Jay Baruchel & Michael Dowse Talk Falling In Love With ‘The Stunt Driver’ Ken Carter, Upcoming Sitcom Project, Baruchel’s WWII Fighter Pilot Passion Project

For Michael Dowse, the filmmaker behind The Stunt Driver, there’s a meta aspect to his journey with the Canadian sports comedy.

The film, examining the dogged pursuit of a seemingly impossible dream, was in effect just that for him — a “white whale” that he chased for 12 years. And now, he’s harpooned it: The film premieres at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, as part of the Toronto Film Festival, tonight.

The Stunt Driver tells the true story of Ken Carter, Canada’s underdog answer to Evel Knievel, whose life goal was to nail a mile-long jump in a rocket car across the St. Lawrence River. Jay Baruchel plays the stuntman, in his third collaboration with Dowse — a friend of 20+ years — following the cult hockey comedy Goon and FXX comedy Man Seeking Woman.

Beautifully shot on 16mm and 35mm film, at multiple aspect ratios, The Stunt Driver is inspired by The Devil at Your Heels, the 1981 documentary on Carter from Robert Fortier, and makes Fortier a central character, using the making of the doc as a central structural device in telling the story.

This was in part a practical decision: Knowing he wouldn’t have the budget to practically capture all of Carter’s athletic exploits, Dowse resolved to build the film around doc footage and other archival material. The final product speaks to the amazing results that can come in art, when adapting to constraints.

Ahead of their premiere, Dowse and Baruchel spoke with Deadline about a film that will make you all in love with Carter — a piece that is as sweetly heartfelt as it is funny. They also talk Montreal Canadiens fandom and cast standout Joe Cobden, while hinting at a new sitcom they’re developing together as a starring vehicle for Baruchel, and the Second World War fighter pilot epic that he’s dying to make.

DEADLINE: Michael, you’ve called The Stunt Driver your “white whale.” What first grabbed you about Ken Carter’s story?

MICHAEL DOWSE: I was drawn by the spectacle of it all, the period and the character. I fell in love with Ken — with his hope, with his sense of humor. He was a dreamer. So it was really the character that cemented it, and what he had to go through. Then, when I started digging into it, I just thought this would be a really interesting film, if I can somehow incorporate Bob Fortier and the different aspect ratios. It just got me really excited. But yeah, it was mostly Ken that drove me to it, just because there’s so much you could do with a character like that.

DEADLINE: What were the first steps you went through when you sat down to write?

DOWSE: Well, I think the first step was, you sort of write down the documentary verbatim. You follow the structure of the documentary, and what you discover is that it can’t be the same thing when you adapt it to a feature film. You have to combine things. Like, there’s three different car tests. There’s so many different attempts in the actual real story that we tried to combine it. Really, you had to consolidate a lot of things to make the story flow, and once you started thinking about the necessities of your budget and what you had to do, it really did lead to the invention of, “Let’s use Bob Fortier as more of a character. Let’s use these three different aspect ratios. Let’s play around with this, and let’s really bob and weave in and around the footage.” So, a long process, but it definitely is a thing where you have to collapse a lot of characters and events into more of a streamlined story that’ll be more palatable for a feature film.

DEADLINE: Can you expand a bit on arriving at your basic visual approach — framing the film around the making of The Devil at Your Heels, and moving between different aspect ratios?

DOWSE: It comes from necessity. The first time we got a breakdown of the script, it was an insanely expensive movie that we would never be able to make. So the first step was like, well, we have to use the stunt footage. We have to use a lot of that footage and we have to bob and weave around this stuff because we can never launch our own rocket car off a 90-foot ramp as they do in the [doc]. So that was the first step. And then when you really start to dig into what that means, you start to play around with, what happens if you jump from 16 to 2:39, and what does that access give you when you jump out to an anamorphic world that’s your reality behind the doc footage?

So I got excited by the idea of flipping the world of a documentary. Normally, the documentary is the truth, but because Ken was such a showman and had such a great relationship with Bob and was so aware of the camera, I got really interested in terms of what we could do behind the documentary in our 2:39 aspect ratio. And then obviously, having Jay as an actor, it just opens that world up completely in terms of where you can go.

DEADLINE: Jay, how familiar were you with Ken Carter’s story when Michael approached you?

