A few weeks back, I got a chance to participate in a roundtable with Audrey Tautou to talk about her latest film, COCO BEFORE CHANEL, in which she plays the iconic Coco Chanel.

She talked about how she prepared for the part, her experience working with Alessandro Nivola and Benoit Poelvoorde, whether she got to keep any of the clothes from the movie, and much more.

Coco Before Chanel comes out to theaters this Friday, September 25, 2009, but until then, enjoy the interview below.

How did you feel playing Coco Chanel as a young woman?

Audrey Tautou: I think I feel very lucky because she's maybe one of the most brilliant French women ever. She had such a unique character and extraordinary temperament that was very enriching to have the opportunity to play her and know her a bit more.

How did you prepare for the part?

Audrey Tautou: Well, I read a lot. I read some books and biographies and looked at photos and videos and of course had an idea about the main aspects of the way she was behaving, I would say, on the exterior. Also, the main aspects of her personality. I tried to find everything I could obtain about when she was very young because there was just a few information about her. I tried to guess what the aspects of her personality that she kept having, and which were the ones she lost with the success and the tragedy she lived and the one who appears with the time. It was trying to find the balance.

How is it different playing a historical character as opposed to a fictional one?

Audrey Tautou: Well, the interesting thing in this movie is that I was at the frontier between the famous Chanel and the unknown one. So I can say that the famous one, it's like the regular way of preparing for a part. You just observe the material. You observe her and you try to recreate her as close as possible from what you see. On the other side, we were showing a very unknown Chanel and so it was not a fictional character but it was a mystery. So that's how I could give my own little touch. That was very interesting for me, mixing those two elements.

Do you have any personality traits in common with Chanel?

Audrey Tautou: Well, I think that I'm kind of strong minded, too. I'm very, very attentive to keep my independence. Those things are important.

How much did the costumes inform you or restrict you?

Audrey Tautou: That was very important because the costume is Chanel. It's the exact reflection of her personality, of her singularity, of her desire to be free and be equal with men and to be different and to be looked at, to be seen. So that was really, really important and a very useful thing, of course. Also, when you watch the pictures of Chanel, even when she was very young and before she was famous, you can see that she has a real charisma. It was very important that we can see how charismatic she was even when she was young. The costumes helped I think a lot.

Can you talk about working with Alessandro Nivola and Benoit Poelvoorde?

Audrey Tautou: It was great. I really admire and have admired Benoit Poelvoorde for a long time. He's an amazing actor and I really enjoyed working with him. I was very charmed by Alessandro because he did amazing work. He's an American actor and he plays an English man who's speaking French. So he had some huge work and both are very, very different, very complimentary in fact. They have total opposite energy. I think like in this triangle relationship that it was very interesting.

Can you talk about riding a horse in the film?

Audrey Tautou: Well, in fact I learned riding a horse when I was a child but I hadn't practiced in a long time. So I had to get training. It was great, but they had given me a very nervous horse. Beautiful. The white one. Very beautiful but very...yeah. At first it was great and easy, but we had to do...Anne wanted us to do a scene when he's giving me the horse lesson and she wanted us to do this scene galloping. When I got on the set I discovered that the location was like a highway of lawn. She wanted us to be galloping and doing the scene. With my horse who was very ready I couldn't do the scene, but it was great, a great experience.

Has it made you not want to ride horses?

Audrey Tautou: No, not at all. I had those scenes and it was fine, but I got really, really petrified. I was like, 'No way. I'm not.'

What's different about working on a French production versus an American one?

Audrey Tautou: Well, the work itself is exactly the same but you just have to do your work to act. The only difference is about the means of production. The crew is more important, there are more people and the organization is more square.

Did you get to keep any of the clothes from this film?

Audrey Tautou: I've been asked this question a few times, but no. I couldn't because all the costumes end up in Chanel's museum. I tried to get a jacket and maybe in a few months they will give it to me but I don't know.

Was Chanel a feminist?

Audrey Tautou: I don't think she would call herself a feminist but by the value that she embodied she was a feminist, because when you want to have the same freedom as a man and when you don't want to depend on them and please them at any cost, that's a very feminist way of thinking. She was a woman of the new century.

What do you think audiences can learn from her struggle?

Audrey Tautou: Maybe that if you're determined you can choose your destiny and not be weak or to be subjected to your destiny. I think that's important.

I talked to a man who saw the movie and felt that she took advantage of men.

Audrey Tautou: [laughs] That's a man reaction.

Do you think that behavior of hers will be a problem for modern audiences?

Audrey Tautou: No, but of course she did some compromise to stay in a place in Balsan's house and stay in this aristocratic world but she didn't have any choice. She'd just been very clever because a woman's position at this moment, they was just nothing. Especially her, the status and the social classes were very separate and you couldn't...there are still classes today but there's more mobility and mixing between classes. So of course she took advantage of Balsan but he accepted it. He took advantage of her, too. Personally I really don't see any problem with that.

Some people thought it was a sad ending. Do you see it as that or that she was completely happy?

