The stars of BlackBerry talk about the making of the movie

Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton chat about BlackBerry Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton chat about starring in 'BlackBerry,' which follows the rise and fall of the Waterloo region tech giant.

Our CTV’s Krista Sharpe sat down with the actors from the new "BlackBerry" movie, Glenn Howerton and Jay Baruchel.

What’s your favourite part of the movie for each of you?

Howerton:

I love that the film plays like a thriller. It’s like a two hour thrill but with lots of comedy interspersed throughout. It’s a dramatic reenactment of the real life events surrounding, what I think was, a device that a lot of people were were obsessed with, but don’t know a lot about. I just think the film strikes a really, really interesting tone that is difficult to strike, and again it has the dramatic drive of an action movie, but the comedic sensibilities of something much funnier than most action movies -- other than maybe "Lethal Weapon"? I don’t know. It lives in a lot of different spaces and it’s just a blast. A really interesting story, but it’s a lot of fun to watch. And the two hours just flies by so quickly.

Baruchel:

Yeah, he is right. It’s an absolute ride. Really great music. An awesome story. Super compelling. And really funny. And super stressful. And just like all the stuff you want out of the movie. And so those are pretty much the only boxes that need to be checked. This isn’t a prerequisite, but it really helps for me, it is also an authentically Canadian story that doesn’t hide where it is. I don’t know the last movie that took place in K-W. I literally can’t think of another one. It's awesome, right? And I just think it’s good. Number one, all that matters is how good it is. The fact that it is as authentically hoser as the phone itself was is really, really special.

How much time did you get to spend in K-W?

Baruchel:

We shot a bunch there. Most of the movie with shot in Hamilton in earnest. We had one day in Toronto, two days in London. And then we shot a bunch of exteriors and K-W. The buildings were cheaper, I guess, than elsewhere. But we did get to drive around. We drove around K-W a whole bunch.

I know that you didn’t get to spend a lot of time here, but was there anything that l stuck out to you? Any places that you got to eat that were kind of cool?

Baruchel:

What stuck out to me was from childhood. Is it St. Jacobs? The market. Yes. My dad took me to the Mennonite market when I was a kid, and I bought sneakers with Robert Redford, and Dan Aykroyd and River Phoenoxon VHS from that flea market. And I still have it. I have very fond memories of that flea market when I was as a kid. But we were pretty bloody in and out because when we were shooting in Waterloo, it was the night before the Ontario provincial election, and I had to get back home to vote the next morning. So I didn’t even get to sleep there. Everyone else got to sleep there. So I just drove back to Toronto.

Literally, the least I could do. I’m never going to go to war for this country, so the least I could do is the bare minimum of voting when I get the chance to.

How do you think, Jay, as a Canadian, how does this makes Canada look? I haven’t seen the movie yet, but how do you think it portrays us?  

Baruchel:

I think authenticity, sort of warts and all. Which is a self-defeating, self-obsessed, painfully uncomfortable, prone to innovation. I think, you know, in every field, I just think we are good at, but hate being good at anything, because if you’re good at something that means you are one of the big guys. And we have always had Britain and the states to be a sort of counterpoint to of like "well that’s the way they do it, but you know, blah blah blah," but we are forever in this push and pull of having big ideas and then hating ourselves and feeling guilty for having big ideas. You’ll see it in music, you’ll see it in movies, you’ll see it in literature. This will be a very familiar thing. Even if a Canadian watches it and has never lived or worked in tech, they will have a version of this story close to them.

Did you guys get to meet Balsillie and Lazaridis? How did you get into their heads?

Howerton:

We do not meet them prior to shooting the film. But we did get the chance to meet Jim at the Toronto premier of the film, which was really cool. But no. We weren’t trying to necessarily emulate the characters. Just because… the way they move, the way they talk, their speech patterns, their movement patterns, weren’t really like super well-known to most people. So it felt like, if anything, a detraction from our dramatic representation of who they really were.

Baruchel:

I think that we would have been concerned with… maybe we would have got to really like them. And then you’d be like that much more worried, and we would be that much less free to just make the movie that we all got together to make.

I heard that Balsillie has seen it. Have you heard any response from real people in this story?

Baruchel:

He's seen it twice. Yeah. I think the first time he was by himself in a theater that Elevation [Pictures] had booked out for him. That’s got to be an absolute mind-[..]. To be a guy who has never been a part of movies, to then watch a movie about you. I don’t know how I’d watch that movie if that were me. I wouldn’t be able to watch the movie. All I’d be able to be like is like: "I didn’t do that. I never said that." I don’t know that I’d be able to. However, he came to the Toronto premier and saw it a second time with an audience full of people. And I like to think that he’d be able to see the movie as the movie that second time. Maybe. But to his credit he has been an incredibly good sport about this. I would not be a good sport about this at all. And he’s just been like "Oh you know, it’s just a satire. It’s just a movie. They’re doing their thing." He hasn’t given any of us [..] about any of it.

Howerton:

He’s been great. He was great. His attitude about it has been great. You know, of course he’s taken an issue to a couple of things here and there in terms of the veracity of the film, but that’s to be expected. But he has had a great attitude about it. I’m sure he’s gotta be pleased that, at the very least, the movie itself is getting a lot of praise and positive feedback.

How much did you guys know about the story before you got into the garage?

Howerton:

I didn’t know anything about it.

Baruchel:

I knew just what I think the average Canadian who doesn’t follow business news knew. Which is, Balsillie was a bit of a cult hero for us because he was the guy that was going to bring a seventh team to Canada. And so I remember that year where he was on the news every single day, on TSN at least. About like, there is this crazy, sort of, American-style capitalist, but our guys who is going to bring a hockey team back home. So he was a guy that I was rooting for. And I knew that Rim and BlackBerry were Canadian. But I didn’t know any of it. I knew that iPhone killed it. But that’s all I knew. I didn’t know any of the crazy stuff behind the scenes. Which I’m not going to spoil for you because you haven’t seen yet. But yeah. It’s a [..] crazy story. And I don’t think the average person knows it.

Just looking at the Steve Jobs movies that sort of put him in a serious light, why did you go for the comedy-drama aspect of this?

Baruchel:

Because I think that it is inherently, I think everything is probably both sometimes. I’m sure that there’s a version of the Steve Jobs story that’s more fun to watch probably. And I just think that maybe that’s part of the Ontario lens on it, never letting ourselves get too big for our breeches, because it’s inherently ridiculous. All of this is ridiculous.

Howerton:

Life at its extremes is often funny. It’s just inherently funny. When people go to any extreme, it is just, you have to find humour in it as a release valve. When people do outrageous things, it is entertaining to watch. It is dramatic, but it is often very funny.

Baruchel:

K-W! I left my heart there. I’ll come back to get it very soon.