'Steve' writer Max Porter, director Tim Mielants and stars Cillian Murphy, Jay Lycurgo, Tracey Ullman and Little Simz stop by THR's TIFF suite at the 1 Hotel in Toronto. Murphy and Mielants talk about how they knew they enjoyed working together, while the cast reveal what it was like in between takes on set. Plus, everyone recalls their school experience.
00:00Then he went and made this film called Patrick, which is one of my favorite films, and it kind of blew my mind.
00:05I thought it was the end of my career.
00:09It's about a guy looking for his hammer in a nudist camp.
00:11It's so great.
00:12He says that quite fast in his accent.
00:16It's about a guy looking for his hammer in a nudist camp.
00:21It's brilliant.
00:22And I like the one concession for the older woman with pearls.
00:25That was it.
00:30Tim and Killian, how did you guys know that you liked working together?
00:37I kind of like it that it's unspoken.
00:39I don't want to analyze it.
00:41I think then the mystery is gone.
00:45Boring.
00:48I think we made season three of Peaky Blinders together, and it was a very hard, very intense shoot.
00:56But I remember thinking, there's a lot more to this director than you can see, because it was an amazing series.
01:06I had a sense that Tim and Max would really connect together.
01:10I felt they would work really, really well together.
01:13And Tim has this amazing ability with actors.
01:16It's unlike any director I've come across.
01:18And actors just really go deep for him, and it's very freeing.
01:22And it needed that sort of touch for this film.
01:25What did it feel like on set?
01:26And what did you guys do in between takes or at the end of the day to kind of shake it off?
01:31He didn't shake it off.
01:33No, he didn't shake it off.
01:34It was, I find on like, well certainly on our sets there's a lot of laughing and messing around, because you have to, because the material sometimes is quite heavy.
01:45So I feel like we were chugging around and all that, but the beauty was we shot in order.
01:50So it meant that we were accumulating the experiences as we went along with the characters.
01:56That really helped.
01:57But it was like a lot of fun, but deadly serious.
02:00The young boys were wonderful.
02:03I mean, the actors and the boys that never acted before.
02:06And I was terrified of them the first three days.
02:09And then I just loved them by the end.
02:10And I just, I love boys and I love, you know, my characters love of them.
02:14And so it was great fun.
02:15Tons of a noisy, noisy energy.
02:17They were amazing.
02:18Imagine if they were here now.
02:20They all came charging in now.
02:21What was everyone's school experience like?
02:28I did all right.
02:29I was an average student. I never passed maths, but I found out I was dyslexic when I was 19,
02:36so I felt like I never really had teachers in my school that kind of was patient with me.
02:41I had a good time other than not being in the classroom.
02:45I'm still 14 in my head, so I'm still 14.
02:49But no, I had such a laugh at school. I was really a nightmare, I guess.
02:53But I had some very significant teachers that are why I'm here today, doing what I do,
02:59who spotted what I could do well, and I owe a lot to Mr Ronald Harding. I do.
03:06Let's name them. Mary Brooke.
03:09Mr Walsh, actually. Are you talking to go to drama school?
03:14Who for you?
03:14Miss Welton, my English teacher.
03:17Bill Wall, my English teacher.
03:19Mr Govarts.
03:20That's a teacher.
03:22Isn't that crazy how you can name them?
03:24Wow.
03:24Are we in the wrong profession? Should we all be teachers?
03:26No.
03:27That sounds so beautiful.
03:28Maybe 10% of us.
03:31Make the switch.
03:32Yeah.
03:33One of the things about school is I remember having a revelation that was,
03:37or at least I'm projecting back onto myself that I had this revelation,
03:40but I remember thinking, this is warm.
03:43I'm being helped.
03:44There's even people here that have faith in me,
03:46that are telling me I'd be good at something that I don't believe I'm good at,
03:49so they're actually unfurling me as a human being,
03:51and it's free.
03:52That was, you know, I remember thinking that at like 14,
03:55thinking, wow.
03:57You know, which is why private education should be abolished.
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