Director Pablo Trapero and star Noah Jupe dish on their latest film '& Sons' at THR's TIFF suite at the 1 Hotel in Toronto. Trapero reveals what initially intrigued him about this story, moving the location out of New York and working with Bill Nighy on his character's look. Plus, Jupe reveals how he read the script in two hours and was eager to join the project.
00:00When I first met Bill, and we know how sharp he is, right?
00:05I mean, he's this gentleman all the way.
00:08And I came to him and I said, listen, Bill, this Andrew's character is exactly the opposite of what you look like in general, in life, right?
00:20I remember meeting him for the first time and he would come up to me and be like, I really don't look like this normally.
00:26Like, please, like, this is awful.
00:30What was it about the story that intrigued you from that first 10 years ago?
00:37I mean, what's, of course, on the original book, but of course also on first Sarah's draft is this family portrait.
00:49But mostly or above anything else is this, the legacy thing.
00:54So what we leave behind, what's our meaning here, what we are living.
00:59And between these two elements, I think the whole plot is being developed.
01:05Moving it out of New York in the book, was that just like a logistical thing, storytelling for you?
01:11What was that decision?
01:12Yeah, one of the first challenges was how do we make something that originally was meant to be very local with a bunch of references into something somehow more universal or more abstract.
01:24So the idea of trying to have something that can be translated into different audiences with different backgrounds and by moving it into these areas or these spaces, I believe that that was very helpful in order to make it a little wider open for people that were not related to very specific things about, for example, in this case, New York.
01:50Noah, how do you pick the projects you're going to do? Is it about who the character is? Is it about the actors you get to work with?
01:58I got sent a script and I read it in like two hours and I was blown away and I was so excited about it that I was like I heard Pablo was in London and I was like, I'm just going to fly to London for like two days and I'm just going to go meet him and see him and just like tell him how much I love the script and how much I want to work with him.
02:16And so I did and it worked.
02:19Which is true because I was in London and we were trying to meet Noah and then we learned he wasn't there and suddenly he was there.
02:27Yeah, I just arrived. I think I was the first one that was cast and so with someone like Bill who I think is just, you know, I grew up with him. He's like my childhood and I have so much respect for him.
02:42But then when we're doing these scenes and it's so vulnerable and genuinely vulnerable with these people, you suddenly break through that and I think, you know, in a character way but I think underneath it in a human way as well.
02:59His look in this film, was that your idea? Was that his idea? How did you come to the full long hair, long beard?
03:07He was open to try stuff and trying to go new places and very generous in the sense that, you know, sometimes for actors it's not that easy to explore new, I don't know, layers on their way of working.
03:24And Bill was, from the first to second, ready and excited about trying to create a special character for Andrew, right?
03:36And I'm so proud of what he did and so grateful that he had allowed me to, I don't know, guide him into this new adventure.
03:44And you saw Hamnet for the first time? I did. I did.
03:48You've already seen that, so tell me, what was that, what was watching yourself? And I guess watching, like, an even younger version, sort of yourself.
03:56I mean, honestly, it's been one hell of an overwhelming weekend, to be honest. It's been, it's been crazy, but I feel insanely lucky and, you know, to be here with this film, which I'm very passionate about, but then also go and support my brother in Hamnet.
04:14Like, it's, it's a pretty, it's a pretty special moment. And these things don't come around often. So I feel very, I feel very privileged.
04:23Did you cry?
04:24Yeah, I mean, like, it's also my brother. And there's some, yeah, I, it's gets very dark and very intense. And he was like 10 minutes, and I was already crying. And then that just got worse from there. So yeah, I had to take a, I remember after, and you've got all the parties and stuff. And I was like, going to them, and I was like, I actually just need a second, like, it just went and I went and watched a film, because I was like, I need to,
04:53I need to calm down from that. But my, my go to film to calm down is about time, you know, I'll bring it right back there.
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