Audrey Tautou: Well, it's life. There's no life that's perfect, but her life was full of success and tragedy. It's true that Boy Capel who was really the love of her life, as she said, without his trust maybe she wouldn't have become Chanel. So of course for romantic spirits it's sad and for success or achievements...there's a good and a bad side, either way you can see it. Either it's great that she met this man and he enabled her to rise to where she was going or that it's sad that it happened this way. But what's interesting is the fragility of her destiny because if Boy had married her we can easily imagined that maybe she would've spent her life in England and maybe she wouldn't have ever become Chanel, Coco Chanel. That's also the despair which made her work so hard afterwards. But she had a life full of...she met a lot of tragedies. She experienced many tragedies.

Is there a compromise as an actress, that you travel and work a lot, that you make in not seeing your friends and family?

Audrey Tautou: No, no, no. I don't think so. I don't suffer in my work. I don't want to suffer because that's not my way. If I suffered I would do something else. It's true that for this part she was in a psychology called chaos for me. From my point of view she was always in a kind of anger and full of doubt and determined and I would say she was lost. So this violence of feelings, all this contrast was heavy to carry. But that didn't make me suffer and I don't miss my family when I work.

Do you watch any of the American shows like 'America's Next Top Model' or 'Project Runway' or is there something like that in France?

Audrey Tautou: No, because I don't really watch TV, in fact. I would've never said that this morning, but no, I don't watch TV. It's too depressing.

Do you wear Chanel?

Audrey Tautou: Yeah. Not now, but yes, I love Chanel clothes.

A few weeks back, I got a chance to participate in a roundtable with COCO BEFORE CHANEL director Anne Fontaine.

She talked about her decision to focus on the early years of Coco Chanel, working with Audrey Tautou, the creation of the costumes, and much more.

Coco Before Chanel comes out to theaters this Friday, September 25, 2009, but until then, enjoy the interview below.

Why are you so interested in Coco Chanel?

Anne Fontaine: I think it was when I was very young I had the luck to meet Chanel's last assistant, Lilou Marquand, who worked with her a long time and who also lived with her. She was very close to Gabrielle Chanel and I heard about this for a long time, since I was very young. I felt very curious about her because she was so original for her time, so new. At this point I didn't think about doing a movie about her but I was impressed, like a personality, like someone who is very complex and it's very incredible, this success story and then this tragedy underneath. At the beginning, also she was so poor. I knew, as everyone, Chanel as this old woman, very tough, cigarettes but when you discover who she was at the beginning, a courtesan; it's amazing what she has built with her own destiny. It was revolutionary for a woman of this time.

When did you decide to focus on the early years of Coco Chanel?

Anne Fontaine: Well, when we had the idea to do the movie I felt immediately that I had to make a choice on a part of her life because she lived a long time. Eighty seven years old. I didn't want to make a film of her whole life. I prefer to read through her and inside of her and not express every part. I thought the use of Chanel even for the French was more unknown, mysterious. Many people, they don't know about who she was and for me to explore that, gave me some more freedom and I very much like the relationship she had with these two men, Etienne Balsan and Arthur Capel.

I thought also that the fashion at this moment was on the life, not on her life, not on the shows, fashion shows. That doesn't interest me. It's better to find out how she creates her style on herself first, how she needs to create because she was so poor. She had two dresses and the way that she transforms the dresses, it was more interesting and creative for me. Also, how her vocation came to her. She never dreamed to be a stylist. She didn't care. She thought to sew was for common women, which was not for someone like her. She dreamed in another destiny. She wanted to be an art performer.

An actress, a singer. I like the idea that somebody who is so famous, like a French icon that never dreamed to be...she had no idea that this fashion would be what made her famous. She only knew how to sew because she was always poor. She learned that. She had a lot of talent with that, but she didn't imagine, she had no idea of her future, that it was on her and she became the new way to be a woman.

What qualities about her do you admire the most?

Anne Fontaine: I think of course the originality. To be so singular at this period, it was difficult because all women were completely on the men's desires. You have to be very strong and be very audacious to be like she was. I like the way that she's funny and she knows how to answer everything. No education. Only by herself. I admire that because it's very difficult, even today, to begin so poor and to be able to construct yourself in another society. Don't be a victim.

Any interest in exploring the rest of her life?

Anne Fontaine: I'm very interested in other parts of her life. But I think to make a movie is to make a choice and choose an angle, make a choice with a point of view and I don't think I'm going to do all the parts. I'm not going to be the director that does after her thirties, after her fifties, the sixties. No. I think I always will sleep with her in my mind because for me it was like I met her. Of course I'm too young to have met her but it's like she's a part of my life and that's enough for me.

Can you talk about working with Audrey Tatou? What was the process of working together on this project?

Anne Fontaine: The first thing was to think about her. I thought, when I imagined a movie about Chanel, I thought if I didn't have a good actress I couldn't start. If you don't have somebody who is completely true on the part, not imitating the part but true you can't start. It's not possible because Chanel, to me, was so special and special physically, so unique. I felt instinctively that Audrey had these qualities but I never met her. When I met her, after ten minutes with the way she looked at me, the way she was I think tough enough, the way she was fragile, the body very thin, and with these eyes so intense; I felt that I had found her. It was like a reincarnation of Gabrielle Chanel for me. That helps me a lot. I wrote the script with her in mind. It was like I knew she was alive and it's very different to play a part than to be a character actor.

