- Hello everyone,
I'm Cameron Bailey,
I'm the Artistic Director and Co-Head of TIFF,
and thanks so much for joining us
for this special conversation about "Sound of Metal."
We always like to begin by acknowledging
and reflecting on the land that we're on,
who the traditional keepers of that land are,
and what the treaty relationship is,
or if it's unceded territory.
I'm in Toronto, and this is the Treaty Land
and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit,
and the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe,
the Wendat, and the Haudenosaunee,
and it's part of the lands protected
by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant,
and is home to many First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people.
We are grateful to be working on this land.
I also want to extend a thank you
to some of the people who help us do what we do:
our lead sponsor, Bell,
and our major sponsors, RBC, L'Oréal Paris, and Visa,
and our government supporters, the Government of Canada,
the Government of Ontario, and the City of Toronto.
I'm so proud to have brought "Sound of Metal"
to audiences for the first time
at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival
in our Platform competition.
It was a hit then,
and I am so glad to see it went on to so much success.
It's one of the very best films of this year.
You know, there's so many movies I love,
but so few where I feel like we have a mission
to get people to see and hear the film.
And I'm thrilled that we have with us
the director and co-writer, Darius Marder,
the lead actor, Riz Ahmed,
and fellow actor Paul Raci.
Gentlemen, welcome, and thank you.
- Hey. - Thank you.
- Great to see you, Cameron.
- Good to see you too, it's been a minute.
So listen, I want to begin, Darius,
maybe by asking you about the process
of bringing this story to the screen.
I know it took years, took some time to do it,
but there's so much texture in the film
and how you put it together.
I wonder what was most important to you
in creating this fictional character, Ruben,
but also in revealing the very real world
of a Deaf healing culture in America.
- Well it's-
I think it really comes down to the life,
the real authentic life, that's behind both of those things.
So, as it relates to Ruben... You know,
Ruben was really personal, really personal for me,
and building Ruben - and personal
for my brother, as well, as we wrote together for years.
And, you know, it- I think it's why it took
so long to write, because it was-
It was- In many ways, it was kind of scary to write
and hard to unearth those things,
those aspects of what's really kind of drawing you
to write a character.
And Ruben really meant, you know-
Writing Ruben really meant kind of going into
those aspects of ourselves,
which we did - my brother and I did - over many years.
And just- And then ultimately,
on a thematic level, kind of really mining the depths of
why-
what was bringing me to the whole project,
you know?
And that had a lot to do with the ending
and a lot to do with this idea of letting go.
And that was- It was extraordinarily difficult
for me and very painful.
And I think it- I think it was
because I was ushering that into my own life, actually.
And that's indeed how it's played out.
As far as the Deaf community goes,
I think it's the same thing, though.
It's authenticity.
And that really meant-
That really meant going to the Deaf community.
That really meant
kind of opening myself up to be curious
and then letting the Deaf community take over,
you know? And-
And that-
That's really-
That was really exciting for me
and for me and my brother,
because, you know,
I think that being curious about other cultures is
what we want to be doing here, and
"Deaf culture" is such a huge word.
It's so complex.
There's so many subcultures,
so many aspects to Deaf culture.
It just felt like I dipped my toe into it.
It's like this tiny little view
into some aspects of Deaf culture,
and even that felt enormous to me.
So it was just always expansive, always exciting.
And I just tried-
hopefully just tried to get a film that honoured that,
you know?
- Riz, your character, Ruben, is the one who
who enters Deaf culture, at first against his will.
And what I loved about the performance is
that there is so much in the unspoken moments,
in your gestures,
the behaviour that you use,
the stare that you have when, you know,
you're going through something.
Those outbursts
of anger that aren't about dialogue
but are about how your character moves physically.
And I wonder, could you talk a little bit
about the non-dialogue parts
of the film in creating Ruben?
- It's interesting because, as a British actor -
and the British kind of acting tradition is very
much steeped in theater - it's often focused on
analyzing the text and working the text.
And what was interesting about this process was, for me,
it called on a different approach.
It required something different of me,
and I wanted to explore a different process
as an actor with this,
and
what that might be
I wasn't sure about until we started preparation
for the film, eight months out.
