(keyboard typing)
- We're here on day two of the Toronto Film Festival
with some of the my favorite people,
Elle Fanning, Max Minghella.
Zlatko, great to meet you, sir.
- Thank you.
- Congratulations, everybody, on Teen Spirit.
- Thanks for having us.
- You had your big premiere yesterday.
- Max, I know, I know this must mean the world to you.
This is a passion project, your first directing effort.
So who had the most nerves yesterday?
Was it the director here?
Was is the woman whose voice was on,
being displayed for the world?
- Elle has to answer that question.
- Yeah I think, I had a lot of,
I had, like, nerves that I hadn't really ever felt before
with a film because I, you know,
normally people see me acting and there's that,
but then, introducing my singing,
it was kind of a whole new thing.
I had never watched the, I had seen the movie,
but I had never watched it with a full audience,
and them hearing me, so I was scared for that.
- And Zlatko, you were saying
that you had never seen the film before.
- It was the first time with the audience.
Big pleasure, I think it was, with the audience,
this was like, "Ahhh, oh."
(laughter)
I was out there saying, "Oh, no no no, don't cry,"
(laughter)
- Be strong for your director.
And how are you feeling, Max, I mean,
this is one, I know, goes back a long way,
you've been developing this for a while,
working on the script for a while,
what is the sense, the day after,
of releasing this for the first time,
to let people actually see it,
give me a sense of what you're feeling.
- It's an amazing feeling, and I'm so proud
of everyone involved for pulling this whole thing off,
Fred Berger, our producer, is not here,
but he was instrumental in making
a very challenging film possible,
so I feel very grateful, I made this movie
with one of my best friends, Jamie Bell,
who has several films in the festival,
and, you know, we saw each other last night,
and it's emotional for us,
we were two boys in a room with a dream
of making this movie that seemed crazy,
and then we're here today, it's a special feeling.
- So let's set up the film a little bit,
this is about a young woman, Isle of Wight,
who has these dreams of becoming a pop star,
kind of escaping the world that she's inhabiting,
I'm just curious, like, what was the point of entry for you,
like what's the germ of the idea,
is it an obsession with these kind of
reality competition shows, is it that kind of classic
star is born kind of storyline, where does this begin?
- I feel like a teenage girl at heart,
but I love pop music, I just went to the BTS concert
like three days ago, which was a life-changing experience,
I love stories about different cultures,
so there's some, like, shallow things
that I was interested in, but I, most of all,
wanted to tell a story about
a different kind of relationship,
our mutual friends, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, once said
this thing, that every good movie is about two people,
so when I sat down to write this film,
I thought, "Oh God, I better write it about two people,
"cause that's what, I wanna make a good movie,"
but I thought it'd be interesting
to make a different kind of love story,
it's a platonic relationship, but it is
a very loving one, and a very complicated one,
and Vlad is an amalgamation of many friends in my life,
who I've leant on in difficult times.
- So, Elle, for you, is this, like,
wish fulfillment, I mean, like, there are many
satisfying acting jobs in different ways,
but this is a rare opportunity
to show a different side of you,
something that I'm sure you've had some jitters about.
- Oh, for sure, yeah.
- So give me a sense of sort of,
the satisfying feeling of, I mean,
you can launch a new career if you really want to,
out of this film, I mean, you're amazing.
- Thank you, I, yes, it was a dream of mine,
I had fantasized about being a pop star,
when I was young, I would sing around the house all the time
and I did choir in school, and, you know,
got a solo once, that I tried out for,
but that was it, I mean, I did some singing lessons,
but there was always, like, a yearning side,
there's part of myself that I was like,
I want to be an actress or a pop star,
and I, obviously, with my job,
it's nice that I get to learn traits,
and I can actually, you know, there are musicals,
and so that was something that,
I think I've even probably said to you before,
like on a bucket list of what movies you could do,
musical was there, cause I wanted to have that experience,
and get to show that, cause it was kind of a secret thing.
- So who is on the Mount Rushmore for you
of, like, pop icons, the pop stars that you worship?
- I mean, I would watch a lot of,
like, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift,
them performing on stage, the first concert I ever went to
was Gwen Stefani in Budapest, when I was nine,
I was a huge No Doubt fan, in Budapest, yeah.
- Were you at that one, Zlatko,
were you at the No Doubt concert?
(laughter)
- He was one of the backup dancers.
