![]() ![]() A lot of the actors we went to were like, OK, so this guy really likes weed. It’s a weird role, right? A lot of people were trying to play him as a bit of a stoner. But in this case, we were casting everybody as quickly as we could, and we couldn’t find anybody to play Doug. It’s not like I had any desire to be an actor, and I don’t. ![]() I acted in my own films out of necessity. I have no delusions about myself whatsoever. All of our partners, Telefilm, all the people who were supporting the film, were like, Yes, we’ll make this movie. More importantly, he wasn’t wearing a headband, though I could see it wrapped around his wrist.Īm I right in thinking that you weren’t actually going to play Doug? As he has been on the road promoting his film since February, he was missing his hometown. We talked via Zoom for 20 minutes while Johnson was in Los Angeles for the BlackBerry publicity tour. The following conversation is edited for clarity (on both sides). I wanted to talk to him because I wanted to know how this total oddball–I know he’s a white indie filmmaker dude, but he’s still an oddball–was making it work so well in such a punishing industry, both in Canada and internationally. (He is likely better known, however, for the mockumentary series Nirvanna the Band the Show, which he is turning into a feature this summer.) Johnson is the rare contemporary indie filmmaker from Canada who not only travels ( Nirvanna was bought by Vice, Kevin Smith supported his first film, festivals love him) but also criticizes the filmmaking apparatus in his home country (which resulted in him helping the Canadian government’s film funding body, Telefilm, launch a diversity program called Talent to Watch). This is the third film in what Johnson has called “a trilogy about filmmaking,” following The Dirties (2013) and Operation Avalanche (2016), both of which had much smaller budgets. Not to mention Johnson’s deeply personal understanding of the fact that “good enough is the enemy of humanity.” Something about the way Johnson uses his off-the-wall presentation, his energy, and his dialogue (“He’s a very sassy man,” Doug sasses of Jim) as a foil to those around him just makes it all pop that much more. And yet, BlackBerry is one of my favorite films to come out of Canada in a while. Next to Baruchel in his staid shirts and Howerton in his power suits, it’s not an exaggeration to say Johnson looks absolutely batshit in his role. ![]() As Doug, Johnson sticks out like a sore thumb in that same red-carpet look: wild hair, headband, tanks and tees from various films ( They Live, The Thing, Army of Darkness), though in the film he dates his style with oversized glasses and a jean jacket. To return to the headband: It’s in the movie. In other words, this is not The Social Network, though it owes a lot to David Fincher, who also compared the Facebook story to his own, and whose ending for that story BlackBerry echoes. Within the story of the creation of the not-iPhone, by Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), Douglas Fregin (Johnson), and the RIM team, assisted by businessman Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), is Johnson’s own story about trying to launch himself as an indie filmmaker (with the three personalities in BlackBerry acting as his own warring personae) in Toronto, Ontario. To call this film a biopic is to sell it short-sort of a meta-biopic? It's ostensibly based on the Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry, but actually based on the diaries of a rogue ex-employee of Research In Motion, the Waterloo-based company that developed the device. Then he just kept showing up like that, sometimes mixing up the top–a Canadaland tee (that’s a local podcast about Canadian media), a blue Waterloo sweatshirt (the Ontario town where the BlackBerry was created), a blue Slayer shirt (that’s … not Canadian). ![]() But it wasn’t a red carpet, so who cares. I’ve seen Johnson around a bunch because I also live in Toronto and am friends with people in the film community. My first thought was: Oh, Jesus Christ, they’re going to think we all dress like that. Back in February, he showed up to the Berlin Film Festival in a Blue Jays T-shirt, a blue headband, pushed-up gray joggers and a pair of white Nikes with a blue swoosh (he matched, at least). I was wondering what the hell Toronto-based filmmaker Matt Johnson was doing even before I saw BlackBerry, the film about the Canadian-made mobile phone which he directed, co-wrote (with longtime co-producer Matthew Miller), and co-stars in. ![]()
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