When Rush returned to the stage at the LA Forum on 7 June, the first faces many fans saw were not Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson or new drummer Anika Nilles. Instead, before the music even began, three young actors appeared inside a gothic, Easter-egg-packed opening film that immediately set the internet buzzing.
For David Spence, Kate Hargrave Murray and Taylor S. Gokyilmaz, the three people in question, the experience began not with a rock ‘n’ roll announcement, but with them sworn to secrecy.
The casting call arrived under the deliberately vague title Project X. The details were minimal. A major Canadian band, a huge live audience, and strict confidentiality. Non-disclosure agreements signed, they waited for the reaction.
It was only when they finally got on set that they realised they were being pulled into one of the most closely watched rock comebacks in years.
David had only recently started acting when the audition came through. “I started with Strutt Central, and I had auditioned for this role. It was called Project X. It was a very secretive role. My agency told me they couldn’t tell me too much about it, but it was going to be a major band, a Canadian band, and it would be live in front of a 50,000-person audience.
“So obviously, I was very eager to get involved with it. Jules from Jules Casting and Dale, the director, liked my audition tape enough to put me in there, which I’m so grateful for, and that was kind of how it went about.”
And when he met the band? “I had to lean on the wall,” David laughs, “so I didn’t fall over when I shook Alex’s hand.”
Kate’s route in was equally opaque. Most of the details were hidden, which she said is not unusual in the industry, but the callback almost slipped away when she was out of town.
“I was just crushed,” she remembered. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m not going to get this part because I can’t make it to the callback.'”
Then came the surprise. She already had the role. “I didn’t know who it was for until the wardrobe fitting,” Kate says, “because we came in and they’re like, there’s some people in there getting wardrobe already.
“We’ll get you guys in a minute. Then they bring us in, and they’re like, oh, so you know, this is Alex, this is Geddy. And we’re just there like, Hi.”
Taylor, a recent Toronto Film School graduate, had no representation and submitted himself through Casting Workbook. The brief, he said, called for “the chubby Willy Wonka lookalike”, and he leaned into the audition with improvised abandon.
“I was like, hey, I’m chubby, I can do it, right? So I did the part, improv the hell out of my audition, and farted by mistake,” Taylor says. “That was really, really funny. And they really liked it.”
The prosthetics process meant he found out before the others who he would be playing. “By the way, you’re going to be Alex Lifeson,” he was told. “And I was like, no way. That’s crazy.”
All three actors are from Toronto, where Rush is less a band and more like a civic institution. David’s father is a lifelong fan, which made the non-disclosure agreement especially difficult. “That killed me,” he said. “Not only is my dad a massive Rush fan, but South Park, we grew up watching that. Literally every day, it was like peeling your skin off, how bad you want to talk to him.”
The secrecy lasted for roughly two and a half to three months, depending on when each actor entered the process. Kate, who has worked on other productions with long embargoes, said the lockdown was familiar but still surreal.
The difference this time was personal. Rush songs were everywhere, including where she worked. “A Rush song would come on the jukebox pretty much every other shift. I was out with friends the other day. We went to a game arcade, and this was before the concert had started.
“So, everything was still under NDAs. There was a Rush-themed pinball machine. We all got a song stuck in our heads, and everyone’s joking about it, and I couldn’t say anything because we were still under the NDA”.
When the opening film finally appeared, the actors began seeing clips and comments almost immediately. For Taylor, the most common reaction was disbelief. Fans wondered whether the young Alex Lifeson figure was generated by artificial intelligence.
“Most of the comments we’ve been replying to are, ‘No, that’s me in prosthetics and makeup. I’m a 22-year-old man,'” he said. Even he was startled by the finished result. “Looking back on the tape, I couldn’t recognise myself.”
Kate and David were more recognisable, while Taylor found himself in the odd position of being central to the video and still semi-anonymous. Kate joked that if she wears the pigtail braids, fans might spot her.
Taylor, meanwhile, has behind-the-scenes prosthetics material he hopes will eventually help people connect the transformation with the person underneath. “We’ll see when they get to Toronto,” laughs Kate. “If we’re getting mauled, he’s lucky that he was in aesthetics. If we’re getting mauled with $100 bills, he’s unlucky.”
The trio quickly learned what longtime Rush followers already know that this is a fanbase that studies everything. David described Rush fans as people who “notice everything” and sometimes “overanalyse” because they care so deeply.
Kate saw a generational parallel in the hunt for clues and Easter eggs. “Normally, when I see that sort of thing happening, it’s with Swifties,” she said. “It’s the same thing, just for a different generation.”