- It was close to my hometown.
- Yeah, I mean, Dua Lipa, also,
it was funny, she's someone that we,
her fame was happening while we were shooting the film,
and I relayed, like, "Violet's kind of like her,"
because how she was discovered was kind of similar,
where she's from, now she's this, she's doing it.
- Do you share the BTS obsession
with Mr. Minghella over here?
- Yes, he has introduced me to this.
- Who's a bigger fan of BTS?
- I would say Max, for sure, yeah.
He loves V, he loves V.
- Let's dive deep into this,
where did it begin, what's the...
- I blame Dylan O'Brien for this,
Dylan O'Brien is the person who introduced me to BTS,
and, listen, it's been a k hole, it's not been
a good thing for anybody in my life,
I'm deeply obsessed, it has been my main focus,
- Learning the dance moves to DNA.
(shushes)
(laughter)
- Detrimental to the editorial of this film,
to be honest, I was very distracted.
- So you're doing a boy band film next,
or are you opting for a concert film,
you want to do the doc about BTS.
- Oh, I'd love that, I'd love to do, like,
a Jon Chu-esque, tour life, yeah, that would be great.
- Jack Antonoff contributes to this as a producer,
you can't get any better than that as a music producer,
how did that happen, give me a sense
of sort of, how that relationship...
- It's a really funny story, actually,
we wanted to have an end song at the end of the film,
an original song, that maybe represents
a song that Violet might be singing later on in her career,
and we talked about it a lot, and we would joke around,
like, oh, in dream world, it'd be like, Jack Antonoff,
let's think of somebody realistic we can get.
- And we were deep in post, and I got a call
out of nowhere, saying, Jack Antonoff saw your film,
I don't know how it happened, he's obsessed with it,
he wants to sit down tonight, in Toronto actually,
we were here, and I was like "Yes, I'll do that,"
and I met him at the Thompson Diner at midnight, I think,
and he pulled out his cell phone,
and he played me something, said,
"I think this is the end song,"
and I was like, "I think that's a really great song,"
and we recorded it with Elle's vocals,
he's got a pretty unique gift,
he's one of the few people I've been around
that I would say is just a genius,
and I felt that about him before I met him,
I felt that more so after spending some time with him.
He's got something going on, it's just tapped into
an understanding a melody, that's amazing,
and even though it's not a song
that Elle performs live in the film,
it's one of my favorite songs in the movie.
- Handmaid's Tale, which of course,
has this amazing resonance in society,
what do you think when you see something like that emerge
around the Supreme Court discussion and the protests there?
- Look, I selfishly loved doing the show,
cause I love the people I work with,
and it's a really wonderful set to be on,
but the fact that this show is on the right side
of this conversation is a really lovely thing,
and I think we're all very grateful and surprised
that it's had the impact that it's had.
- And Elle, you're gonna be executive producing a TV series,
I hear, is that true, Catherine the Great?
- Yes, yes, it's something that is happening, yeah.
- So that's exciting, I think this is
your first producing venture?
- Yes, yeah, I'm producing a movie before that,
it's something that I've been working on for a little bit,
it's based off a book, so that will happen before,
but yeah, putting that hat on a little.
- Is it important to you to just explore that side
and sort of get your creative vision out
in a different way than in front of the camera?
- It is, I think growing up, when you started so young,
you see everybody else in their jobs, on set,
and you kind of, I don't know, you learn what they do,
if you wanna be a curious person, and be interested,
I feel like I was always asking around,
and things like that, and I kind of have that,
yearning to also kind of create your own thing,
cause also, as an actor, although you do,
you have creativity and freedom, but it's only to an extent,
because also they, you know, the director,
(laughter)
- She wasn't looking at you,
but she was saying, with her eyes.
(laughter)
- The temperature went down in the room.
- You've spent a lot of time here in Canada, right,
I mean, like, were you in post here, how long have you...
- I'm essentially Canadian at this point.
No, I've lived here on and off for about three years,
and I made a couple films in Vancouver
right before that, so I have spent
an inordinate amount of time here, I love it.
I only discovered Canada later in life,
but I do feel very cozy here, it's a lovely culture,
it's just a great city, Toronto.
- And congratulations on Teen Spirit, guys,
people will hopefully be able to check this out soon,
enjoy the rest of Toronto. Good to see you, buddy.
(chill electronic music)