<\/p>\n
\n\tTony Goldwyn<\/strong> is best known as an actor who has starred in films like Ghost<\/em> (1990) and on TV programs including Scandal<\/em> (2012-2018). But he has also quietly and consistently built an impressive r\u00e9sum\u00e9 as a director, with A Walk on the Moon<\/em> (1999), The Last Kiss<\/em> (2006), Conviction<\/em> (2010) and, most recently, Ezra<\/em>. The dramedy just had its world premiere as a sales title at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it had audiences laughing and crying and has generated raves, especially for the performance of its lead actor, Bobby Cannavale<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \n\tEzra<\/em> centers on a single father, stand-up comedian Max (Cannavale), who is fiercely protective of his autistic son, Ezra (William Fitzgerald<\/strong>), and winds up taking him on the run rather than allowing him to be sent to a special school and medicated. The film also stars Rose Byrne<\/strong> as the boy\u2019s mother; Goldwyn as her new boyfriend; Robert De Niro<\/strong> as the boy\u2019s grandfather; and Whoopi Goldberg<\/strong>, Rainn Wilson<\/strong> and Vera Farmiga<\/strong> as friends of the father.<\/p>\n \n\tOn Thursday, Goldwyn, 63, shared with The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> a bit about Ezra<\/em>\u2019s backstory, Cannavale\u2019s performance and his hopes for the film\u2019s future.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat led to your involvement with this film? It feels like a personal, passion project for you and perhaps others involved.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tTony Spiridakis [the film\u2019s screenwriter] and I have been best friends for over 40 years.\u00a0We met at the Williamstown Theater Festival in 1981 where I got my first professional job (I was still at Brandeis). Tony was the first person I laid eyes on as I stepped out of my \u201877 Chevy Nova on a beautiful Berkshire morning, and I knew instantly that we would be friends for life. We\u2019ve been best men at our weddings and are godfathers to each other\u2019s first child. The film is based on Tony\u2019s relationship with his son Dimitri, who is autistic. (Tony has two neurodiverse sons, both of whom are exceptionally gifted. Nikos is now a film editor and Dimitri is an extraordinary painter.)<\/p>\n \n\tHaving endured a similar ordeal to Max \u2014 minus the kidnapping \u2014 Tony was determined to write a film based on his experience and has been working on various drafts for over a decade.\u00a0I\u2019ve read every one but simply as a friend who lived through those difficult years with him.\u00a0Two years ago, Tony called saying he\u2019d reworked the script and wanted my thoughts.\u00a0I was blown away with the progress he\u2019d made and told him I wanted to direct it and that we should produce the film together.\u00a0What better expression of our 40-year friendship, I thought, than to put Tony\u2019s story on the screen?<\/p>\n \n\tIn putting the film together, it was critical that we keep the autistic community central to the process.\u00a0In addition to those on our producing team and cast with autistic children, we have multiple neurodiverse people in our cast and crew \u2014 chief among them is William A. Fitzgerald, the extraordinary young autistic actor who plays Ezra.<\/p>\n \n\tCan you share a few words about Bobby Cannavale and his performance?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBobby Cannavale embodies everything we were looking for in Max. Bobby brings a kind of electric volatility and danger to everything he does. But always apparent in his work is the enormous heart pounding in his chest.\u00a0Bobby is incredibly smart, sensitive and funny.\u00a0As it turns out, he also has a long-time passion for the world of stand-up comedy. Finally, Bobby takes his greatest joy in life from being a father to his three sons.\u00a0However destructive Max\u2019s behavior becomes, in Bobby\u2019s hands we never question Max\u2019s undying devotion to his kid.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat is the ideal \u201chome\u201d for the film in terms of a distributor? And how would you describe the level of interest in the film that distributors have shown at the fest?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWe had an incredible response at TIFF, with a standing ovation at the end of our premiere screening and a second one when I introduced William Fitzgerald to the audience.\u00a0The critical response thus far has also been fantastic, so our sales team is in discussion with multiple interested buyers. That said, as a filmmaker, I just want a distributor who is passionate about the film and will truly get behind it.\u00a0It\u2019s an uncertain time in the industry right now, but with the right support, I am 100 percent certain that this film can break through to a wide audience the way CODA<\/em> did.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #Questions #Tony #Goldwyn #Director #Buzzy #Title #Ezra #Hollywood #Reporter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tony Goldwyn is best known as an actor who has starred in films like Ghost<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1944,1943,1946,1942,1821,1878,1822,1945,1941],"class_list":["post-1357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-news","tag-buzzy","tag-director","tag-ezra","tag-goldwyn","tag-hollywood","tag-questions","tag-reporter","tag-title","tag-tony"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ezra-Still-Tony-Goldwyn-Inset-Getty-H-2023.jpg",1024,576,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ezra-Still-Tony-Goldwyn-Inset-Getty-H-2023-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ezra-Still-Tony-Goldwyn-Inset-Getty-H-2023-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ezra-Still-Tony-Goldwyn-Inset-Getty-H-2023-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ezra-Still-Tony-Goldwyn-Inset-Getty-H-2023.jpg",640,360,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ezra-Still-Tony-Goldwyn-Inset-Getty-H-2023.jpg",1024,576,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ezra-Still-Tony-Goldwyn-Inset-Getty-H-2023.jpg",1024,576,false],"chromenews-featured":["https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ezra-Still-Tony-Goldwyn-Inset-Getty-H-2023.jpg",1024,576,false],"chromenews-large":["https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ezra-Still-Tony-Goldwyn-Inset-Getty-H-2023-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"chromenews-medium":["https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ezra-Still-Tony-Goldwyn-Inset-Getty-H-2023-590x410.jpg",590,410,true],"arpw-thumbnail":["https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Ezra-Still-Tony-Goldwyn-Inset-Getty-H-2023-50x50.jpg",50,50,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Movie News<\/a>","tag_info":"Movie News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo3.aiwalls.com\/thesemovies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}