Jon Cryer headlines ‘Hit By Lightning’ comedy shot in Ottawa

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MONTREAL – Jon Cryer laughs when asked if his new romantic dramedy “Hit By Lightning” will start conversations between couples looking to keep the spark alive in their relationships.

“Yes,” he allows. “The murdering-your-husband part of it might get people talking.”

The new film, which also stars British Columbia-born Will Sasso (“MADtv,” “Three Stooges,” “Family Guy”) and Stephanie Szostak, opens Friday. It will also be available on iTunes the same day.

Cryer plays Rickey Miller, a lonely guy looking for love. He finds it but his new sweetie wants him to kill her husband.

“It was originally described to me as a combination of ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ and ‘Body Heat’,” Cryer said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. “I thought, ‘OK, I did not see those two together’.”

The script appealed to him, however, “because it’s kind of uncharted territory.”

The description of Miller might spark comparisons to another poor schlub played by Cryer — the hapless Alan Harper on TV’s “Two and a Half Men.”

Cryer insists, however, they’re two different characters and says Miller “comes from a completely different place.”

“The character in ‘Hit By Lightning’ is much more introverted. He’s a guy that’s happy to sit and watch hockey with his cats for hours so ‘Hit By Lightning’ is actually a chance to do something very different than Alan for me.”

Writer-director Ricky Blitt, who is originally from Montreal, said Cryer was initially considered for a smaller role, the target of the murder plot who is described as a truly horrible person.

“Jon Cryer would have been the most extreme way you could go for that, doing something that’s opposite to what he normally plays,” Blitt said in a recent telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he’s now based.

Cryer became the lead when the original choice had to withdraw. Blitt is ecstatic about how things worked out.

“You want to like him and believe in what he’s going through,” Blitt says of Cryer’s portrayal. “In Two and a Half Men, (he’s) a bit more hapless in a kind of zany way whereas this was just a little more hapless in a way that’s relatable.”

Blitt says he drew on a lot of experiences in his own life for the script.

“I’ve always kind of identified with late bloomers, either professionally or romantically, and the idea that love had passed him by was what I started with. Then it struck me as really funny and surprising to go in an unexpected, dark kind of thing.”

“Hit By Lightning” was shot in a whirlwind three weeks to accommodate Cryer’s schedule.

“It limited our choices in a perfect way,” the actor said before coming to the film’s Canadian premiere at the Just for Laughs festival in July. “We had to get it as simply as we could and that’s great because you’re not given all the time in the world to dither.”

While set in Los Angeles, the movie was filmed in Ottawa, which is not really known for its palm trees and California-type climate.

“That’s something that Jon Cryer laughed about a lot,” said Blitt. “He said, ‘I’m reading this script and all of the things that are happening are happening within three blocks or three miles of my home and I’m travelling 3,000 miles to shoot this movie.”

Cryer said it rained the whole time except for three days when the production absolutely needed sunny, Los Angeles-type weather.

“It ended up being that kind of charmed shoot,” he said. “With a lot of indie movies, either things can go bad from Day 1 or you just get lucky. This was a case where we really got lucky.”

Cryer, who has shot other films in Vancouver and Winnipeg, said he enjoys filming in Canada.

“Honestly, every time I’ve shot there (Canada), I’ve had a great time.”

Cryer, who’s currently working on a memoir of his 30-year showbiz career, praised the Canadian way of making movies.

“Filmmaking in Canada is much more of a group effort,” he said. “It’s a little more top-down in the States. In Canada, it feels like everybody’s more collaborative, which is great.

“I guess you would call it a little more egalitarian. Everybody feels they have a little bit of a creative stake in it, which is nice. In the States, it’s about executing the view of the director, whatever that is.”

Follow @nelson.wyatt on Twitter

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