And I realized just how physical the preparation was.
It was about learning the drums,
which is a physical non-verbal communication,
really, and-
- Just to be clear,
you had not played the drums before "Sound of Metal"?
- No, I didn't know how to play the drums.
So I learned that for the movie,
and in similarly with American Sign language
I didn't know how to Sign,
and I wanted to get to some level of
kind of approaching fluency,
to be able to,
communicate with the Deaf actors on set
and to improvise,
and, you know,
both American Sign language and playing the drums,
they're physical, non-verbal kinds of communication.
And so it opened me up physically in a different way
as a performer, as an actor, as a person, really.
It put me in my body in a different way.
And that wasn't something that, you know,
I thought would come to the rescue and pay off
when we were getting to the shoot but,
by the time we got to the shoot, lo and behold,
you realize, actually there's vast swathes
of this movie that are non-verbal.
And it is about kind of having a responsive
and sensitized body that can- that can
react spontaneously to what's going on.
And I feel like the preparation process
of Sign language and drumming,
and the physical training with my trainer,
who is also hard of hearing,
really kind of prepared me for that.
- Paul, I wanted to pick up on what Darius
and Riz have talked about in terms of
the importance in this film of
portraying Deaf culture in an appropriate way,
in a way that was authentic.
You grew up in Deaf culture,
and I'm sure you must have known
when you signed on to this movie
that a lot of people outside of Deaf culture
would learn maybe the most they've ever learned
about it from watching this film.
So I just wonder what was most important
to you that this movie get right?
- Oh, wow.
Well, after years and years of
what I would call Hollywood's neglect
of the Deaf community and portraying them
not authentically,
maybe a hearing actor here and there
or whatever they've done,
what I was most excited about
was reading the script, was that he was gonna
show a Deaf sober house,
which I've had a lot of experience with.
And a lot of people,
I think we've- Hollywood's kind of trained the world
to look at deaf people as the saintly
[mockingly] people that would never
have an addiction problem or anything like that.
God forbid they could be human or something.
I think that's what they- I've heard
most Deaf people say to me about the script is,
"Wow, thanks for showing us as addicts,"
which is kind of [Chuckles]
it's kind of a weird thing, but,
no, but thank you for showing us as humans!
- It's real. - Yes.
Cameron, I'm going to tell you something.
Growing up as a boy,
I have actually- I can count on my-
Three times in my life, and I've kept track of these times,
people say, "Oh, so your parents are Deaf?"
I say, "Yes, my parents are Deaf."
And then they stop and they go,
"So that means they were married
and they had sex at one point right?"
I mean, it's- I- "Yeah, they actually- My father got
on top of my mother..."
and I mean, what am I supposed to say?
- You have to explain how you got-
- You have to explain that there was actually-
But you see my point?
[Mockingly] "Deaf people would never do that,"
Or "They don't know h-"
Or- It's not only Deaf people.
It's people that are wheelchair bound, blind people,
people who have all- whatever kind of a non-abling thing
that's happened to them.
There's questions like that.
So- And I say, it's three times in my life
and I'm an old guy now,
but three times that people specifically said,
"So they actually had intercourse."
So it's yeah.
I mean, we're just trying to normalize
[Laughing]
the situation, if you wanna call it-
- We were gonna get there sooner or later with Paul.
We were gonna- The word "intercourse"
was gonna enter the Q&A. - I was gonna bring that up.
- We just weren't sure when.
- At least I said "intercourse" though.
But you get my point.
That's the thing that they've said to me most of all, is
"Thanks for showing us in that light,
because we're just like you. We're just like you."
- I love where this movie goes.
And when I first watched it
before we invited it to the Festival, I was so surprised
and just thrilled to see this movie kind of just
open up new doors in the third act
of the story, where
your character goes to France
and there's a reunion.
There's a new kind of coming to terms
with what your new life is going to be,
your character's life, Riz.
I wonder, can I ask all of you just about
where the movie gets to?
We can assume people watching this
have seen the film already and know how it ends.
But there's just a beautiful state of grace
that the film comes to at the end,
and I just wanted to ask you about getting there.
- Hm.
Riz, first?