I directed her of course. The fact that she hides the cash, she hides that she's fragile. She doesn't want to be a victim. It's for that reason that she's very tough and not a nice girl. It's more complex than that. We have to find exactly the colors, but I think she's perfect. I mean, really, and it's not because I've done the movie. I'm sure that nobody could be so close to her than Audrey. You have to have another body, a body that's very different from the body of women of this period. They were very voluptuous and in an another way more feminine and she was the first androgynous women in fashion.

Did her sister ever get married?

Anne Fontaine: Yes, with this Baron but fifteen years after Chanel –

After Chanel is already famous?

Anne Fontaine: Yes. She has to wait a long time until the Baron's parents die, as Chanel says. It's very interesting, the sister and Chanel. They are from the same parents, the same origins, the same childhood at the orphanage and one is a classic woman. She dreams of having a good husband, a life very banal. She believes in feelings and in love. The other one, no. She is not like that. She loves her sister but she thinks that she's naïve. She thinks that love is always a mistake and when she felt love she was completely surprised that it happened to her because she's very protected. She had a very, very big tragedy to be abandoned by her father. She loved her father. He said that one day he would come back and he never came. She always lies about that. She said that he was in fortune in America, that he works. The sister is a woman of this period, not more. You see the difference with somebody who has a temperament exceptional and the other one who is more normal, more casual.

Can you talk about the costumes because you had to get it right?

Anne Fontaine: Of course we had to invent what it was before Chanel, what inspired her and we have to know very well Chanel's style to go at the beginning, at the birth of that. It was very interesting because it was to create something. It's part of her life and her art in a sort of way to be the first trousers, the first pajamas. That was very exciting to see on her and when I saw Audrey wear these clothes I thought that it was incredibly modern. It's like I can use today exactly the same, the striped t-shirt from the fish man. It's so close to us in this society. It's incredible. She's one century in advance.

We designed everything with drawings and she showed me. We had of course some pictures of Chanel when she was young. For example when she sings at the beginning we transform but it was in the same spirit. It's the first time of my life that fashion, not fashion but clothes are absolutely important, more than usual in a movie because you have a historical responsibility. One day Karl Lagerfeld wants to see what we've done as drawings. He looks like that and goes, 'Very good, very good, very good, very good.'

At the end of the movie, of course, there are as you maybe know, the clothes were all done by Chanel herself. They came from the museum of Chanel from the last fashion show. All the clothes that you see were in the conservatory of Chanel and I went there and I could see everything under plastics. Nobody can see them because it's not a museum. It's a conservatory and it makes a very strong impression on me to see all the work from so many years. It's amazing to see that.

Do you feel being a female director gave you a different perspective on Chanel than a man?

Anne Fontaine: I think that men can be very deep also but maybe to be a woman you understand better what it is to have another kind of body. And when you're a woman you know what it means to have corsets and everything like that. You can't breathe anymore. I never think that in other movies but maybe this one, the fact that I can understand more deeply maybe and it helped for me to speak through her.

I talked to a man who saw the film. He felt that she used men. I didn't feel that way. But how did you find a balance with that?

Anne Fontaine: What I like is that she uses them, of course, in a certain way but she has no choice because she's a courtesan and that's like a whore almost. It's a very pretty word to say but the truth is that it's that. In the cabarets. At this period, they were very poor and it was very frequent that it happened. When she met Etienne Balsan she's completely without a future. No future at all. She sews but she doesn't care. She sings but in a very bad, low class cabaret and she had the ambition to meet somebody someday to go to the capital in Paris. You feel that. He's there. Of course she would've been stupid, I think, not to use him but she uses him in a way with a kind of relation...sometimes they were still wearing clothes, too. He fell in love with her and she fell in love with another man. Also, the other man will be her mentor, the first that put money on her and believed in her.

You can say of course that it's to use men but I do the same as a director. When I see a man who has money to put up my movie. I don't have to sleep with him, but you know, it's because she's a survivor and she wants to be independent and the contradiction at the beginning of her is that she is independent because she has no money. No one thinks that she could work by herself at the beginning because it was not possible for a woman to have an ambition if you're in such a lower class.

How did Alessandro Nivola get involved in the project?

Anne Fontaine: I was looking for an English actor. In England I never find an actor who can speak French enough to play the part. It was horrible. They have accents. Like you kill yourself. So not sexy. Terrible. They're good actors but in French they lose all their charm. One day I did a casting here in New York, and one day someone spoke about Alessandro Nivola and I saw him in some movies, but of course American movies. I said, 'Oh, if he speaks French a little, I don't know how much maybe it's not stupid to think about him.' After that he called me on the phone. I was in Paris and I heard his voice and it was a very light conversation but he can speak in a not too bad way. I said to him, 'Okay, come to Paris and we do some tests to see.' He was a little afraid. He said, 'Are you sure?' I said, 'I'm not sure I will take you, but I'm sure you have to come to speak with me better.'

I made him improvise and speak straightaway with me in French. I said to him, 'I don't care. I speak with you and you have to answer and I'll film you.' This was the test and after that I felt he was very different and very good for the part. Also, I helped him not only to talk better French of course, but also to walk like a British gentlemen because he walked like a cowboy at the beginning. I thought it was not possible. He said to me, 'Oh, it's awful because I'm completely observed in everything and I can't be free.' But he's very intelligent and I very much liked working with him.

