By Sue Harper
Photography by Josh Neufeld
I’m chatting with actor Matthew Kevin Anderson from his home in Vancouver. He spent time in Los Angeles and lived in Los Angeles for years. But his parents are getting older and he prefers where his family is. Home. Canada. “Vancouver is a beautiful city,” gushes Anderson. “It’d be hard to find somewhere that I would rather be than here.”
Here. The here and now. For Anderson’s journey to the present—a starring role as The Stranger in the new Halle Berry thriller Never Let Go—has been full of twists and turns with what seems like, well, forever. “I moved around to a lot of different schools when I was younger for a bunch of random reasons. We lived in Indonesia for a couple of years, and then I couldn’t get back into my other school. So when we came back, I had to go to another school. So every two years or so I was changing schools and it’s like all new social environments,” states Anderson. “And I definitely think that started taking a lot of my attention and interest. I just really became interested in people and social dynamics and adjusting and fitting in and, and sort of, learning about new environments. School and academics just never interested him. He was always into drawing and would take as many arts classes as he could in school. After high school, Anderson was trying to figure out what he was going to do.
“My sister went to Kit’s [Kitsilano Theatre Company in Vancouver], which is where Ryan Reynolds went. So I remember sitting at home one day watching television with my sister, and my sister was like, ‘Oh, that guy goes to my school.’ And that was the first time that I connected that you could not just do plays at the theater in your school, but you can actually go into the little box and do that thing in there. And that’s something that people around us were able to do. And so when I graduated from high school, I was kind of floating around and figuring out how I could get into the industry. Vancouver really started to blow up as sort of “Hollywood North” and you were seeing film sets everywhere. So I went to a film school up here, and that’s kind of how I started my journey.”
Anderson is jacked up for Never Let Go. And who could blame him. The film has horror chops The film’s director, Alexandre Aja, also directed the films The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Mirrors (2008), Piranha 3D (2010), Horns (2013) and Crawl (2019); Dan Levine produced Arrival (2016) and The Boogeyman (2023); Shawn Levy is an executive producer of Stranger Things. Never Let Go follows a mother and her twin sons who are tormented by an evil spirit for years. When one of the boys starts questioning the existence of the spirit, a fight for survival ensues. Halle Berry plays the mother.
“Halle Berry was great,” says Anderson. “And the two kids that are in this movie really do an amazing job and have very challenging roles. Sometimes you forget when you watch movies, you forget what these kids sort of have to go through, right? It’s just really amazing to see what kids that age who are, like, anywhere between eight and 10 or 10 and 12 somewhere in there, what they can do and how hard they work and how intelligent and intuitive they are, and how good at listening they are and how present they can be. Yeah. It was a real pleasure. And, I’m excited to see how the movie turns out.”
But the turning out part is something every actor dreads but somehow, some way, it all works out. The process might be messy, but everyone involved on set finds a way to get it done. “It’s always a bit of a crazy, chaotic mess, especially in film…sometimes you’re just like, ‘How are we going to pull this off?’ I feel like every production, especially when I’m involved on the producing side, when you’re coming up to the last three days of pre-production before you start shooting and you’re like, we’re never going to get this done like this is never going to happen. And then by sheer will you make it happen. That’s what’s so amazing about film, because all these people are involved and everybody sort of rallies together and pushes the boulder over the hill.”
Although Anderson has his acting to fall back on, there are other sides of him that want to create. Especially during Covid and the actor’s strike. Anderson had a time to reflect on his career and pursue something he’d been itching to do: writing. At some point you hopefully get to a place where you want more control. Want to create. Want to have more say in the direction of your career. And Anderson did just that.
“Covid was a pivot and I started writing. I’ve always sort of written and produced stuff, but I’ve definitely been taking a step back from acting. With the strike last year and then this year sort of recovering from the strike, I set in motion a lot of things during that strike time because we were all sitting around twiddling our thumbs. So I started a bunch of writing projects that I’m now getting past the development phase and I’m talking to producers about stuff, and that’s really exciting. And I feel almost more like a writer this year than I do an actor. I think people want to take more control, and I definitely wanted to take more control. I’m excited about getting these projects off the ground. And, I’d like to do some more directing. I’ve done some shorts and music videos, but I think doing a feature would be really exciting. So I have a lot on my plate; I have a lot of boulders that I’m pushing up.
“I’m working on a Western horror which has a really dark edge to it and has a big indigenous component to it. And another is a psychological horror similar to Never Let Go, And then I’m developing a show concept that’s more relationship-driven and relationship-based. It’s inspired by a lot of things that are just happening around me in life and something that I would like to make in Canada because everything we shoot up here is supposed to be in the States. And I think it would be really exciting to shoot Vancouver for Vancouver and make something that showcases this city in a way that I and you don’t see very often.”
In today’s society, a social media presence would seem like a must. For Anderson, it’s just not something he’s all that into even though he is always conscious of trying to be present in a moment. You won’t find him filming a concert on his phone. “I never understood that. All these people are filming concerts on their phone. What are you going to do with that? Are you going to watch your shit phone footage later? Just enjoy it while you’re there. That’s really what it comes down to is enjoy the moment while you’re in it. And I think that’s almost like becoming a lost art. Everybody wants to capture everything and get the photos and stuff. And I know there are people who do it really well and do it effortlessly and are able to do that thing and be present and still do all that stuff. I find I get in the moment and I’m thinking about it, and then I’ll leave and my phone never left my pocket.”
While Never Let Go continues to get praise, Anderson just finished a project with Billy Zane.
“He’s got this presence in the industry. It’s so odd and I’m so curious, sort of like how that happened. And he’s obviously very aware of it, talk about an artist. He’s painting. He’s always creating. He’s always doing stuff. His energy was great. He was so creative and really fun and exciting to work with on set and always keeping me on my toes and always shaking stuff up and trying new things and nothing was ever stale and the energy was just so kinetic.”