JAY BARUCHEL: Anything I know about Ken is a function of being friends with Dowse. We’ve known each other for over 20 years, and way back at some point when we were trying to build our first movie together, Goon, I think we’d had these conversations about, if you could do anything in the world, what would it be? He mentioned making a feature of Devil at Your Heels back then, and then of course I fell in love with that movie, Ken himself, everything he represents. So when Mike was like, “I wrote a script finally, and enough time has passed that I think you’re old and fat enough…” [Laughs]

DOWSE: Old enough.

BARUCHEL: “You’re old enough to do this now, maybe…” Because never in a million years did it once occur to me that I would ever play Ken Carter. In all the times I watched that movie and talked about the movie with friends, I never once imagined myself in him. And so when Dowse pitched it to me, I wish I had a better term than “left field.” It was lovely and unexpected. And then I read his incredible script. I called or texted him at page 40 or 50. I was just like, “I love it. It’s an amazing script. I have to do it.” I just knew that the other 50 to 90 pages would also be good. And they were.

Now that I’m talking about his script, I’d just like to take the chance to say…Mike’s being very Calgary about all of it and writing everything off as a function of technical restrictions. But he sees Ken in a way that only he could see him. I think he’s doing himself a bit of a disservice. Like, the documentary’s wonderful, but the depth that Mike sees and how he frames Ken, in terms of what he means to our culture specifically, as well as anybody that ever felt stuck where they were…Dowse is an incredible artist, so he brings something really beautiful to it, and it’s one of the best scripts I ever read.

DEADLINE: What did you understand immediately about Ken as a character, and what took longer to unlock in your performance?

BARUCHEL: The way I like to say it is, I was born in 1982, so that means that there were still men like Ken Carter around when I was a boy, and there just aren’t those guys anymore. And for a bunch of reasons that are good: We’ve eradicated adult illiteracy and all of these things. But the margins were way more severe when he was a kid. So that creates a particular brand of person — a guy who has had to fight for everything he’s ever gotten, and a guy for whom his entire sense of his worth is tied specifically to one f*cking crazy thing that he can screw up the courage to do.

You can’t find — at least I haven’t found — any interviews with Ken talking about how much he loves jumping cars. He just says he does it, and that he’s good at it, but you never hear him talking about what a kick he gets out of it or anything. Acting scares the f*ck out of me, and I know that the only reason that I’m on this Zoom call with you is because of this particular weird thing that I can suck up the courage to find a way to do. So I feel like I got him right away.

What took a sec to figure out was the fun of the physicality, and adopting his gait, and trying to figure out his particular eye situation and all of these different things.

DOWSE: Jay just puts the film on his back. I love this performance, I love what he does with the character. He brings so much shape to it. It’s not just a mimicry or an aping of the real guy; he really makes it his own and does such an amazing job that he better get the recognition he deserves.

DEADLINE: Tonally, The Stunt Driver is something special — very funny but also sweetly sincere. I’d equate It, as a compliment, to an earnest Ricky Bobby. How did you calibrate that balance?

DOWSE: It’s a continuation of everything that I’ve been doing in a lot of my films, where you take what might be considered broad characters and really try to ground them and give them heart. I think the key for me is that you want to get people laughing with them and falling in love with them. You set people up with the left hand of, get people laughing: They’re funny characters, they’re approachable, they’re accessible. And then you knock them with a bit of tragedy or conflict. And that’s definitely the approach I took on this one. The difference here is that it’s a real guy, so the stakes are even higher in terms of, you don’t have free will to just do whatever you want. You have to stay within the guidelines to a certain degree of, this is a real guy, and these things happened.

I think that the starting point for us of Ken Carter, he was an incredible person. He was brave, he was idiosyncratic. He was a bunch of things. There was ups and downs. He wasn’t a simple person you could put in a box. So it allows you to play with the tone a little bit. And for me, it was about, you have to take this character seriously because he takes what he’s doing quite seriously. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be the life of the party and he can’t be funny.

So I really just try to use comedy to be a gateway to the likability and how much you’re invested in the character, and then you can have a lot of leeway with where you go with that. And obviously we’re following the guidelines of this story, of actually what happened, but it’s a tone that I love and it’s a tone that I think is really effective. I think people respond to it because they love the character.

DEADLINE: Was financing the film a long road? Were there many false starts?

DOWSE: There was just one false start. Telefilm came in and gave us their full support, and then SODEC, which is the Quebec version of Telefilm, did the same thing. So we had enough money to get going and get started. But even then, it gets eaten up a lot by the ramp and by the period and the scale of it all. We were lucky enough to find one location where we could shoot about 80% of the film, so that made it easier. But there was just a ton of constraints. I say this a lot, but I feel like because you have to build the ramp and you have to build the rocket car, you kind of turn into Ken Carter himself, trying to deal with the same problems. But we only had one delay, which was trying to go in the spring and we just weren’t ready. And you just have to, a lot like Ken Carter himself, pull the plug and know that three months later, we’ll be back up and get going.