I recently got a chance to speak to JAY BARUCHEL about his new movie, The Trotsky, which is is in the Special Presentations lineup at the Toronto International Film Festival. (You can also read my interview with director Jacob Tierney here).

Some of you might know Jay Baruchel from movies such as Tropic Thunder, Knocked Up, and Million Dollar Baby. In The Trotsky, Jay Baruchel plays a character named Leon Bronstein who thinks he is the reincarnation of early 20th century Soviet iconoclast and Red Army hero, Leon Trotsky.

During the interview Jay Baruchel talked about his preparation for the part, his experience on set, some of his future projects, his willingness to do Tropic Thunder 2, and more. So enjoy the interview below and don't forget to go see The Trotsky at the Festival on September 11.

Can you talk a little bit about your character in the film?

Jay Baruchel: How can I describe him? He's convinced that he's destined for great things. He's a love letter to the period in everyone's life when they're incredibly impassioned about any one specific thing. I can remember stuff that used to upset me and piss me off and keep me up at nights when I was sixteen. It's so life or death during that era. He's pure teenage activism, if that makes any sense. He's also got a great deal of self-awareness given his background and that he is affluent and grew up around his father's factories. If everyone rebels against their surroundings it stands to reason that Leon rebelled against his and that whole thing just ends up being on steroids and eventually produced him thinking that he's a possible reincarnation of Leon Trotsky.

How do you prepare for a part like that?

Jay Baruchel: That's a good question. Well, the key, because he's so dire and speaks so hyperbolically, the key is to make him sympathetic because there's a version of him where no one likes having him around. You want to love the weirdo, and so I just tried to keep him –without sound cliché – as human as I could. Then I watched old film reels of Leon Trotsky to try and get the physicality and the cadence and the gestures down. The cadence would change because he was speaking in fucking Russian, but basically I took people that I knew from school. I took some of my own heartfelt beliefs from high school and I coupled it with images of Trotsky that I had seen in newsreels. Then I just sort of kept my eyes and ears open for jokes any time that there might be some.

How did you first get involved in the project?

Jay Baruchel: As an actor, it's the situation that you hope and wish every fucking movie could be, which is just that Jacob [Tierney] called me. I've known his family basically since I was essentially five years old. We used to live on the same street when I was a little kid and Jacob was starting out as a child actor when he was nine or ten and then when I started, quite young myself, I was twelve and I'm twenty seven now. Jacob's sister was in my acting class and his mother would often drive me home and I had his mother as a substitute teacher plenty of times in high school. So we knew each other from around.

The Montreal anglo community is fairly small so that everyone knows who everyone is which is one of the reasons that I love the movie, because it's a part of Montreal that never gets portrayed. If you watched Anglo movies from the rest of Canada you would never know that there are English speaking people in Montreal. If you watch French movies from Quebec you would think there are no English speaking in Montreal. We are not getting represented at all and so this movie was really exciting. Jacob just gave me the script and said, 'I think you'd be cool as this character. Is this something that you'd want to do? We'd be shooting in our neighborhood in the summertime.' I loved it. Then flash forward to a year afterwards and I can say that without hesitation that Jacob is the best director that I've ever worked with.

It sounds like the experience on set then was pretty nice.

Jay Baruchel: It was incredible. If I have a criteria for choosing jobs it can't be, like, 'Will people like this –' and it can't be, 'Will this make money –' because I have no control over those two things. So all it can be is, 'Will this be something I'd pay money to see and am I going to have fun showing up there everyday for two to four months –' or whatever it was. I can say that 'The Trotksy' wasn't work. Showing up there everyday and being on set everyday and getting to make a movie with Jacob in my neighborhood, my friend Ricky Mabe who's my oldest friend in the world, who I've known since I was twelve and he was eleven is in the movie, too. My sister is in the movie. Most of it was shot within ten minutes of my house and where I grew up. Jacob is one of my best friends and so it was an absolutely beautiful experience. They can't all be that. They're not all this fun, lets just say that.

It's like a family movie.

Jay Baruchel: That's exactly what it was, yeah.

Is there any French spoken in the film at all?

Jay Baruchel: For sure, yeah. My character's stepmother is French and there are these two cop characters that are French. There's French throughout the movie and there's also sort of broken Anglo French which is very true to the neighborhoods in Montreal that we come from. But it is very unique and specific to our way of life. It's neighborhoods that never get shown in movies or TV, ways of life and turns of phrase. We're a very unique breed, Montreal Anglos. There's no point of reference anywhere else on earth. So the fact that we finally got to make a movie about us is a huge deal. The fact that Jacob and I are making another one in the same neighborhood in a couple of months is pretty huge, as well. It's going to be cool.

Can you talk about the new movie you two are doing together?

Jay Baruchel: Yeah. I don't want to get in trouble. I don't know what I'm allowed to say. I don't know how public it is, but basically the Tierney's and my family, we come from a neighborhood in Montreal called NDG which stands for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. So Jacob has written this essentially Hitchcockian thriller that takes place in a small apartment building in NDG and he's adapted a French novel, this sort of crime thriller. He's just sort of set it against the 1995 Referendum. It's about these three tenants living on top of each other and this game of cat and mouse ensues. There's a serial killer in the neighborhood. I don't want to give anything else away but 'The Trotsky' was a teen comedy and this one is a thriller. It's going to be badass.

