Typecasting
Dan Aykroyd's role in the new movie Sneakers has a reflection in real life. In the movie, he plays a technology junkie who specializes in electronic surveillance; off the screen, the Canadian-born actor and star of the popular Ghostbuster movies protects himself from the public and from entertainment-industry competitors with an arsenal of the latest state-of-the-art electronic surveillance equipment. ``I've got a public profile,'' Aykroyd told Maclean's recently, ``and I also have scripts and ideas that I need to keep secure.'' For protection, he has outfitted his Los Angeles office (he calls it his ``industrial centre'') with infra-red video cameras, hypersensitive microphones and laser-equipped alarms. Similar equipment guards his farm in eastern Ontario, the location of which he describes only as being somewhere between Montreal and Toronto. (In fact, it is just outside Kingston, Ont.) ``I go on night patrols sometimes -- perimeter sweeps without flashlights,'' Aykroyd said, adding: ``Look, everybody knows where my farm is. But we're ready for them when they come.'' Asked who ``they'' are, the actor deadpanned: ``Anybody.''
Maclean's, 9/21/92
Brian D. Johnson
Transcribed by L. Christie
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