DEADLINE: This is your second Canadian sports film together, following Goon. How deep does sports fandom run for both of you?

BARUCHEL: We watch a lot of hockey and I think there’s at least 10 to 15% meathead in both of us. [Laughs]

DOWSE: That’s generous.

BARUCHEL: [Laughs] But yeah, no. I’m a religious hockey fan, and I wasn’t a huge fan of stunt driving. I obviously have a respect and appreciation for it now, but half of what Mike and I talk about at any given time is hockey.

DOWSE: The Montreal Canadiens, to be specific.

DEADLINE: What has made for a strong friendship and collaboration between you, over three projects now?

BARUCHEL: I think number one, we just get on really well. We enjoy each other’s company, and there’s enough points of common interest to sustain a friendship over two decades. And we are diametrically opposed on some movies and stuff like that. But we have, I think, enough of the same ideas in movies and television that we complement each other. And any places where we don’t, I think that’s only to the project’s benefit. I think Dowse has ideas I could never, and I would like to think vice versa, as well.

DOWSE: 100%.

BARUCHEL: And there’s just an easy shorthand. We’re working on something else right now. We’re writing this sitcom together for him to direct and me to star in, and the writers’ room for that sh*t is just the happiest thing in the world. It’s just us hanging out, making each other laugh, getting Tim Hortons. It’s all very on the nose, man. We get on super good, and I’m lucky that a guy that I get on with is also the best director around.

So it’s a really, really cool thing. Even if our movies and sh*t sucked, it would still be fun to do it. [Laughs] The added benefit is that we make awesome sh*t together. Stunt Driver, for me, is— and there’s no hyperbole, whatsoever, when I say —the best thing I’ve ever done. And it’s certainly my favorite. It is absolutely my favorite of anything I’ve ever done.

DEADLINE: Jay, you’ve expressed real excitement about, and commitment to, the telling of distinctly Canadian stories as a primary point of focus in your career. That has led you down a great road with films like BlackBerry, and now The Stunt Driver. What is this pursuit really about for you?

BARUCHEL: For as long as I’ve had a career in the U.S., I’ve had a career in Canada, too. I never had my foot out of here completely, and so for every big Hollywood studio movie that people might recognize me from, from a long time ago, there’s two or three independent Canadian movies that are out there. So I’ve been building this resume the whole time and just trying to do stuff that I give a sh*t about. And it’s a very simple criteria I have, which is would I watch this? Would I f*ck with this? Is this the kind of thing that I’d be interested in? And failing that, is it going to be a meaningful way to spend my time? And as long as one of those boxes are checked — ideally both — but as long as at least one of them are checked, then I know it’s something I should do.

At a certain point, if you do it long enough and the sh*t’s good, the world starts to notice. And so I’m very, very proud. I’m very proud of the story that BlackBerry has had, and I’m really even more so excited about the story that this is going to have. At this point in my life… Look, I’m very lucky to have any gig. Anybody is. But truly, at this point in my life, any boxes I have left to check are just about putting my country’s stories on film.

DEADLINE: Joe Cobden, who plays documentarian Bob Fortier, is a real standout in The Stunt Driver.

BARUCHEL: He’s so good.

DEADLINE: He’s someone I hadn’t seen before; you share great comedic chemistry. Talk about how he came to the project and what he brought.

DOWSE: Joe has, I think, 27 movies at TIFF this year, so he’s very seasoned. He’s also Foghorn Leghorn in [Coyote vs. Acme], which is incredible.

BARUCHEL: [Laughs] What? Is that true?

DOWSE: [Laughs] Oh, yeah. He’s all over the place. It’s like, if you squint, you’ll see Joe in your movie. He’s incredible; I didn’t even have to read him. I just saw him on the list and was like, “Yeah, yeah, he’s perfect.” And I think he just came in with Bob Fortier’s voice and owned the part.

On paper, when you look at that schedule, it’s a very thankless part because he’s behind camera a lot of the times. Just to be on set, but he’s not necessarily shooting all the time. It’s sometimes just his voice, but he needs to be present there. And he just really embraced it and really was a big fan of the doc and the story. And we were lucky to have him. He was incredible. A lot of actors would have a problem with that part because he’s on set a lot, but maybe not in a lot of the footage, but his presence in the movie is so important. And Bob’s story is as much of the story, right?

