CAMERON BAILEY AND his TIFF crew took a bit of heat last year for opening the fest with a foreign film. This year, they more than made up for it by choosing a film about hockey filmed in Toronto and featuring more than a few local celebrities (Nelly Furtado, George Stroumboulopoulos) and musical acts (Hawksley Workman, Barenaked Ladies). A few days before the fest, we caught up with director Michael McGowan on his way to cottage country.
I guess you’re escaping Toronto for a little R and R before you become the toast of the town?
Exactly, we just finished the film yesterday. So, good timing.
Score is about a kid who gets discovered while playing shinny. How much of that is just you living out boyhood daydreams?
All of it, of course. That’s the Canadian dream — to one day play in the NHL. So I just rewrote my history.
And hockey and singing: a match made in heaven?
Well, I hope so [laughs]. I think you’d get some hockey purists maybe questioning that. When I would get talking about the idea of a hockey musical,it always made people laugh, so I figured that was a good sign.
How long did it take to find a lead actor who could sing, act and skate?
You know, ironically, it took only one audition. The first person that came in for that role was Noah [Reid]. Immediately we knew he was fantastic. The only thing I was worried about was when he said he was a great hockey player. I usually take that as a sign that he was probably pretty terrible. But when I rented the ice out and went out on the ice with him, he was great.
Could he take a hit?
We don’t tend to like our actors to take hits. But he did take a couple hits here and there, got pushed on the ice and was quite happy to do that stuff. But he can take a hit, yeah.
This film is full of cameos. What’s your best cameo story?
Olivia Newton-John and Marc Jordan were doing their last scene together and they absolutely could not stop laughing. It took about 20 minutes to get something that should have taken a minute.They were just crying and laughing.
You obviously had a crush on Olivia Newton-John, because every male over 30 does. How did you overcome that on set?
I did not! [laughs]. It’s always interesting when you bring somebody that’s so high profile [because] you never really know what they’re going to be like. But Olivia, she was one of the nicest people I’ve worked with, and just a ton of fun. She definitely wants to please. She read the script, she liked it, and I found she had her own ideas for the character.
Is the film all fun, or is there a moral at its heart?
You know, with the state of the world, I really wanted it to be a romp. There’s emotionality there, and we used the idea of pugilism or pacifism in hockey as just a covering or backdrop to tell the story, but it’s not a message film. It’s really supposed to make you laugh,to make you smile and tap your toes.
If your film One Week was a love letter to Canada, how would you describe Score?
A love letter to Toronto in winter.
…which is a time when we definitely need a love letter.
Exactly. One of the challenges of doing the film was how do you romanticize Toronto in the middle of the winter. And we tried to do that with everything. Shooting on Nathan Phillips Square to our outdoor rink which was at the Wychwood Barns to shooting at the AGO. We really wanted this to showcase and romanticize the city through hockey, through winter.