Original-Cin Q&A: Amy Jo Johnson on the dark comedy Tammy's Always Dying, turning Canuck and finding a perfect suicide bridge with Google Maps
By Bonnie Laufer
Tammy's Always Dying is a Canadian black comedy-drama, directed by Amy Jo Johnson.
Johnson began her career as a successful actor in shows like Felicity, Flashpoint (and who can forget her as the Pink Power Ranger?).
In the film, based on a script by Joanne Sarazen, Felicity Huffman portrays Tammy, a charismatic, yet self-destructive mother to 35-year-old Catherine (Anastasia Phillips), whose role as a caregiver changes when Tammy is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Catherine eventually recruits a talk show agent to help profit from her mother's miserable life story. But, as Tammy's death shapes up as crucial to her daughter’s success, one problem stands in the way: Tammy just won't die.
Director Amy Jo Johnson on the set of Tammy’s Always Dying
Our Bonnie Laufer spoke with Amy Jo Johnson about directing this film, how it affected her on a personal level and her awe of Felicity Huffman.
Read our review of Tammy’s Always Dying
Tammy’s Always Dying will be released on digital and VOD on May 1st
ORIGINAL-CIN: It’s very appropriate that we are doing this interview on Canadian Film Day. You are someone who was born in the States, grew up in the States, started your career in the States and then moved to Canada and became a citizen. So how important is it for you to be celebrating Canadian Film Day.
AMY JO JOHNSON: “It's huge for me. I moved to Toronto to do the show Flashpoint and then just fell in love with the city and the country. Shortly after that show, I started transitioning into writing and directing. When Flashpoint ended around six years ago, I found my true passion and I just found Canada and Toronto in particular so nurturing. I'm so happy that I made the big move to have my life up here.”
OC: Your new film, Tammy’s Always Dying is not written by you, but you chose to direct it. You generally stick to directing projects you have written yourself. What was it about this story that caught your attention?
JOHNSON: ”I met Joanne Sarrazen, who is the writer of the script, at the Canadian Film Center while I was there in the directors lab. She was writing the script and did a reading of it, and I just sort of fell in love with it. My dad is a male version of Tammy, and my love for the script has a lot to do with Joanne's sense of humor, which is so wicked.
“It is still dealing with really heavy subjects at the same time, alcoholism and depression, and I thought, ‘Is that really funny?’ But I think when you're dealing with somebody who suffers from that, to be able to find a bit of humor within what's happening is kind of the only way to get through it.”
OC: As a director, how did you find that balance, staying with the drama but inserting moments of much needed levity?
JOHNSON: “The editing room. We shot the movie and I thought everybody really brought their A-game and gave the best performances they could.
“The script is both funny and heavy in itself, and just finding the honesty in the scenes when we're shooting them was key. Then there was the journey in the editing room. Really, we went from a two-and-a-half-hour movie to an hour-and-a-half.
Felicity Huffman in Tammy’s Always Dying
“There was a moment when it was a really heavy drama and it wasn't the movie I wanted. I took the amazing assembly cut that Brian Atkinson, who is the editor, did in the beginning. And we had landed with this sort of heavy drama. And I put it in my iMovie and I just played around with it until I found the comedy.
“Then I brought that into the editing room and said let's use this as sort of a roadmap and then let Brian take over again.”
OC: Felicity Huffman is so good in this film. We really see a side of her that we have never seen before. She's not only your lead but also an executive producer on it. So how did that all come together?
JOHNSON: “My old manager in Los Angeles Joanie Burstyn, she came on as an EP as well. She's the one who got the script into Felicity's hands and that's the hardest thing for these little Indie movies is to attach a star and to get somebody like Felicity Huffman to read a script.
“Felicity read it and she really resonated with the character of Tammy. So I flew to New York and met with her and she came to Hamilton and shot our little movie and I'm so grateful for that.”
OC: She goes all out in the role, it’s a no holds barred performance. You must have been so impressed at what she was giving you for this role.
JOHNSON: “Yes, I can’t even put into words how grateful I was having her work on this film and what she brought to the table every day. (As executive producer) one of the things she said to me about a month and a half before filming was, ‘What if we have no sides on set?’ It meant that all the actors had to show up a hundred percent of the time (whether they were shooting that day or not). And she said, ‘You can blame that on me.’”
“While I was editing I would send her versions sometimes and she was very helpful and very honest.”
OC: Anastasia Phillips who plays her daughter is also very good. Did the two of them have a natural chemistry?
JOHNSON: “They hit it off right off the bat. And you know going toe-to-toe with Felicity Huffman is not an easy feat. You have to be pretty brave yourself and have the chops as an actress and I really think Anastasia holds her own in the movie.”
OC: I wanted to ask you about their processes because I've been reading some interviews where you said that they both had a very different way of approaching their characters. What did you mean by that?
JOHNSON: “Anastasia works from the inside out. She's a feeler and projects her hurt and sadness very easily. She had lost her mom to cancer and she identified with a lot of the issues that were going on in the film. The subjects in the film came from this really cathartic place, so it was a bit of a healing process for her.
“Felicity is from the stage and from the theater and she works more from the outside in. She really took on this role, guns blazing. She grew out her gray hair, she got these yellow stained teeth and really went for it. They just had very different approaches but yet they really met in the middle and collaborated in a great way.”
OC: A major character in this film is a bridge that we see from the very first shot of the film. It's front and center and is crucial to the plot. How did you find that bridge?
JOHNSON: “ I found that bridge on Google Maps.”
OC: Seriously? What on earth did you google? Looking for a good bridge to jump off of?
JOHNSON: “I knew we were going to shoot Hamilton, so I just went scouting and searching on and as soon as I saw it, I hopped in my car and I drove to Hamilton and thought it was perfect! It's in a very sketchy neighborhood, it couldn’t have worked any better!”
OC: It certainly worked for the scenes when Felicity's character was threatening to jump.
JOHNSON: “I loved shooting in Hamilton and as soon as I got there, I knew it was the perfect bridge. It's so beautiful. You are right, it is a character in the movie, and it was nightmarish during prep just figuring out if we were going to even be allowed to do what we wanted.
“Felicity actually got up there and sat on the rails of that bridge. She climbed up in her high heels and every time we were all holding our breath. She turned to me on the first day we shot on the bridge she said, ‘If I fall the cameras better be rolling.’ Wait, no actually she said, ‘If I die keep the cameras rolling!”
OC: You also cast Clark Johnson, who is also known for a lot of directing work. Did you learn anything from him?
JOHNSON: “He was great because he actually said he had just done a movie where Zach Braff was an actor. And it was a pet peeve that Zach Braff tried to poke his nose in the directing a little bit. So, he promised he wouldn’t do that to me. Clark was amazing. He would just come to set and let me boss him around.”
OC: You started your career as an actress. How has that helped you with your directing skills?
JOHNSON: “I don't think it does. I think what I bring from that to directing is just spending 20 years on sets and soaking in the ins and outs and how the machine works. So I think just being intuitive in that way has been very helpful as a director because you do have to move a hundred miles per hour to shoot an indie film or TV or any of those things. So, I can move super quickly because it just feels innate.”
OC: What's next ? I guess the directing bug has really bit and it is something that you want to pursue.
JOHNSON: “Absolutely! I'm not acting anymore and my true passion is wholeheartedly into directing and writing. I'm writing a screenplay right now and I've optioned a couple scripts and then I'm almost ready to dip my toes into television as well. You haven’t heard the last of me yet.”