BARUCHEL: I’ve known Joe, I think since I was 18 or 19, and I’m 44. I’m from Montreal, and when he moved to Montreal from Nova Scotia 20+ years ago, he just took the city by storm. He’s such an accomplished, incredible performer — theater performer, historian, filmmaker. He just is truly a real polyglot, renaissance man, whatever, and is a lovely guy. Again, just someone whose company we enjoy and somebody who is interested in and cares about the same things as Dowse and me. So we didn’t have to find our sea legs. We kind of all just had a shorthand and were able to figure it out by the time the first setup was ready to go on day one, which is important when you’ve only got f*cking 20 days to make a movie. You don’t have a bunch of time to figure yourself out. So the better you’re with people that you know and trust and have a preexisting relationship with. You kind of just build on that. And so what you’re seeing on screen between Joe and me is a sort of friendship or relationship of 20+ years, finally on camera.

DOWSE: Guys, I’ve got to jump. I got a crew staring at me; I got to start my day.

BARUCHEL: See you, Mike.

DEADLINE: A few final questions, Jay. One of the most compelling thematic ideas in your film is the distinction between a stunt driver and a daredevil — real craft versus reckless delusion. When in your own career did you know for yourself that you were a stunt driver, not a daredevil?

BARUCHEL: That’s a lovely question that is hard to answer without sounding like a bit of an arsehole. But I think when I kept getting gigs down in L.A. I started acting in Montreal when I was 12 and never thought I would continue into adulthood. I thought I would get to 18. If I was lucky to have saved any money, I would go and live on my own, write a bunch of scripts, try to get some independent horror sh*t going until my money ran out, and then that would be that. Whatever. So I already had made peace with it being done and that I was onto the next piece.

Then, I was lucky enough to get work down in L.A., and it begat more work, which then generated work for me up here. I take none of it for granted though, right? And I’m very happy to be talking to you on the week that this movie I adore is premiering at TIFF – on a really great slot, on a great night, at a great theater and all this sh*t. But I also know that it could all go away at any minute. [Laughs] This time next year, or far quicker than that.

My mom always raised me with a sense of, never get too used to any of it. Know your value, know you’re good, but know that nothing is guaranteed for anybody, and there but for the grace of God go I kind of thing. At 44, the fact that when I started, they were still putting actual film canisters into cameras and actually checking gates and all of this sh*t, and that I’m still here, makes me breathe a bit easier. But it’s a freelance gig. And so every time a gig is done, it is in theory potentially the last one ever. So just like every jump could f*cking kill you, it’s impossible to get completely comfortable, I think.

DEADLINE: What has been your process in managing the fear that comes with your line of work?

BARUCHEL: I wish I could liken it to something where the stakes were a bit lower because I am by no means comparing what I do to these following two gigs that you have to be really hard to do, which is a fireman or a sailor. Like, a sailor has to fear the ocean enough to respect it so that you don’t f*ck about — because that could be that. Same with a fireman. But you can’t be so scared of it that you can’t do the thing, and live with the thing, and you have to like it as well and get something out of it. So that’s kind of how I compare it.

Also, my mind is so nuked from 30 years of acting that there’s basically three places in the world I’m comfortable: It’s my house, my cottage, and a film set. And everything else, I’m really outside my comfort zone. Like, I just went and picked up my suit that I’ll be wearing on Friday, and just being out and about in public is really difficult for me, just because I don’t do well in crowds and I’m super uncomfortable. But you put me on a set with a bunch of lights and a camera aimed at me, it’s my secret little sanctum. There’s a calm to be found there for me.

DEADLINE: The film is ultimately about chasing an impossible dream. What’s yours, at this stage of your life?

BARUCHEL: Oh boy. Well, because I’m a movie nerd, it’s all going to be down to some movie that I hope I get to make one day. So I wrote this script called Malta Spitfire, which is based on a true story. I’ve optioned these two books and synthesized them into one screenplay: It’s a big Second World War fighter pilot epic about a Montreal boy that was Canada’s deadliest ace in the war and one of the RAF’s deadliest spitfire pilots. He led quite a crazy life and he’s an Anglo boy from Montreal. It’s a story that means a lot to me.

His name is George Beurling. I have been singularly obsessed with him for years. When I turned 40, my wife and I went to Malta for my 40th so that I could location scout for a movie that might never get made. [Laughs] But yeah. That’s my Stunt Driver, from the director’s seat anyway.