Delon Shurtz
lethbridge herald
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Forget "American Idol," "CSI," "Lost," "Survivor" or "The Office." When retired farmer and gardener extraordinaire Mike Stefancsik and his wife Edith sit down in front of the TV, they like to watch the news or the History Channel. The Lethbridge couple, who emigrated from Hungary in 1957, also enjoys National Geographic and occasionally romance movies.
But even those take a backseat to the TV series "Alcatraz," or one of Mike's favourite DVD movies "Slap Shot 3: The Junior League," particularly the Hungarian version.
"We laugh," he says.
Actually, Mike watches the movie for one reason only: The star actor is his grandson, Greyston Holt Stefancsik. And he watches "Alcatraz," "Smallville" and many other TV shows for the same reason.
"I watch just about every episode," he says.
With Greyston's busy filming schedule, Mike usually only gets to see his grandson on TV. But the actor is visiting his grandparents in Lethbridge this weekend for their 55th wedding anniversary.
"I just love coming out here and getting my fill of Hungarian food," Greyston says jokingly, then adds on a more serious note, "We've just been super close."
Born in Calgary, Greyston lived in Lethbridge for two years when he was a toddler and again for one year when he was about eight years old. Most of his growing up, however, was on Salt Spring Island, B.C., a short ferry ride from Vancouver.
Every summer, until he was about 16, he visited his grandparents in Lethbridge. Although his visits since then have been sporadic, he still tries to visit as often as he can, as difficult or even impossible as that is during filming.
Greyston caught the acting bug in Grade 12 while living on Salt Spring Island. He enrolled in drama class just to get his arts credit, and enjoyed it so much he decided to be an actor.
"I fell in love with it," he says.
When he told his parents, his mother mentioned it to a co-worker whose sister is an agent, and soon agent and aspiring actor were working together.
"I've been with her since day one," Greyston says.
Greyston would like to break into film, but until he does, he's content to earn his bread and butter through TV movies and shows. While he's probably best known for his roles in "Slap Shot 3," "Durham County," and "Lost Boys: The Tribe," he's also acted in "Alcatraz," "Sanctuary," "SGU Stargate Universe," "Fringe," "Seven Deadly Sins," "Blood Ties," "Smallville," "Into the West," "Killer Bash," "Perfect Romance," "The Sisterhood" and "A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story." Two other TV movies, "Hannah's Law" and "Borealis 2045," have yet to be released.
"I am very proud of him," says Grandpa Mike, who was on the set of Borealis when it was filming near Bragg Creek west of Calgary. "They treated us like royalty."
In the two-hour pilot, Greyston plays Dan, a post-graduate anthropologist from Berkeley University whose caught up in the ruthless competition for the last of the world's great oil reserves near a small town in the Arctic.
Although proud of his grandson's success, Mike's pride is most obvious when he speaks of their close relationship and when he recalls his feelings when he learned Greyston would be able to take time from filming to visit.
"I was really pleased."