Canadian actor Matthew MacCaull makes most of role in Disney’s ‘Tomorrowland’

TORONTO – Making your mark as a bit player in an eye-popping, effects-laden Disney movie featuring George Clooney is no easy feat.

But that’s what Montreal-born actor Matthew MacCaull set out to do with his brief appearance in the futuristic “Tomorrowland,” a kid-friendly adventure tale drawing on both the name and wondrous spirit of the otherworldly theme park.

Britt Robertson stars as a brilliant teen who finds a pin that transports her momentarily to what seems to be the future. When she’s zapped back to the present day she enlists the help of Clooney’s character, a former boy genius named Frank Walker, in her bid to find this parallel world again.

MacCaull’s character Dave Clark is a mysterious figure intent on protecting the secrets of Tomorrowland. He doesn’t get much screen time, but MacCaull saw an opportunity to stand out nonetheless.

“I thought that he could be a really memorable character and I thought if I do my work right, he might be even an iconic character,” MacCaull says during a round of interviews in Toronto.

“The answer was: Do as much work as you can. If you wake up in the middle of the night and you have an idea, get out of bed and work on it, don’t wait. Just work on it right now. So there were definitely a couple of sleepless nights.”

MacCaull began strategizing when he scored an audition, even though he had virtually no information on the role.

He says he was only told a few key details — the name of the film, the name of the character and the fact that director Brad Bird (“Ratatouille,” “The Incredibles”) and screenwriter Damon Lindelof (“Lost,” “Star Trek Into Darkness,” “Prometheus”) were involved.

The name Dave Clark immediately had him thinking about ’60s English rockers The Dave Clark Five, so he decided to infuse the role with a “sort of ’60s swagger.”

“It was just one of those moments where an actor has to make a choice and actors always make choices,” said the 37-year-old MacCaull, whose parents and family are from Prince Edward Island.

“And so I just thought, ‘I think I’ve got some creative freedom here to make some bigger choices.’ And luckily, I guess I was right.”

MacCaull’s big break comes after more than a decade of chipping away at background work, commercial auditions and bit parts in smaller productions. That’s on top of a variety of day jobs including a stint as a travelling toilet brush salesman in Halifax, a trucker in the United Kingdom, and a lifeguard in Vancouver, which is still how he spends his summers.

But now MacCaull says he’s proud to tout multiple projects on the go, including the upcoming film “Vendetta” opposite Dean Cain and Michael Eklund and recurring TV roles on CW/Shomi’s “iZombie” and Hallmark Channel’s “Cedar Cove.”

“It was just so hard,” MacCaull admits of his long road to establishing an acting career.

“You have all your friends asking you how you’re doing, how’s it going and you just don’t want to tell them that you’re failing at it everyday.

“But there’s just something within me that knew that, ‘OK, well, I might not be succeeding today but tomorrow’s going to be a new day.’”

“Tomorrowland” hits theatres Friday.