You speak French, right?

Jay Baruchel: I do, yes, of course.

Would you ever consider doing a French movie?

Jay Baruchel: I would be honored. I would love to. I haven't really had the opportunity presented to me. I would love to though. It's a strange truth in my life and my career that I've worked pretty much every year since I've started. In the past almost ten years I've been working in the states and doing fairly big movies there every year, and then I would get no recognition from French press up here whatsoever. One of the things that I'm psyched is that maybe 'The Trotsky' puts me on their radar because this is my home. This is where I've lived my whole life. This is where I just bought a house and this is where I'll live for the rest of my life. It would be lovely to work in French. It would be an absolute honor and a pleasure.

Can you talk about working on 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice'?

Jay Baruchel: That was the sort of craziest movie I've ever been a part of. My character is effectively the audience. I'm just a regular Joe with my own regular Joe problems and ambitions and Nicolas Cage finds me and tells me that I'm meant to be a great sorcerer one day and that I'll have to be his apprentice. So I'm the audiences point of view, being introduced to this crazy world of magical warfare. It was $160 million shot in Manhattan. All the craziness which that entails came along with it. It's going to be such a cool movie. These are the kind of movies that got me going to the movies when I was a kid. It's a big, old school, summer event movie. When it hits next summer it's going to go off like a fucking atom bomb. It's incredible. It's got action. It's got comedy. It's got special FX. It's got romance. It's got all sorts of stuff. I'd be lying if I said it was the easiest or most fun job I've ever had because the last two months of it were all nights which was not the most fun. By now everyone has heard about our stunt that went awry, when we drove a Ferrari into the front window of a restaurant in Times Square. So we've become slightly notorious as well. It's going to be fucking so cool, that movie.

But now everyone will want to see it because of that stunt.

Jay Baruchel: That's exactly it, yeah [laughs].

You also worked on 'How To Train Your Dragon', doing voice work. How is that different from being in front of the camera?

Jay Baruchel: It's so much easier. I don't have to put on makeup or shave or look like anything. I don't have to wear clothes that other people want me to wear and stuff. They always have hamburgers, McDonald's and stuff waiting for me. I just show up and get to sit down for whatever, two hours, say some stuff. I've been doing it for about three years and I finally got to see some sequences from the movie. The movie is all 3-D and it's going to be so fucking cool, that movie. There's never been a cartoon like it. They got Roger Deakins who's a very famous director of photography and has shot every Coen Brothers movie, they hired him as a consultant so that the cartoon is kind of lit like a feature film. The whole thing is also in 3-D. I've never seen anything like it. Between that and 'Sorcerer's' I think the imaginations of the kids of the world will be captured next year.

And I think you have a few projects of your own coming out. Can you talk about those?

Jay Baruchel: I suppose I can. The movie I wrote, or I co-wrote called 'The Goon' which I wrote with my good friend Evan Goldberg who's Seth Rogen's writing partner and co-wrote 'Pineapple Express', 'Superbad' and 'Green Hornet' that they're working on right now. He and I wrote this thing that's essentially my love letter to hockey. It's about a minor league goon, a minor league enforcer and one season in his career. We go big or go home. We always swing for the fences, and so our goal was to make a funnier 'Raging Bull' and I'm really excited about it.

We've paired up with one of the coolest directors out there right now, this cat named Michael Dowse who did 'It's All Gone Pete Fong' and 'Fubar' and just filmed an amazing TV show here last year called 'The Foundation' that'll be coming out this month on Showcase. He's directing it and we've got our lead and I can't give that away, but we're just going about casting the other roles right now. That's taking up a fair bit of my time and then I'm in the process with my writing partner of writing this graphic novel, a comic book that'll hopefully be published in the next year.

What's the name of the graphic novel?

Jay Baruchel: It's called 'Pig'. We're in the process of writing right now and all the deals are being hammered home right now, hammered out, but it's really, really fucking cool. I'm just a huge comic book nerd and so the chance to get to write one is a huge deal for me.

Will you try to bring it to Comic Con?

Jay Baruchel: Oh, yeah, a hundred percent and ideally turn it into a movie eventually.

I think you also directed a short film a while back, too, right?

Jay Baruchel: I did, yeah, years ago and if 'Pig' comes to fruition, if it gets turned into a comic book and then we get to make it as a movie hopefully that'll be my return to that job.

So you would obviously like to direct again?

Jay Baruchel: That is all I want to do. In a perfect world I would eventually quit acting and just write and direct. I'm the world's biggest movie nerd. I watch more movies a week than anyone. Movies are the only thing that truly makes me happy. If everything goes according to plan I'll quit acting and just direct low budget horror movies and action movies in Montreal for the rest of my life.

Is there a director that you'd love to work with that you haven't had an opportunity to work with yet?

Jay Baruchel: For sure, yeah. David Cronenberg is one of my absolute heroes and so is Brian De Palma for that matter. Cronenberg, his career, his work, his movies, where he's made his movies; everything is so important to me. I'm also just a huge fucking fan of all his flicks. Cronenberg is kind of it. Then Brian De Palma. Those are the two guys around right now that I would do absolutely whatever I could to be in one of their movies. And probably Michael Mann as well. That's the dream.

