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00:00It's an adaptation of a 250-year-old German tragedy that we have turned into a contemporary
00:19romance.
00:20A young guy and a young girl fall in love.
00:23She's engaged to an older man, but instead of it being this awkward, terrible thing,
00:28it's this awkward, wonderful thing.
00:30I read the book in university, and it resonated with me, and then I didn't even really at
00:36the time know that people directed movies or made movies.
00:40I thought companies made movies, you know.
00:42I was like, oh, Sony's got another movie.
00:45But you know, about ten years later, when I'd become interested in filmmaking and sold
00:50a few scripts, I was just looking for that next thing to write, and you know, Sorrows
00:54of Young Werther caught my eye on my bookshelf, and I pulled it down, re-read it, and I was
00:58like, why has there not been a major English-language adaptation of this novel?
01:03It's been adapted so many times in Europe, in other languages.
01:09There's operas, there's plays, there's mangas, there's so many different ways that the book's
01:15been adapted.
01:16And it just seemed, I don't know, something magical, timeless and true about the characters
01:21at the heart of it.
01:22And yeah, it was just something that, yeah, just grabbed me.
01:26I thought, let's go do this.
01:27So who came on board first?
01:30It was me, and I read the script, and it just zinged.
01:37The dialogue is so brilliantly written, it's so witty, it's fast-paced, and you had a very
01:44clear vision for it.
01:46And I also thought it was a character that I hadn't played before, and something that
01:48I could really get my teeth into.
01:54And then we were lucky enough to get someone as talented as Alison to play opposite, and
01:59why did you?
02:00I really thought just now you were going to say, and we were so lucky to get someone as
02:03talented as me.
02:07That too.
02:11I met Jose 20 years ago here in Toronto, the summer after I graduated from high school
02:19when one of his best friends, Henry, was the director's assistant on a film.
02:23And so there was this epic Toronto, my first kind of semi-grown-up, like, wow, I'm finished
02:32high school, running around Toronto having this really magical summer with him and some
02:38of his friends and bandmates, and I had never been cool in high school.
02:42And suddenly I met this crew of people, and I was like, man, nerds are cool.
02:48You're in the outside world.
02:50This is going to be good.
02:52And so I held in my heart this great love for Jose, and then I got sent this script
02:58and didn't look who it was written by or involving, I just opened up the PDF of the script and
03:03started reading and finished it in one sitting, like just couldn't stop reading it.
03:09The dialogue was so good, so clever, and it's so hard to make witty repartee sing on the
03:18page, and those are always my favorite romantic comedies, when it is sort of witty and full
03:25of banter and something that you can imagine saying if you were having your best day after
03:30a really good cup of coffee, and it's not every time, but it was a whole movie full
03:35of dialogue like that.
03:36And then I turned back to the email itself and went, holy shit, it's Jose!
03:42It was him!
03:43It was me!
03:46We had a lot of discussions about certain details, about the ages of the children.
03:51And that was all fine, and that was totally fine, we didn't worry about the ages of the
03:57children, it was not a concern at all.
03:59I think Alison would agree that the age thing, totally perfect, no, yeah, no, no, we, I'm
04:05trying to think what we changed, really, like, I think for the most part the script was the
04:10script, but what changed for me was just the way Doug and Alison and our brilliant
04:16cast interpreted the characters and brought the lines to life, and if there were ever
04:21issues with story or issues with a sequence of lines or something, you know, we'd sit
04:27down and figure it out and talk about it, and yeah, it felt like a very easy, collaborative
04:32thing.
04:33Did anything surprise you?
04:34I'm not doing the interview, sorry.
04:35Well, Douglas.
04:37Well, Douglas, I was, uh...
04:41What surprised you about my performance today?
04:44How lucky were you to help us?
04:48So lucky, constantly surprised, in the best ways, no, you know what I was surprised by?
04:53I was surprised by how fun it was, everyone, before we started filming, they were like,
04:58oh, get ready, it's going to be overwhelming, those days are going to be long, and people
05:02are going to get into fights, and it's going to be awful, and that just was not the case,
05:06like, I really, I don't know, I mean, you tell me, but I feel like it was a, you know,
05:11just exceptional experience across the board.
05:13It felt like a really magical shoot.
05:16It is so rare that you get to feel that kind of magic of everybody really trying their
05:22best from our wonderful design team to all of our crew to making things work on a budget,
05:29but that felt luxurious, somehow managed to feel luxurious in terms of indie filmmaking,
05:36and then you brought everyone together in this way with a very clear vision from this
05:41person who had been thinking about it for so long, and it felt like all of us really
05:47brought everything we could, and I will say it was tiring for you because you fell asleep
05:52at the birthday party that my daughter and I crashed in the park where suddenly we looked
05:57over and Jose is just in the lawn, like, so don't tell me it wasn't slightly overwhelming
06:04and tiring to direct your first feature.
