The treasure: Kevin McDonald cemented his status as beloved Canadian treasure with his multidecade tenure in legendary comedy troupe the Kids in the Hall. He is also an in-demand voice actor, appearing in everything from “Lilo & Stitch” to “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.”
The new thing: He plays a hapless world leader in “Super Team Canada,” Crave’s first original animated series, which follows the antics of a low-rent assortment of Canadian superheroes. McDonald says his character “because I’m inept and I know nothing about politics … so I would say my character is exactly like me if I was prime minister: vain, afraid, doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s totally me.”
The details: Stream it on Crave now.
You play the prime minister in your new show “Super Team Canada.” If you were PM, what three fun things would you do to make every Canadian happier?
I would do comedy. I would be the funny prime minister. I was the funny movie usher when I was a teenager. I think the other four comedians in my troupe think I’m the funniest. I would also show more sports. And the whole country, we would go out to the park every Saturday and hold hands.
What did you learn about the craft of voice-over making “Super Team Canada”?
I learned that my voice is aging and I start losing it after two or three hours. I’ve done voice things now for 30 years and the voice people that I’m usually with, they can do a million voices. I have one voice. People like to hire me to get scared and go (high-pitched squeal) “Noooo!” I could do that for hours when I was younger and now I realize somewhere between the second and third hour, my “Noooo!” becomes more like (hoarse monster voice) “No.”
What lessons did you take from your fellow Canadian treasures on “Super Team Canada”?
I don’t even know who they are because I did it by myself, so I learned that they’re probably more valuable than I am. And now you’re making me think, “Oh, they all got together, they all did their lines together and I was by myself.” So what I learned from them is I should work harder so I’m allowed — if there’s a second season — I’m allowed to record with them.
What do you wish your younger self knew?
Not to marry my first two partners. Be careful with your money. Having a sense of humour does really make things easier.
What piece of advice do you give aspiring performers?
Whatever their performing thing is, I say, “Do it all the time.” If it’s writing, “Write all the time.” If you’re starting with comedy, “Do comedy all the time.” And if even if you’re too young that you can’t get onstage all the time, go to workshops all the time, because we get invisibly better if we do it all the time. We don’t know we’re getting better, but we build our instincts and our instincts are being built without us knowing it. I call it watching the puppy grow. We have a new puppy. We don’t know the puppy’s getting bigger, but my friend Mark McKinney, he saw the puppy when I first got the puppy and then, three months later, he came and he said, “Wow, your puppy’s getting bigger.” The same with whatever your performing thing is, you just get better. Your inside puppy is growing.
What is the best advice you ever got?
My dad, who was a drunk, he gave me only one piece of advice that I remember. He said (rough approximation of dad voice), “Kevin, never pass up a chance to go to the bathroom. You never know when you have that chance again.” He also gave me other advice … when I was going to New York when I was in my early 20s: “Kevin, whenever you’re in New York, put your wallet in your underwear. Nobody will grab it there.”
And what is the worst advice you ever got?
“Kevin, when you go to New York, put your wallet in your underwear.”
What makes you happiest these days?
Just being inside. I’m becoming more of a hermit. I was always a little bit of a hermit, but (COVID) brought it out more in me. I write a lot more, but I also read a lot more and listen a lot more. I watch movies a lot more. I’m in a hotel room right now in Buffalo and I have most of the day off till 4:30 when I go to a rehearsal. The guy who runs the theatre, his wife is a tour person in Buffalo and she sent me a million amazing things I could do. And instead, I’m just gonna stay in the room and watch my favourite British soccer team play on the computer. I’m going to order room service and I’ll be in heaven.
What gives you hope these days?
It’s not a hopeless time … but it’s a time with less hope. History should give you hope because there’s been hard times before. Like it’s hard in every aspect of life, it seems, from climate to politics. But things have got better in the past. As for the climate destroying the world, the only thing that gives me hope is that, unless a meteor hits it, the planet Earth will not die and they’ll start again.
Which achievement are you proudest of today?
There’s so many, but I could also say there’s so few. The first thing that comes to my mind is just getting a TV show with the Kids in the Hall.
We were a young, struggling troupe. We knew we were good, but everyone in that position, like quote unquote, knows they’re good, so it doesn’t mean they are good.
We knew we were good in a weird way, which made kind of sense that we got well known in a cult kind of way: like, we would never be as big as “Saturday Night Live” or Monty Python or anything like that, but yeah, we’re the kind of group that not everyone in the world knows about us, but the people who like us (ecstatic scream) love us.
Living in Los Angeles for many years and now Winnipeg with your family, what do you miss about Toronto? Do you have any Toronto places you always recommend?
I miss Toronto very much. I still go there two or three times a year, but it’s a different Toronto. Like the places I would recommend are under Lake Ontario now, from a thousand years ago. I do say, this is really old man of me (impeccable old man voice): “Go to the Rivoli and watch a band! Oh, also the Queen Mum, it’s a few blocks away. Go have some pad thai at the Queen Mum!”
What is a skill people may be surprised to discover you have?
You know what I used to be able to do? Until the early 2000s, people could say a year and I would tell them who won the Oscar for best movie, best actress, best actor, best director and best writer. But now I wouldn’t have a clue. I used to know everything about music, too: everything about music and movies. Now I don’t know anything.
What hobbies do you want to learn in the future?
Oh, like Mark McKinney‘s TV show (“Mark McKinney Needs a Hobby”). The first hobby I want to learn is to be a better friend and watch Mark’s TV shows.
I also keep reading about how people love boating. I also always wonder, well, shouldn’t I be a boater? I should be a guy that takes the boat out for the weekend.
In the 1998 Japanese film “After Life,” when people die they get to pick a happy scene from their life that they get to live in forever. What scene from your life would you pick to live in forever?
Wow, this is sad and deep, but — this is nothing funny — but I’m going with my first instinct, that was my thought when I was going to do this. So I’m seven years old, my family has just moved from Montreal to Los Angeles, California. We lived there for a year and a half. And I remember being on the beach and it was calm and beautiful, and I thought the world was an amazing place and my mother was singing (sings angelically) “by the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea,” and that’s it. I would like to be there forever.