Would you be willing to do 'Tropic Thunder 2' if the opportunity arose?

Jay Baruchel: Yeah, of course. That was one of the hardest movies that I've ever had to do but also the most fun I've ever had. So in a heartbeat, in a New York minute. While we were shooting it I came up with the plot for the sequel and the name which Jack Black started describing in interviews, but I claim ownership over the title 'Arctic Lightening' which is what I thought if we did the sequel to 'Tropic Thunder' that it should be called. 'Arctic Lightening'. We'll see what happens.

I recently got a chance to speak with director JACOB TIERNEY about his new movie, The Trotksy, which is in the Special Presentations lineup at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Jacob Tierney has a pretty big acting background, but The Trotsky marks his second directorial work. And while his first film, "Twist," was pretty serious drama, this new one is a comedy.

During the interview, Jacob Tierney talked about his inspiration for the film, the process of getting the film done, some of his directorial influences, and more. So enjoy the interview below and check out The Trotsky at the Festival when it premieres on September 11.

Congratulations on getting a movie into the festival. That's exciting.

Jacob Tierney: Thank you very much, it is exciting. I'm pretty pumped.

The premiere is in a couple of weeks?

Jacob Tierney: Well, I guess it's the first of September. So ten days. It's kind of weird to have a screening time on September 11th. You don't forget it. I'm like, 'I'm screening on September 11th. Okay.' It's also not going to be like, 'I can't remember. It's some day, the 10th or 12th.' It's pretty clear.

Can you talk about the story of 'The Trotsky' and what the tone of the film is like?

Jacob Tierney: The story is basically about a kid who thinks he's the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky, the Red Army founder and Bolshevik. He's kind of determined to live out Trotsky's life beat by beat, as he sees it. So when we find him in the story he's trying to get arrested for the first time and trying to unionize the students at his high school. He's also trying to find his first wife. That kind of picks up the crux of the story, and the tone, it's a comedy obviously. Before I made it, I used to describe it as 'Reds' in high school, only funny. That was kind of the movie that I wanted to make. This kid thinks his life is an epic and so the comedy kind of comes from there. The movie is on his side and we're trying to make it in epic form and the irony results in other people just not viewing his life as being that epic.

What inspired you to write this story?

Jacob Tierney: In truth I was really moved as a teenager by Ken Loach, by his movies and particularly 'Land and Freedom' which I saw when I was like fifteen. It just made the biggest impression on me. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was a very serious teenager, very engaged and I wrote a lot and I was probably a bit boring. I wanted to make a movie about socialists in high school, something really revolutionary, something that basically felt like 'Land and Freedom' a bit. I wrote that script and it was about a bunch of kids in high school trying to get the Spanish Civil War added to their curriculum. It was just so bad and so boring, and I was like, 'Fuck me. I am not Ken Loach.' Then what ultimately happened is that I was reading it one day and I started to laugh because I thought, 'Who the fuck talks like this? This is insane. You would never be able to listen to someone talking to you like this in real life.' I thought that was kind of funny as an idea. 'I like to laugh.' Then the other shoe dropped and the tone of it came really naturally to me from that point on, when I kind of gave up the idea of trying to be Ken Loach. I still wish I could be.

It's a funny Ken Loach.

Jacob Tierney: [laughs] Exactly.

Do you know when there's going to be a trailer for the film?

Jacob Tierney: That's kind of up in the air right now. I don't know. The answer is hopefully soon, but I don't actually know. Believe me, we're all pushing for that to happen hopefully before the festival.

How did you get the project up and running, after writing the script?

Jacob Tierney: I wrote the first draft of the script when I was really young, before I made my first film. After I made my first film I did not think that this would be an appropriate second film because I thought it was just cost too much money and I didn't want to be someone who spent seven years trying to get a movie made that was just too big of a budget for anyone to ever give me. The irony was then that I had much lower budgeted movies fall apart over that seven years and so I still ended up waiting that amount of time.

When the project came together for real is when my father, who's the producer of the movie, had a huge success with a film he made called 'Bon Cop, Bad Cop' in Canada. He was given this thing called a Performance Envelope from Telephone Canada which is our federal funding agency for films. Basically, it acts as a discretionary fund where a producer can green light a movie which is not the way that it works up here. He decided that he wanted to do comedies and he decided that he wanted to do 'Trotsky' first. Suddenly it looked like it was going to be possible to make it at the appropriate budget level, and in a really cool situation of my dad producing. That's how it ultimately came together.

Can you talk about the casting process for the film?

Jacob Tierney: Jay [Baruchel] was the first choice. He quickly in my mind became the only choice. He's someone that I've known from a long time ago from being in the same city, but I have not known him well. When I started to talk to him and hangout with him, I just realized that this guy had the exact most important thing to play this part which is that he's as smart as this kid. He's so articulate. He's so passionate about the things that he's interested in which are not necessarily the same things that Leon is interested in but he's equally articulate and passionate about what he wants to talk about. I was like, 'This is not a guy who will trip over this language.'

Then beyond that he's so funny and he's got that thing, he's got charisma. You want to watch him for the right amount of time. So I was thrilled when he signed onto it and agreed to do it. That kind of happened over the course of a couple of meetings and talking, kind of the normal way. Then I ultimately got my first choice for everybody that I wanted. I was really lucky.