David adds, “People want to make a connection so bad that they’re trying to associate, for example, Kate with Anika”. But this is what makes it special, says Kate. “I’m getting a lot of new followers (on Instagram) that are like men in their 50s and 60s and aren’t immediately sending me weird DMs. So, I’m gonna take that,” she laughs before adding with sincerity, “it’s such a pleasure though to know that the community cares like that and is looking deeply.”
We touch on the sheer professionalism of Rush and their crew. “Even their appearance on the Junos just a few short months before, right?” says Kate. “They drop it suddenly, they do everything as such a fan service, and so it’s important. It’s important to keep that secrecy with the cameras kind of tucking them away until the big reveal.”
During auditions, much of the Rush-specific context had been removed. Kate recalled being asked to react to strange situations without knowing their meaning. “We don’t know that it’s the owl from the Fly By Night album. We just know, OK, react like there’s a bird flying at you.”
Only once the film was public did the actors begin to understand how densely packed the references were. If you’ve seen it, there are plenty to unpack, but the glass of Macallan with the napkin with Neil written on it is perhaps the biggest tearjerker of the lot.
On set, the secrecy gave way to comedy. Kate described Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson as “so funny”, with much of the work involving improvisation.
“They’re just great guys all around. I think the hardest part was because we’re riffing back and forth, and there’s a lot of improv, and they’re so funny. We’d be in the middle of a take and the three of us are there like, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.”
Taylor had one advantage, his prosthetics were so restrictive that laughing was physically harder. “My face was so tight that I couldn’t really move it,” he said.
But the respect for the production was unanimous. The hot dog scene, where Geddy reprises Gershon, Kate explained, was built indoors with a wall and green screen to create the transition from the castle animation into the live-action opening shot.
For David, one of the most memorable moments came during the Harry and The Bag sequence. He was trying to stay focused when he saw Geddy in full bagpipes and kilt, while Alex stood nearby in pyjamas holding a hacky sack. “This is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he remembered thinking. “It took me an honest 15 minutes to collect myself.”
There were quieter moments too. Between takes, David spoke with Alex about music, his father’s love of Rush, and his own love of Tool. Alex shared memories of performing “Jambi” with Tool in Toronto. “A Canadian legend like that coming down to earth to talk to me, a mere mortal,” David said, “it was really an honour.”
Incredibly, the actors did not see the completed intro before opening night. Instead, like the fans, they first caught it through clips filmed at the concert and shared online.
David compared the decision to keeping the monster hidden from the children in IT Chapter One. “When they kept the clown from the kids before their first scene with it, right? That was kind of what they did with us. They kept us in the dark so that when we see that, it’s almost like we get the taste with the fans, right? That authenticity, that excitement. So, it was a real pleasure that they did that. And I’m so grateful that they did.”
Taylor was at work when the first clips emerged, and the group chat erupted. “We’re on, we’re here,” the messages said. He stepped away from the counter to watch. “I just looked at my phone like, oh my God, I must watch this. Excuse me for 10 minutes.”
Whether they will see the full show in Toronto remains, as Kate put it, something they can “neither confirm nor deny.” What they can confirm is that they will be at RushCon on 8 August for a Q&A panel, and all three expect to be around for the wider weekend’s events.
As I will be in Toronto for that weekend, I look forward to meeting them in person in a few weeks’ time.
Asked for favourite Rush songs, David answered instantly: “YYZ.” Kate chose Fly By Night because it so often gets stuck in her head, while Taylor landed on Limelight.
The final joke was perfectly Rush-like. Why were their characters looking for the band in the first place? “We wanted to jam,” Kate said. David added, “I can play in seven-eights.”
Taylor had the last word. “I was there for the snacks.”
If the reaction so far is any guide, this may not be a one-weekend association. Rush fans have a way of making even the smallest piece of band history part of the wider mythology.
David already has a name for it. “We are the Rush Cinematic Universe.”
You can find Kate Hargrave Murray on Instagram here, Taylor S. Gokyilmaz on Instagram here and David Spence on Instagram here.
Rush at 50 Film – Primary creative team:
Dale Heslip — director
Mark Utley — cinematographer
Mark Morton — editor
Sean Cochrane/The Vanity — Visual effects
Chris Bridges — SFX makeup
Misty Fox — MUAH
Rush’s tour opens on 7 June in Los Angeles, where Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson will be joined by Anika Nilles on drums and Loren Gold on keyboards. Further articles in this series, including interviews with Rushfest Scotland, tribute band Rushed, and the Something for Nothing Rush Fancast, will follow in the coming month.
To read our Rush At 50 series, click here.
For UK ticket sale information, visit: https://www.aegpresents.co.uk/event/rush.
