PROFILES GUEST LIST
1 Mark Wahlberg helps out the bartenders at Soho House during a reception for his next film, Broken City, being sold here by Inferno.
2 Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt in town for Friends With Kids.
3 At the Sony Picture Classics 20th anniversary bash, Tom Bernard, Serendipity Point’s Robert Lantos and Michael Barker.
4 Fernando Meirelles, director of 360, talks to TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey at BlackBerry’s 360 and Trishna party.
5 Amir Waked and Emily Blunt at the BlackBerry reception for Salmon Fishing In The Yemen.
6 At the Soho House party for The Ides Of March: Evan Rachel Wood, Ryan Gosling, George Clooney and Paul Giamatti.
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Meeting room 12, fifth floor, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King Street West, Toronto, ON, M5V 3X5
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ADVERTISING Simon Davidson The Odds Simon Davidson
After presenting three short films at TIFF, Canadian director Simon Davidson returns to the festival after a six-year hiatus with his first feature film, The Odds. The story follows 17-year-old Desson (Tyler Johnston), a teenage gambler, as he tries to discover who murdered his best friend, Barry (Calum Worthy).
You were inspired by a news story about a teenage gambling ring in Sin- gapore. How did the script develop from that news article?
Before the news story I had the ker- nel of an idea that I wanted to talk about a young person who was at a major turning point in his life; for whatever reason, that was impor- tant to me. I didn’t know if he was a criminal but I knew he couldn’t be an angel. And here he was at a turn- ing point. Is he going to be more of a criminal and go that route or not going to? This is what I wanted to talk about. So, I’m surfing around and I find this article about Singa- pore and this whole gambling ring. I thought, “That’s pretty wild.”
A lot of this film relies on the strength of young actors, particularly Tyler John- ston. Were you nervous about working with young actors? My three shorts all involved young people, in fact a lot younger than these people. So I knew I was going to tell this story with young people. For me, casting these actors, as I got to know them, I realised how damn professional they are. They’ve been on more sets than I have. Tyler has been acting since he was 13 or 14. I was amazed at
n 22 Screen International at the Toronto Film Festival September 12, 2011
how talented 21-year-old people really can be. Of course you can find talented people, but I was sur- prised how professional they were.
What was the biggest difference between filming your shorts and your feature? With a feature, I think the differ- ence in filming for me was staying in the character arc. Really tracking that character arc because you’re shooting for 20 days and Tyler was the main guy throughout. We could be shooting a scene where he just found Barry dead, and two hours later we’re filming a scene where he’s grooving with [his girl-
friend] Colleen. When you’re doing that on the 15th day, I really had to track that character arc and find out where we are in the story.
What’s next for you? I’m working on another murder mystery actually, which is a new feature. It’s kind of a more per- sonal story. It’s about a friend of mine who was murdered. It was about six years ago in Vancouver. He was stabbed nine times in kind of a random altercation with a guy in a restaurant. My co-writer was his best friend. That’s my next movie, a murder mystery. Regan Reid
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The Odds
Suzan Ayscough, Joe Scarnici
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