- You know, I kind of see Ruben's journey
as a journey towards acceptance.
And it was one that mirrored my own journey
as an actor in accepting a loss of control.
So many elements of this project -
not just the technical skills, but emotionally -
it felt kind of overwhelming,
and I realized the only way I could kind of
arrive at them was to kind of
let go of trying to control them.
And so, at least for me, I feel like
where the film gets to and where Ruben gets to
was a place that I was kind of trying to
search for as an actor
during the shoot.
Yeah. I feel that there's a lot of our
own experiences and our own...
We all put our heart into this movie and
it took a piece of our heart in different ways,
you know.
- And Darius?
- Well...
You know, that- The opening shot
of the first time you see Ruben wake up in the Airstream...
The first thing he does is he looks at Lou.
You know? Before he does anything,
he looks at Lou,
looks to make sure Lou is there.
And then he owns that space and all of his identities
within that space,
the audiophile, the musician.
And the movie strips all of that away,
and the final thing that's stripped away in-
again, in a bed, is Lou.
And for me, the writing of that
is the most painful thing in the world.
To walk away- You know, to walk away out of love
from that
and that warm bed, into that cold street,
into this cold world, and to do it alone,
which is how we walk in this world...
To earn a moment of being in that place
as an audience,
to feel into that space
and to actually be able to feel a moment of
acceptance that comes from that-
that, of the hardest kind of thing,
at least for me, just that-
that utter aloneness that really we do all share -
we actually all share it,
maybe especially right now -
that felt like such a high calling, you know,
and such a wonderful bar to be able to feel
that we can be- maybe have a moment of grace
within that space of utter loss.
- Paul,
do you remember the first time you saw the completed film
and you saw how it concludes
to see Ruben accept-
accept Deaf culture, accept that world, accept silence.
Do you remember how you felt when you saw that?
- Oh, absolutely.
I remember how I felt when I read the script.
When I saw the movie,
that was a very emotional experience for me.
But when I read the script, you know,
at that last page, it's-
It's filmed exactly the way Darius wrote it.
And I remember thinking,
"Oh my God, my father would stand up and
start applauding at this ending."
My father was the kind of guy,
"See, I told ya!" He'd be like, "That's-" He would be!
He'd be like a play. And yet-
And my father married my mom, who had the opposite ex-
almost- well, a different experience than he had.
He was deafened at the age of six months old.
So he didn't know what hearing was at all.
My mother lost it when she was five years old.
So my mother is a-
I swear she has the exact same feeling tone
that Ruben has in the movie:
anxious, still remembering what it was like
even as an older woman, wanting to go back to it.
When I was a boy in high school
she bought me tickets to see The Beatles
when they came to Chicago.
She wanted me to go see The Beatles
because it was a part of pop culture.
And when I got back from that concert,
she made me explain A to Z.
"What was this like? How did they do this?
What was it- What was the music like?"
Oh my God.
And I had to explain the whole thing to her,
'cause she bought me the tickets, of course. [Chuckles]
But so there was that
duality of my father going, "Deaf is the way!
That's my way."
And my mother being, "Yes, that's my way now too,
but I still remember, and I still ache for music."
So it was- For me, you know,
the Deaf community is not a monolith, right?
God, there's so many different complexity in there.
So- But for- In my life, I've had those two disparate
Deaf spirits in my life that showed me both.
My father's
acceptance of stillness
and just accepting it, loved it.
My mother was restless through it.
- Gentlemen, thank you so much for making the film,
for just taking the time today.
I'm just so glad to see all the success you've had,
for the technical achievement as well,
which we didn't get a chance to talk about,
but it is a technical piece of mastery as well.
And for the dramatic achievement
and for just opening this world
to people who may not have known it so well. Thank you,
Darius Marder, writer-director, Riz Ahmed, the star
of "Sound of Metal," and actor Paul Raci.
Thank you all.
- [Marder] Thanks. Thanks for supporting this film, Cameron.
- [Raci] Cameron, you're a pleasure to me.
- [Ahmed] Thank you so much. Thank you, brother.
- Love you, man. See ya.
- All right. Take care.
- Good to see you. - Bye.
- Bye. - Yes, sir.