I didn't know that we would actually get Genevieve Bujold to play Denise Archambault. I was absolutely thrilled that worked. Then Colm Feore I'm an enormous fan of. It wasn't obvious that his schedule was going to work out and then it did and I was thrilled. Saul Rubinek and Michael Murphy. The casting of this movie was largely a dream and then I wrote the role of Alexandra for Emily Hampshire. So I was thrilled when she agreed to do it. The casting of the young people ended up being the biggest [challenge].

I was a bit curious about how that would turn out. I didn't feel like I knew that age group particularly well anymore and I was just blown away by the people that came in to read. We really lucked out, I feel because we have a huge cast and it's a dialogue heavy movie. Every part is a big part. Every little moment of it mattered enormously to me and I think we ended up really lucking out.

How did the production go with all these people in the cast?

Jacob Tierney: It was pretty chill. We were really blessed that it was a very, very chill set. No big commotions. No big ado. We ended up finishing under budget in less days than we had planned. It kind of couldn't have gone better. Part of that was because I was surrounded by, I mean my production designer Anne Pritchard has designed for Louis Malle and Brian De Palma. She did 'Atlantic City'. My director of photography [Guy Dufaux], he did movies for Jean-Claude Lauzon, all the Denys Arcand films and these are pros. The people I was surrounded with were so good at what they do that it's like butter, everything. It just flowed along and was great.

And the postproduction of the film, were you really involved in the editing and what's your process in working with people at that point?

Jacob Tierney: Well, my process is that I'm just there everyday, all day long like it's a normal workday for me, too, no matter what's going on with the thing. I want to participate in as much of it [as I can] because I think that a good film is usually made up of little details. Theoretically my job as the director is to keep the big picture in mind and to care about all the little stuff and how it's put together. So I tend to be very, very involved.

'The Trotsky' is in English but takes place in Montreal?

Jacob Tierney: Yes, and it takes place in Montreal. There's French in the movie. His step-mom is played by Anne-Marie Cadieux who's an actor that I didn't mention before but who's fucking genius and I couldn't believe I got her in this movie. She stars in Robert Lepage's movies. She's super amazing. She plays his step-mom and they speak in French every once in a while and Genevieve Bujold has a couple of lines in French. What I wanted to do was to actually show the city that I actually live in. I grew up here. I'm English and my family is English. My school was English and that kind of thing, but when you go out to life and are at a restaurant or dealing with people you speak French. That kind of happens in the movie.

What was your favorite part of making the film?

Jacob Tierney: I really like the whole process. I love making movies. It's so much fun. I really like pre-production. I really like production. On the set everyday there's a lot of adrenaline happening and that's really, really fun. I also love cutting and I love mixing. I love the mix so much. It's so much fun when you get to finally mix your movie because then it sounds like a movie for the first time and it's so exciting. I find the whole process really exciting. I couldn't pick a favorite part. I love writing, too. That's a huge part of it for me, the time that I spend writing. I really enjoy how kind of long and involved it all is. It gives you a chance to keep reassessing and keep thinking to keep imagining new things. It kind of opens up like an onion, a movie, because you suddenly start caring about things that you've never thought about before and you realize the deep effect that they have on your film. That's cool. I like that stuff. I'm not one of those people that thinks of it as torture. That's for sure.

What are you hoping that people will take away from watching the film?

Jacob Tierney: I just hope they like it. I hope they take whatever they like in it. I just hope that they enjoy themselves and that they have chuckle and get a kick out of spending a couple of hours with these people. What's been cool so far is that young people have responded really well, like really strongly to the movie. I would obviously love to see that keep going. In my dream world I would love to make a high school movie that I would've loved in high school, like 'Heathers' or something. How cool would it be to make a movie that teenagers actually want to watch that's about teenagers. That doesn't happen very often and that would be amazing.

How was the experience on this film different from your experience on your film 'Twist' and since you've done a lot of work as an actor, what's the difference for you being behind the camera and how does that help you communicate with actors?

Jacob Tierney: The biggest difference between my first film and this film was the amount of money that I had. This movie cost about $6.5 million and my first cost significantly under $500 thousand, significantly. I'm not sure what we ended up pretending it cost but it cost nothing close to that. We had no money in the bank when we made that movie. So that affects everything. It affects how much film you have to how many locations, all the different stuff that you can do. So that would be the most significant difference. I loved making my first film and I had a great time doing it. What's so cool about making a first movie like that is directors can often be coddled and financial conversations can bypass you, people being like, 'Oh, you don't need to think about this stuff –' but when you making these with that little money you really do need to think about that stuff because then it's like, 'Nope. You can't afford it. So figure something else out. We're not doing that.' You have to know what your budget is, how much your spending, where that money is going and how it's going to affect what's going to end up on film ultimately. So that would be the big difference.

Did you find yourself more comfortable directing 'Trotsky' after having directed 'Twist' already? Did you learn anything in that process?

