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An Interview With Two People From This Movie Is Broken Who Aren’t In Broken Social Scene
Georgina Reilly and Greg Calderone take in some kind of social scene in Bruce McDonald’s This Movie Is Broken. Photo by Caitlin Cronenberg.
Guess what comes out today? Hint: it’s the movie event of the summer. It’s this summer’s Avatar. It’s this summer’s Toy Story 3. It’s…This Movie Is Broken, the Broken Social Scene movie directed by Bruce McDonald and written by Don McKellar. Smuggle some street meat and a cold Amsterdam Blonde into the theatre and you’ve got the makings for the most Toronto-y date night ever.
Though This Movie Is Broken centres around last summer’s Broken Social Scene concert at the Harbourfront Centre, it’s no mere concert film. (Not that there’s anything wrong with mere concert films: Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense is one of the best movies ever.) But instead of just capturing the rollicking, sweaty BSS live set, McDonald jimmies in a narrative involving two lovesick Hogtown hipsters, Bruno (Greg Calderone) and Caroline (Georgina Reilly), as they try to work their way backstage at the concert.
Anyone familiar with McDonald’s recent output may recognize Reilly from 2008’s rural Ontario zombie flick Pontypool, where she was fantastic as the blood-puking producer to Stephen McHattie’s beleaguered talk radio jock. And, if you’re a Being Erica fan (and who isn’t?), you may remember Calderone from a spot in the season one episode “What I Am Is What I Am.” He was also in an episode of that awful Comedy Network Tim and Eric rip-off Hotbox. Point is, while the real stars of This Movie Is Broken are Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, and co., it’s also a breakout film for Reilly and Calderone, two young Toronto talents who look very pretty on camera.
We sat down on the rain-soaked patio of the Drake a few weeks ago to talk to both actors about working with two giants of Canadian cinema, their friendship, and the art of doubling on a bicycle. And if you missed it, check out the interview we did with Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew and director Bruce McDonald, which we ran last week when This Movie Is Broken premiered at NXNE.
Torontoist: So much for a lovely sunny day.
Georgina Reilly: I know! But we’ve had good days.
Greg Calderone: It’s kind of nice, actually.
GR: You gotta disagree with everything I say! We’re not friends anymore.
Torontoist: Really? After this whole thing?
GR: After this whole thing.
GC: I don’t want to see her again after today.
Torontoist: I guess to start: you guys are both fairly young and new…coming. Uh. That sounds shitty.
GR: Nobody has a clue who we are!
Torontoist: But you arrive fully-formed! So, how did you get involved with Bruce and Kevin and the whole production?
GR: I met Bruce back in 2006, on the project we worked on called The Dark Room. And then we kept in touch. And then I did Pontypool with Bruce and the one thing I love about Bruce is that he always kept in touch with me. A lot of times you work with someone and you never see them again, right? But Bruce and I had a really good relationship. And then this project came up, and I was kind of like, “I’d love to work together again,” and here I am.
GC: The two of us had been friends for a while. So, when she was working on Pontypool, I was a fan of Bruce’s, so I wanted to come visit one day. I went and I met Bruce and I’d kind of bump into him around the city a little bit. And then when it came time for this, they were having meetings with actors. So, I went in and I sat down with Bruce and [producer] Sarah [Haywood] and Don [McKellar], and we just talked about music and stuff like that. And I was cast two days later, which was the day before we started shooting.
Calderone and McDonald on set. Photo by Caitlin Cronenberg.
Torontoist: It’s interesting to hear you say that you guys are friends. Because it seems like it would work, but at the same time there’s this sort of cat-and-mouse game that goes on in the movie. It’d be tough to sustain a real friendship if you had to constantly pursue the other person to hang out. Is it hard to reverse your actual rapport for the film?
GR: It’s kind of like that anyways.
Torontoist: Fifteen missed calls every day.
GC: Yeah.
GR: No! You never answer my calls! No, you go, sorry.
GC: Well, I think the story is that they’ve been friends for a really long time. And now Bruno is interested in exploring something else with her. And that’s all new, unexplored territory, right? So the fact that we were friends for a long time, and then going through this new, unexplored territory, it didn’t seem weird or anything like that.
GR: No.
GC: It just seemed a natural thing to be able to do with someone you trust, in terms of as a friend and as an actor.
GR: We’re still friends.
GC: Kind of…
Torontoist: This film also sort of passes the torch from Bruce and Don, who were the geist-y twenty-something filmmakers of the ’90s, to two younger actors of the…what do we call this decade? The aughts?
GC: I don’t know. Let’s just call this “the tens” right now. When I found out that I got [the role], I was running down the street with Broken [Social Scene] in my earbuds, dancing. I was incredibly excited. I was going to be at the show either way. All my friends were there. While we were shooting there was a whole section of my friends waving over at us. I was just excited about going to the show. And then going there for this reason and getting to be a part of it on a much deeper level, for me, it was as good as it could get.
GR: I was nervous to meet Don. But he was lovely.
GC: You were nervous to meet Don?
GR: Well, yeah. I mean, I was excited. It’s such a cool collaboration because, like, Bruce was the director but Don was always there. We could talk about the script with him. And because he’s such a great actor, we could talk to him about certain things. It was a really cool pairing with both of them.
Torontoist: Was it tricky to master doubling on a bike?
GR: At first, I was so scared.
GC: We got it like [snaps fingers] that!
Torontoist: It’s treacherous to double in this town!
GR: But do you know what it was? His bike lock was wrapped around and that was what my heel was in. My butt was, like, numb. You can see my face sometimes where I was like, “There’s a pothole! Ow!”
GC: And that was my bike.
GR: We got it down to a fine art. We really enjoyed it…that was my favourite part, I think.
This Movie Is Broken opens in Toronto on Friday, June 25 at the Scotiabank Cinema (259 Richmond Street West).