The busiest stand-in actor in Hollywood? It's not a person — it's Canada

Visit the third floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto right now, and you'll catch yourself playing Hollywood North Bingo. Is that Nicholas Hoult free diving off the top of Montreal's Olympic Stadium? Lindsay Lohan getting dragged out of the Lakeview Restaurant — while elsewhere in Toronto, Magneto and Professor X are hanging out at Roy Thomson Hall? 

Yes, yes and yes. All those movie scenes and countless more are featured in an immersive video installation that serves as the centrepiece to Impostor Cities, an exhibition that ponders a curious aspect of Canada's history on screen. 

We're one of the most-filmed countries on the planet, No. 3 in the overall rankings, according to this survey of IMDB data. And yet, a place like Vancouver is never Vancouver; it's Seattle (Fifty Shades of Grey) or Tokyo (Godzilla) … or the planet Altamid (Star Trek Beyond). In the parlance of the exhibition, it's an impostor city. It is always a stand-in actor, a stunt double — and yet never a bit player. Its buildings have become familiar, if not famous — the architectural equivalent of a character actor. And unless Simon Fraser University becomes the world's top holiday destination, more people will discover its Arthur Erickson buildings by watching The Day the Earth Stood Still or Battlestar Galactica.

Canadian cities are forever playing other places — but could that actually be a good thing?

Let's go to the movies

Impostor Cities doesn't provide a conclusive answer, but it does invite you to watch the movies a little differently. Pay closer attention to the streets and buildings we repeatedly see in pop culture, and maybe Canada's anonymous screen credits aren't cause for the cultural identity crisis we've been obsessing over since the days of the Massey Report.

In a gallery space off the exhibition entrance, you'll find an array of screens. They've been arranged in V-shaped rows, a set-up that suggests a sort of Purple Rose of Cairo moment in reverse. The idea is to suck you right into the movie magic, and as for what's playing, it's a kaleidoscopic edit of clips: scenes from films and TV shows that were all shot in Canada. X-Men, The Shape of Water, The Handmaid's Tale — more than 3,000 titles all told. 

The edit emphasizes the versatility of a few key filming locations, as scenes from multiple movies are shown side by side. Some Canadian buildings are filmed so frequently that they're almost characters unto themselves. Toronto's R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant? Shoot that art deco behemoth if the story calls for a scene in a spooky hospital. The Lakeview? In the movies, it's the definition of an old-school American diner. 

A long-delayed premiere

Impostor Cities opened at MOCA June 2, and its run to July 23 marks the exhibition's first true staging after several years in development. The project, which was produced by curator David Theodore and T B A / Thomas Balaban Architect (a design and architecture firm from Montreal), was selected to be Canada's offering at the 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale. COVID did a number on those plans, obviously. But after a year-long postponement, Impostor Cities made its Venice debut in 2021, and the Canadian Pavilion was wrapped in a green screen for the event. According to reports, the pavilion's facade could be seen up and down the Giardini, and visitors who came for a closer look could use the green screen to witness Canada's film-famous architecture transported to Venice — a bit of AR trickery enabled via Instagram.

But COVID-era travel restrictions prevented the show's creators from actually visiting the site, and the full exhibition was never open to the public. Instead, the experience was accessible online. (View it yourself at impostorcities.com.) 

"This will be the first time that the inside is physically made, which is a bit strange to say," curator David Theodore tells CBC Arts. "Now you can walk through the actual interior that we imagined."

And in addition to the "screening room" portion of Impostor Cities, the exhibition includes a range of video interviews with experts including Canadian architects, production designers and filmmakers: a group that includes David Cronenberg, Sarah Polley, Guy Maddin and Mary Harron. 

Who are you calling an impostor?

Why are Canadian cities so good at playing other places, though? That question is posed to several of the thinkers featured in the show. But if you ask Theodore, the reasons are straightforward. There are the economic factors to consider, like the cheaper Canadian dollar and tax incentives that lure Hollywood productions to film here. And our film crews have a reputation for excellence. But is there something unique about our architecture — some ineffable star quality?

"It's a great place to shoot because there's range," says Theodore. Architectural range, that is. Canadian cities are often home to a mish-mash of styles: designs that reflect international trends throughout the eras. "Like, if you want to shoot in Winnipeg, you can shoot old stuff; you can shoot Modernism," he explains. 

While Theodore was gathering interviews for the project, David Cronenberg's thoughts on architecture left a strong impression. The director was irked by the word "impostor." The term suggested fakery, illegitimacy — so he offered a different take on things, a view that he shares in a video interview that's appearing in the MOCA exhibition. Says Cronenberg: "For me, I really thought of the city as an actor, not an impostor."

"And Toronto is a really, really good actor. It can transform into whatever you want it to be," says Theodore. "You can't get that from every kind of city, and I think on a more specific level, there are buildings that allow you to do that, and filmmakers are very aware."

Theodore offers Toronto's R.H. Harris Water Treatment Plant as an example. Built in 1932, it looms over Lake Ontario from its site on Queen Street East. In real life, it's a functioning water-treatment facility — and a local engagement-photo cliché. But its IMDB credits include Nightmare Alley, In the Mouth of Madness and Strange Brew. "It can be a whole bunch of things because it's good at it," says Theodore. "That's not because it's generic and just doesn't look like anywhere — no, the opposite. It really looks like something that you might cast in a film."

Why does it matter if Canada's seen on screen?

Impostor Cities was first conceived as an exhibition for an international audience. "We're designing for visitors who have never been to Canada," Theodore said back in 2021, as part of the Canada Council for the Arts' announcement of the project. "We're optimistic that we can inspire people to think about what architecture and Canadian identity mean in a world connected through media and screens rather than through culture."

At MOCA, it's bound to hit differently. The Toronto crowd will be well familiar with many of the locations on display, and seeing your city on screen — or even just a glimpse of your favourite restaurant — can prompt a range of feelings.

In Theodore's experience, the initial reaction might be sentimental: a mix of excitement and maybe pride. But as the thrill subsides, it usually leaves Canadians wondering why we never play ourselves.

"Is Toronto a world-class city or not? Somehow the question never goes away," says Theodore. "No one goes to Paris and films it as Toronto."

Canadians will always grapple with this "double thing," says Theodore — "a question about whether we're generic rather than being special."

"I guess I tend to agree with Cronenberg," he says. "They're not generic," he says of Canadian cities. "But you can create a fictional world with them quite readily."

Impostor Cities. Curated by Thomas Balaban, David Theodore and Jennifer Thorogood. Impostor Cities Team: Nick Cabelli, Cameron Cummings, Mikaèle Fol, Joel Friesen, Pawel Karwowski, Hervé Laurendeau, Sarah Mackenzie, François-Matthieu Mariaud de Serre. Collaborators: Éric Fauque, Florian Grond, John Gurdebeke, Randolph Jordan, Allison Moore, Wipawe Sirikolkarn. To July 23 at MOCA Toronto. www.moca.ca