Director Colin Hanks and producer Ryan Reynolds discussed some of the challenges that came in shaping ‘John Candy: I Like Me’ during the edit.
Hours before ‘John Candy: I Like Me’ premiered at the Roy Thomson Hall during the Toronto International Film Festival, Hanks and Reynolds were joined by co-executive producers Chris Candy and Jennifer Candy-Sullivan for a press conference at The Second City Toronto. Canadian media personality George Stroumboulopoulos moderated the 40-minute press conference.
John Candy: I Like Me charts Candy’s rise from his early days on SCTV in Canada to becoming a household name through blockbuster comedies like ‘Stripes,’ ‘Splash;’ ‘Spaceballs;’ and ‘Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.’ Alongside career highlights, the film offers rare glimpses behind the curtain, weaving in never-before-seen home movies and candid reflections from those closest to him. Friends, colleagues, and family all contribute, painting a vivid portrait of a man whose warmth and humor resonated far beyond the screen.
But in as much as the film is a love letter to the comedian, it is also an important conversation starter when it comes to mental health. Discussing mental health has become so stigmatized over the years to the point in which destigmatization of mental health may take years. But for what it’s worth, ‘John Candy: I Like Me’ brings something to the conversation in that regard. As was mentioned during the press conference, John Candy was a people pleaser and there’s no doubt that it had an impact on his mental health.
Following its world premiere during the 50th Toronto International Film Festival and a subsequent tour featuring Ryan Reynolds and Friends, ‘John Candy: I Like Me’ is now streaming globally on Prime Video.
Awards Focus: How long was the rough assembly cut of ‘John Candy: I Like Me,’ and what were the biggest challenges in cutting it down?
Colin Hanks: It was a lot. I mean, it was definitely a lot. The process is, the film will always reveal itself over time. With Docs, it’s like making a house where all of your elements are already on fire. What you need to do is you need to just sort of throw everything together just to make sure that you have an A to Z story. You see what I did there? A to Z.
Ryan Reynolds: Amazon. Yep. Bezos.
Hanks: Yep.
Reynolds: I just got his wings.
Hanks: I’m going to get 5% off of my Prime membership because of that. But by assembling the story that way and said, Okay, that’s the road. Great. All right. Now let’s break this thing up entirely and let’s really sort of start brand-new and find what is the most engaging way to tell that story. Because oftentimes that’s not just from point A to point to point Z. It was a lot. There was a lot. The editing process definitely took a lot of time and sometimes, there were some some roads that didn’t lead anywhere and then we needed to come back around. But that is the process. That is what it is. I have found that the most successful way to go about that is to assemble as many people as you can that all have great tastes that can bring something to the table. I had this great added bonus in that you know my producer here also is incredibly nuanced in screenwriting, editing, telling story, and knowing what something needs, knowing what is lacking.
Reynolds: Shameless. I’ll call anyone.
Hanks: He will call anyone saying, “Hey, we need this. We need that.” So it was a long process but I never really looked at the clock. I didn’t worry about the clock. It was really more about, hey, is this feeling right?
At this point, moderator George Stroumboulopoulos asked if anyone had said no.
Reynolds: No. Nobody said no, but there was—I mean, look, Bill Murray’s not easy. I mean, that’s a…
Hanks: Hard to get. Oh. He didn’t say no, but he definitely didn’t say yes.
Reynolds: Yeah, I know. He didn’t say no, but he didn’t say yes. My kid got him, I think, in the end. I sent him a desperate plea. You know it’s desperate when you switch to video for a message where I’m like, Bill, I’m running out of time. Of course, existentially, because death will find me someday, but I’m also running out of time on this doc. And I was lying. I wasn’t running out of time. I’d run out of time two weeks ago. It was over. And my kid woke up, my two-year-old son woke up at 11:30 at night to show me his Jingle Bells shirt. I’m in the middle of trying to send a video to Bill. Tell Bill to do the interview. He went, “Do the interview, Bill.” All angry-like, and I said, “Well, you say no to a child like that and I don’t know what kind of monster you are.” The next thing I know, he was doing it. I promised that the child would not attend and he would be neutralized.
Stroumboulopoulos followed this up by mentioning that Ivan Reitman once told him “that when they set up to shoot Stripes, on day one of the shoot, they still didn’t know if Bill was going to do the movie. They didn’t know if he was going to show up that day.
To which Ryan Reynolds responded, “That was even pre-fax because there was a while where you just faxed him to get him to do a movie. This was Carrier Pigeons or I don’t know, sort of a Paul Revere kind of thing.”