06:06I was very tired a lot of the time, and it's true, we'd been invited to a birthday party
06:11in the park, and Alison's daughter Wilder was here, and Alison's daughter and my daughter
06:17were fast friends, and yeah, I did pass out on the ground in the park, and my wife was
06:23nudging me, she's like, Jose, you cannot sleep on the ground at the park, but I was like,
06:27there's a blanket nearby, it's like a picnic.
06:30Well, yeah, we rehearsed, and we spent time, and if you see the movie, the dialogue is
06:36quite complex at times, and we discussed that we wanted it to come out effortlessly and
06:42very quickly and feel easy and breezy, and that was something that more than usual I
06:49really went to work on really just repetition, learning the lines, because some of them,
06:55they're like delightful tongue twisters, and that's the delight of them, but I wanted them
06:59to come out effortlessly and easily so I could get to set and completely forget all the hard
07:03work I've done and be as completely present and natural as possible, but we spent a good
07:08couple of weeks, two weeks I think we had in Toronto together, which is quite luxurious
07:11on a movie, to really go out and sit in the park and run it, and go for dinners, and we
07:18really-
07:19Do waltzing lessons.
07:20We did waltzing lessons, we waltzed.
07:21There's nothing like starting a romantic comedy, learning to waltz, where neither of us had
07:26waltzed.
07:27Yeah.
07:28You were better than me, but we got there in the end.
07:31Trying to waltz and say his lines as well at the same time is not the easiest thing.
07:34So much of it was already there, he'd written such a tight script that the work had kind
07:38of been done for us, but you were incredible, you gave us a lot of license as well.
07:43There was times where we were like, let's just, you know, there's moments of improvisation
07:47I think.
07:48Yeah, there were for sure.
07:49Whether it was sort of hard dialogue, you gave us a long leash, and I think when you
07:54see the film, for me, my character, he's quite out there, you know, I had to be prepared
08:00to fail and look stupid at times, and I think if I felt too tight on that leash I wouldn't
08:04have been able to, you know, go balls to the wall.
08:09I have a background in theatre, so I do consider the script to be an unchangeable bible once
08:14set, but I was so grateful to have a collaborator in that, and I'm also very specific in terms
08:23of there are reasons that lines work, there are reasons that have to do with consonants,
08:28with syllables, you know, and so I like getting down to that nitty gritty level of like being
08:33able to talk to someone about the somewhat OCD nature of certain lines working or not.
08:38And you were very, you were heartbroken at times when I found things funny that weren't
08:43funny to anyone else in the room.
08:47That is true.
08:48My heart broke again and again.
08:49I know, I know, I broke your heart, but in the end, I put it back together.
08:53You sure did.
08:54And there were times, too, where, you know, there would be, we'd be tight on time or something
09:00and someone would say like, oh, what if we just cut that line or whatever, and I'd be
09:04like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:05And Allison would be like, uh, no, and here's why, and I'm looking out for the writer on
09:09this one.
09:10That is true.
09:11I look out for the writer often on set, because I do think they're very important and often
09:14don't get sung as heroes as often as they should, because if the writing is good, everything
09:20else can follow.
09:21And if it's not, you'll be really fighting for your life at every turn.
09:26Yeah, my grandest wish is that it's the kind of movie that you want to watch with your
09:30friends, partner, parents, children.
09:34Like I really do think, like my favorite movies are ones that endure, the way the book has
09:39endured for 250 years.
09:41I want this movie to endure for 250 years.
09:44That's the goal.
09:45I watched it yesterday again on the flight over just to give me a refresh before I did
09:50all these interviews.
09:51And I just leave, I just leave it feeling happy.
09:54It's full of so much love.
09:55We put so much love into it.
09:57I think our chemistry really comes across, be it with, um, my name's Allison.
10:03My name's Allison.
10:04Yeah.
10:05Be it with Allison.
10:06Have you met?
10:07Oh.
10:09I was going to say Allison or my co-star or my, or my director, all the film, all the
10:14filmmaker.
10:15Cause we had a real, real close bond and I felt held by you.
10:18And I really felt that we, you always, we always use the word threading the needle.
10:21We thread the needle through the scenes because so many times my character could either come
10:25across as annoying or, you know, there was so, it was a tight rope and we, we thread
10:29the needle in each scene and I felt it was a dance between me and you being at being
10:33in front of the camera to the monitor, just figuring it out.
10:35It was, it was, we were having a lot of fun playing.
10:37So I hope people just, um, have a sense of joy and their heart feels a bit, bit bigger
10:42when they, when they get to the end of it and yeah.
10:45I hope they want to fall in love again because truly this movie, it really does make the
10:51possibility of love seem so wonderful and optimistic and, and, and that the heartbreak
10:59is always worth it.
11:01And just the, the openness to that kind of love is a really beautiful thing that I think
11:05we should all sort of go about our day with more often.