00:27This is Tim Wassberg from Fest Track on Surf TV.
00:29I'm here in Toronto, Ontario for the Toronto Film Festival.
00:33He's a hard guy to hate, you know.
00:36He just, like, is, regardless of any of the noise around him, he's quite pure.
00:43I don't wait until we get to Toronto.
00:46I'm so moved by this thing.
00:48America really.
01:00I don't wait until we get to Toronto, Canada has changed me.
01:05It's turned me into a softie, and I cry at movie premieres.
01:10For most of us, I am.
01:11Which is really, that's very narcissistic.
01:14I came to this story because I actually, after I made CODA, I think I had a real awareness of
01:20the deaf community and my experience of entering that community, but also the disability stories were not told.
01:29I've been watching films and television all of my life before I even started acting or storytelling, so I knew
01:37I wanted this movie to be made.
01:39I would have, I waited years to see something like this on the big Hollywood screen, so I knew the
01:47importance of it from that perspective.
01:50But also from an acting perspective, I knew what that meant to, one, be offered to audition.
02:01That was huge, because she hadn't hit it.
02:05What I cherished and I really enjoyed was the process of stripping back my, basically everything I'd ever heard of
02:15her,
02:16and trying not to mimic her, or make you seem like a carbon copy, I wanted to feel everything that
02:24she felt.
02:25There is this feeling, and Ruth should speak to this, but like, of being applauded for going to the grocery
02:32store.
02:33I get applauded for going to the grocery store a lot, yeah.
02:37Yeah, and so I think for me, it was about subjectivity, actually, that I never wanted to be looking at
02:47my characters.
02:48I wanted to be with them in the building.
02:53And when we were doing, we spent a lot of time in rehearsal doing wheelchair transfers, and being close, like,
03:02sort of with each other's bodies,
03:04and it was important for me to have a camera, like, the gaze of the movie was really important for
03:10me,
03:10and to have a camera that was kind of alive and hidden with my actors.
03:15I have no f***ing idea. I really don't, you know, talking about acting is like trying to hold on to
03:22sand.
03:23I don't know how to do it in any way that is articulate, or could explain it, really.
03:31I had something really lucky that not everybody has, which is I think it was a very beautiful script,
03:38and text is king in my book, and it was there on the page, and it was just my job
03:43not to mess it up.
03:45And I got exceedingly lucky with the actors I got to work with.
03:51I mean, Naomi and I have been able to work with her, and I should just say,
03:56work together on Hall's family TV series. It was a very different experience.
04:00But nonetheless, we got to play, and I was instantly drawn in with, I mean, obviously,
04:10I've been drawn into many of her performances before, but the actual experience of creating
04:16in real time together, it was just, yeah, fantastic.
04:24I just saw the film. I just was here.
04:31I just saw the film for the first time, and I think it may be possible that I have a
04:43role
04:44in the first film of a really great director.
04:52I think a lot of stuff is going on here, but that's the main thing, and I'm no authority.
05:03Yes, you are.
05:04Yes, you are.
05:04I can't write it to you, kid.
05:06Yes, you are.
05:07Oh, my God.
05:08Oh, my God.
05:08Sorry.
05:09It was like this for months.
05:13You know, we can't get a burning edge, but I can't get a burning edge.
05:29It was like life, possibly, has come together in this film, and now I think it's going to explode.
05:45What?
05:59Oh, my God.
06:02Oh, my God.
