When Dan Payne came home to shoot Disney’s Descendants here two years ago, he was treated like royalty.
He did play Beast, King of Auradon, after all.
The Victoria-born actor is back to host CabarGay, Saturday night’s fifth annual Victoria Pride Society fundraiser at the Belfry.
His queen this time won’t be Belle, but the irrepressible local drag performer Gouda Gabor.
“He’s the nicest guy to work with,” said Gabor, a fan of Mulligans, writer-producer Charlie David’s indie drama filmed at Prospect Lake nine years ago.
Payne played a man whose family is torn apart when their son’s gay friend comes to visit, reawakening the father’s latent homosexuality.
Payne, who is married and has two sons — Elijah, seven, and Grayson, four — has since amassed an impressive list of credits. They include a recurring role on Hallmark Channel’s The Good Witch; his leading role in the CTV sitcom Alice I Think; roles on Supernatural, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, Smallville and The L Word, and films including Watchmen and John Tucker Must Die. Payne remains “extremely proud” of Mulligans, he said.
“It’s one of my favourite experiences in terms of having a story to tell with integrity,” he said. “It’s about family, relationships, honouring yourself and love.”
The last film he shot here was Stranger in the House, in which he played a detective smitten with Emmanuelle Vaugier’s imperilled heroine.
“She was pretty easy to fall in love with, I can tell you,” laughed the towering Vancouver-based actor, who describes last year’s shoot as having “the least amount of stress I’ve ever felt on a movie set.”
“Alan is a Zen guru,” said Payne, referring to Alan Harmon, who directed the film produced by his wife, Cynde Harmon.
“They’re the epitome of what doesn’t exist in this industry. There’s no stress or pressure, no freaking out.”
Hallmark has similar qualities, added Payne, whose other Hallmark gigs include playing opposite Nicolette Sheridan in I’m Yours, and co-starring with Jenny Garth in Time to Dance.
“Hallmark has been a beautiful machine, and I’m very grateful to them,” said Payne, who was surprised to receive a letter of gratitude from a Hallmark executive for his work in Time to Dance.
“I was so flattered and floored. I think I read it 10 times, and I had my wife read it to make sure it was real,” said Payne, who describes his wife, Daylon, as his rock.
A “family-first” guy, Payne said he appreciates getting to “tell stories my whole family can watch” by doing Hallmark movies.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to try “deeper, darker, grittier stuff,” said the actor who’ll soon be seen as Wadjet, a creature on the Enterprise crew in Star Trek Beyond.
“If it doesn’t hit the editing room floor, you’ll see me tangle very briefly with Idris Elba,” laughed Payne, who is unrecognizable under layers of prosthetics. “That was colossally cool.”
He scored major brownie points at home after doing Descendants, which he didn’t realize would be such a popular franchise until after it aired.
“We went to her birthday party and all she wanted was anything from Descendants,” he said, recalling reaction from his son’s young friend.
Coming from a close-knit family himself, it’s easy to see why Payne is such a family man. His mother is one of 13 children, many of whom still live on the Island he moved away from a year after he was born.
He described his father as “an extremely intelligent workaholic who decided his lot in life wasn’t what he wanted, so he climbed the ladder” to explain his nomadic childhood.
“My father went from the bottom rung of the coal industry to the top rung,” said Payne, whose dad began by shovelling coal and became vice-president of B.C. mining giant Teck Resources.
“It wasn’t witness relocation or anything cool like that,” he laughed, recalling several moves to mining communities.
They lived in Winnipeg, where his brother Josh was born; Grand Cache, Alta., where sister Cathy was born; and Hinton, Alta., where he attended high school, played hockey and began getting scouted for basketball and volleyball.
“I’m grateful for small-town living because of the lessons learned and the moral fibre and resourcefulness you get,” said the athletic honours student.
“I’d go out with my brother and sister in the sunlight, play in the forest with a snack packed by my mom and come back when it was dark for dinner.”
Before he pursued acting, Payne had a professional volleyball career that began at University of Calgary and ended in Holland.
He also spent four years in Australia, working as a photographer and doing comedy shows, and studied acting and performed in London.
“Volleyball was a sport that when I really got into it, the rest of the world disappeared,” he said. “That intoxicating place you go to when you’re doing something you love in a competitive way carried over to acting.”
For more on CabarGay visit belfry.bc.ca.