#INTERVIEW: JAY BARUCHEL, GLENN HOWERTON, MATT JOHNSON & THE CAST OF “BLACKBERRY”

By Mr. Will Wong

After winning raves out of its Premieres in Berlin and at SXSW ’23, Elevation Pictures release BLACKBERRY readies a release in theatres next month. The Film centers on the rise and fall of the world’s first ever Smartphone, developed just an hour outside of Toronto. The Comedy-Drama is directed and written by Toronto’s Matt Johnson, the Script adapted from Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry. And not only this, Johnson also stars in the Film as well.

The Red Carpet was rolled-out at TIFF Bell Lightbox as the Film got a full circle moment, premiering before a Canadian audience, after having filmed last year in Waterloo – where exactly the story is set and history was made.

Those to walk the Red Carpet tonight included:

Jay Baruchel as Mike Lazaridis
Glenn Howerton as Jim Balsillie
SungWon Cho as Ritchie Cheung
Michelle Giroux as Dara Frankel
Mark Critch as Bettman
Ian Rosen, President & COO of Harry Rosen
Co-Authors Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff
Director and Writer Matt Johnson as Douglas Fregin

The real Jim Balsillie, former Chair and CEO of Research in Motion even made an appearance! We hear he loved the Film.

We had the great pleasure of chatting with the evening’s special guests.

Ian Rosen, President & COO of Harry Rosen, graced the Red Carpet as the refined men’s fashion retailer was a partner of the event. Rosen himself oversaw fashion for star Jay Baruchel at the Premiere. We ask him what he’s most excited about.

Rosen: “My wife and I met over BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), so we’re just getting in this nostalgic mood thinking about this Film, and getting to see a different angle of this story.”.

Sean Silcoff is Co-Author of the book on which Matt Johnson based his Script. He tells us about the process of the book making it to the big screen.

Silcoff: “After the book came out, we started hearing from people interested in making it into a movie. We signed an option deal and I knew right away, an option is a longshot. You believe it when you see it. Early last year, we got the call the Movie’s being made and I still thought ‘I can’t believe it’s true’. We got to visit the set in Hamilton and it was surreal to see all these people working on the Movie, making a living because of the work you did and knowing the story’s going to live on in another format.”.

Michelle Giroux plays an Investigator named Dara, who arrives at a critical turning point in the Film.

Giroux: “Dara comes in the latter half of the Film, which I haven’t seen yet. She’s an investigator who’s been trying to reach the boys at BlackBerry and she wants to look the hiring of technicians under false pretenses. It’s actually at the point in the Film when they start to catch-on and things start to implode.”.

Mark Critch certainly is a busy man, coming off a Canadian Screen Award win last weekend for his work on THIS HOUR HAS 22 MINUTES and also prepping the third season of CBC’s hit series SON OF A CRITCH. He stars in BLACKBERRY as Bettman.

Critch: “Bettman at first thinks this is going to go great, but realizes slowly but surely that maybe there’s more to it. It’s been fun. I was only on the Film for a couple days, but it was so many exciting people. I loved working with Jay and Matt is such an exciting Filmmaker. When Jay actually sent me the Script, I started on my kitchen counter and finished the whole thing before I even realized what I was doing. It was like my BlackBerry, I couldn’t put it down.”.

We ask Matt Johnson about the many caps he gets to where in this Film – what his greatest challenges were and what his favourite parts were.

Johnson: “The biggest challenge was learning to communicate with these Actors so that we could be a true unit, because I’d never met them before and I wanted to have a sense that we’d known each other for years. The funnest part? Making movies is not fun – like production. So the funnest part was when we were shooting stuff in the ’90s and I was with the other Engineers and we were just kinda screwing around. But honestly it was all kinda painful.”.

Jay Baruchel is winning raves for his performance as Mike Lazaridis, Founder of BlackBerry with his work being called his most mature performance to date. He happens to be a huge fan of BlackBerry and was actually still using one up till a couple years ago.

Baruchel: “I had almost all of them! Whatever the last one was where they put the QWERTY keyboard back on it because for a while they had Android phones with a hybrid keyboard on it, or you could buy a QWERTY Keyboard to use on your Android.”.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelpha star Glenn Howerton also is getting acclaim for his portrayal of charismatic Businessman Jim Balsillie. He tells us a bit about his process.

Howerton: “For me it’s all about the Script. It’s all about reading the Script over and over and over again. You do the research, especially something like this which is based on a true story. Fill out the story that’s not exactly on the page so that you have an idea what it is. For me it’s all about information-gathering and letting it slowly seep into my bones and by the time it’s time to film, I know what the character’s going through so well that I don’t have to think about what goes before or after because on the day of filming, you don’t want to be thinking about all that stuff. You want to just throw it all away and have fun.”.

Our Chats below, including some footage filmed on our old BlackBerry Key2!

Backdrop by Coolab.

Elevation Pictures release BLACKBERRY May 12, 2023.

Review to come.

(Photo/video credit: Elevation Pictures/Mr. Will Wong)