a Canadian film for that very reason.''
The details, however, are true to Glasgow. There's a scene where a boy asks a girl to dance, and Robert Carlyle - the veteran actor who plays a Scots nationalist - gave Smith advice on the patois of the time.
"He said `We had a thing in those days in Glasgow. There was kind of a set pattern. You'd walk up to a girl and you'd say, `Are you dancin'?' And she'd say, `Are you askin'?' And then he'd say, `I'm askin'' And she'd say, `I'm dancin'.'''
The exchange was put into the film. Smith said he asked Carlyle if it always worked. Carlyle responded, "Sometimes I'd say, `Are you dancin'?' ****And I'd get, `F--- off, shorty.'''
There are also some new pics I didn't have before (such as Billy with sunglasses looking very sexy 
), so ENJOY!
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