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Richie Mehta

I’LL FOLLOW YOU DOWN written and directed by Richie Mehta, with Haley Joel Osment, Gillian Anderson, Susanna Fournier and Victor Garber. An eOne release. 92 minutes. Opens Friday (June 20). For venues and times, see listings.


Though he’s known for the India-set dramas Amal and Siddharth, writer-director Richie Mehta is based in Toronto. But when it came time to make a movie at home – the SF-tinged drama I’ll Follow You Down – he experienced genuine culture shock.

“I had forgotten some basic principles,” he says. “For example, when we did the airport scene we had a hundred extras. They’re not gonna move until you tell them what to do.

“In India, you show up and there’s 3,000 people doing their own thing,” he laughs. “You get used to shooting in live locations.”

Mehta says that making a modest character piece with Haley Joel Osment, Victor Garber and Gillian Anderson was much more complicated than filming in the heart of Mumbai.

“Over there, it requires a different type of technique,” he says. In India he’s “more hands-on involved. It’s not that I necessarily like that, I’m just used to it. This was hands-off. I didn’t have to do any administrative work on the production side, which was great, but you have to orchestrate absolutely everything in the frame. So that whole approach is the complete opposite. Everything in India is negotiable, and nothing here is. It’s a different way of thinking.”

I’ll Follow You Down also marks a departure in tone and subject matter. It’s a time travel story from the perspective of a young physics genius (Osment) and his grandfather (Garber) who come to realize they’re living in an alternate timeline created by another person’s experiment.

Mehta had been working on the script “off and on” for 12 years. “I’d hit a paradox I couldn’t solve, and then I’d leave it for a year and come back,” he says. He wanted to make sure the story was driven by emotional beats rather than sci-fi mechanics.

“If you’re a time travel or science fiction fan, I don’t want there to be hiccups for you,” he says. “And if you’re not, I don’t want it to hinder your enjoyment of the drama. So that was kind of the balance.”

The trick, in the end, was to find actors capable of selling the story’s moody, murky tone – which brought him to Osment.

“I felt that he has the inquisitive nature that allows this to work,” Mehta says of the Sixth Sense star. “We know he has darkness he had darkness at 10.”

Mehta went to New York City to meet the actor – and wound up casting two roles.

“The funny part about that was, when I was meeting with [Osment], Victor Garber walked into the café,” he says. “He sat down in the distance behind us, I saw them in the same frame and thought, ‘Yeah, Victor would work as a grandfather.’ It was just fortuitous.”

Interview Clips

Richie Mehta on how he developed the story:

Download associated audio clip.

Mehta on how he breaks down his scripts:

Download associated audio clip.

Mehta on giving his Toronto movie a more formal and serene tone than his Indian films:

Download associated audio clip.

Mehta on landing Gillian Anderson for a key role:

Download associated audio clip.

normw@nowtoronto.com | @wilnervision

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