Jacob Tierney: Oh, for sure. It's a weird job because it's one that you do so rarely. I've done it twice and I consider it to be my job. It's hard to accumulate a ton of experience but thankfully, and this will kind of answer your other question, too, what I think I have, the biggest asset of being an actor for so many years, is that I've just been on so many sets. I know how sets work. I know what a bad set looks like and feels like and what a good set looks like and feels like. I also know that I've never seen a good movie come from a bad set. If people are miserable, if you're not getting your days, whatever the problem is you're not going to end up with a good movie. That's just not the way that it goes.

So I think what the actor part of me brings to the table is the actual work experience. A movie set is a very particular environment. It is its own weird beast, and thankfully I've been on them since I was a kid and have a sense of the way they go. In terms of talking to actors, I think there's definitely a sense with actors being more at ease talking with another actor about performing. I'm sure that most of what I do with actors I don't even realize I'm doing because it's just what comes kind of naturally to me. I don't micromanage my actors. I feel like acting is casting so much of the time. You hire the right person for the job and then they're going to do the job most of the time. You guide them a little bit here or there.

Being an actor, the thing I guess I understand is that you're so vulnerable up there and you feel so vulnerable and it's hard to articulate that. There's no real reason. You're just standing there saying a bunch of lines but it can be very scary, very daunting and so I try to create a safe environment as much as I can. That's part of why I like a really calm set. No yelling. No screaming. People talk in normal voices. They make jokes. We're not too intense. In a relaxed environment I feel like actors do their best work. I feel like everyone does their best work that way.

Do you see yourself continuing on as a director or do you want to go back to acting or do both?

Jacob Tierney: The nice thing is that I don't really have to pick but I can't pretend that I'm not really focused on directing. I'm actually about to make my next movie. I'm shooting it in January. I haven't acted in these films and I can't imagine myself acting over the next year. Directing is definitely the most important thing to me.

Can you talk about your next movie?

Jacob Tierney: It's going to be called 'Notre-Dame-de-Grâce'. It's based on a book, a local thriller here. It's this really good book called 'Chère Voisine' which translates to 'Dear Neighbors' and it's about these three neighbors in an apartment complex. One of them is a serial killer and the other two become his friend and kind of venture into... it's kind of a black comedy/thriller, like a noir kind of. Jay [Baruchel] is going to be in it again and Emily Hampshire. I'm very excited to be doing that movie.

Are you hoping to be at the festival with this again?

Jacob Tierney: Theoretically we'd be ready next year. That would be great. Obviously, I wish for every movie that I ever make the best possible life that it can have. So, for sure, I'd love to be back at the Toronto Film Festival. It's been very good to me.

Who are some of your influences as a director?

Jacob Tierney: It's funny. I like a huge array of movies, but in terms of 'Trotsky' I think I would tell you that my biggest influence as a director might be Warren Beatty. Between 'Reds' and 'Bullworth' and even elements of 'Shampoo' and 'Heaven Can Wait', his movies have had a huge impact on me. I think he's a really under appreciated filmmaker. Not just an actor but filmmaker.

I would definitely say that what came from that ashes of that Ken Loach dream was finding what a guy like Beatty was doing, making progressive movies, movies that aren't a diatribe or aren't a thesis, but it still kind of advances a particular agenda, a particular way of looking at the world that I can't say that I disagree with. That was obviously important to me in making a movie called 'The Trotsky'. I'm trying to put some kind of ideas out there. He really does that in a way that I find deeply entertaining, whether it's serious or funny or something in between. I find his movies are really well made and really deftly handled in terms of tone. So he was definitely a filmmaker that I looked to and admired a lot for this and in general.

Did you see the last Ken Loach film 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley'?

Jacob Tierney: I actually haven't seen that film.

It's amazing.

Jacob Tierney: They're all amazing. I just went to a retrospective of his at the Cinematec and I saw 'Raining Stones'. It's one of the early to mid '80's ones and it's so fucking good. They're so good those movies. Goddamn it. I saw 'My Name is Joe' again the day after and nobody makes me cry like Ken Loach. It's weird because he's like the least manipulative filmmaker, but my, God, it's like waterworks at the end of those movies.

During the Los Angeles Film Fest, I got a chance to interview director Glenn McQuaid about his film, I Sell the Dead, which was screened during the festival (you can read my review here).

I Sell the Dead will be released to limited theaters on August 14, 2009. Until then, I hope you enjoy the interview with Glenn McQuaid below.

(You can watch the video in HD over at Vimeo)

When I went to the screening of I SELL THE DEAD at the 2009 LA Film Festival, I got a chance to talk to Larry Fessenden who plays Willie Grimes in the movie. I do apologize for the sound, it's a little hard to hear him, but there were a lot of people around. Hopefully, you enjoy his interview anyway. (You can also watch our interview with Dominic Monaghan here.)

I Sell the Dead is directed by Glenn McQuaid and is sort of a comedy/horror film, about two grave robbers.

Check out what Larry Fessenden had to say about the movie below.

Last night, I went to the screening of I SELL THE DEAD at the 2009 LA Film Festival. One of the star of the movie, Dominic Monaghan took a few minutes of his time on the Red Carpet to talk to us about the movie and his character, Arthur Blake.

I Sell the Dead is directed by Glenn McQuaid and is sort of a comedy/horror film, about two grave robbers. Turns out, I really enjoyed it. Make sure to check it out if you get the chance.

Check out what Dominic Monaghan had to say about the movie below. (You can find a version of the video to embed over at Vimeo)