There has never been a better time to champion Canadian films than the present. If you haven’t done so, you can start with Are We Done Now by Vancouver filmmaker Ben Immanuel and co-starring Gabrielle Miller.
We will try not to give too much away as spoilers, but it would be terrific if movie-goers around the world could experience the best of what we have to offer.
Award-winning actor, instructor, writer, producer, director, Ben Immanuel weaves personal experiences into a fictional documentary that is set in Vancouver.
Gabrielle Miller is one of Canada’s most accomplished actors, with awards and fan adoration to prove it. She is experienced and versatile. Gabrielle is a marvelous, dramatic performer with the comedic chops to keep audiences in stitches. She is known for the iconic lead role of Lacey Burrows in Canada’s best single-camera comedy shows, Corner Gas.
HNMAG: Gabrielle, where are you right now?
GABRIELLE: I’m in a small West Kootenay town about an hour drive from Nelson, BC.
HNMAG: Ben, did you grow up in Vancouver?
BEN: I grew up in Vancouver, but I was born in New Haven, Connecticut. I’m a dual citizen. I proudly live my life as a Canadian, and I have been for most of my life. I lived in Los Angeles for a few years. I lived in Vancouver for most of my life. Gabrielle, I know you’ve lived in a lot of different places over the years, haven’t you?
GABRIELLE: Yes, a lot of different places, but I was born and raised in Vancouver.
HNMAG: Both of you lived in the US but came back to Vancouver. Was there anything in particular that brought you back?
GABRIELLE: It comes down to wanting to spend more time with my family and my community. I spent a lot of my life going back and forth and work often brings me home. Our son just graduated from high school. My husband and I are taking the time to enjoy the West Kootenays. I’m thrilled to be here. We have beautiful gardens, and there are many outdoor activities. We are in a town of about 350 people outside of Nelson.
HNMAG: Does it remind you of Dog River in some way?
GABRIELLE: (laughs) Well, the landscape is very different. In BC, the roots are more hippy-based based but the quirks and different personalities and such…there are similarities for sure.
HNMAG: Is there more than one gas station?
GABRIELLE: Nope, there’s one gas station, one store run incredibly well, and two restaurants.
Ok, that’s a big difference, competition for the restaurant.
HNMAG: Do you find that it’s easier to get work when you’re in British Columbia than, say, New York?
GABRIELLE: The way the industry works now, it doesn’t matter where you are. That’s why we can live in the country and put things on tape. Now you can travel wherever the job is.
BEN: It helps many full-time actors live more independently. You can do tapes around your own schedule. In the old days, you had to audition in person. That’s helpful and convenient for some, but it also takes away the magic of people connecting in the room. Some actors might have done twenty-five takes by the time they send one in. In the old days, we walked in, and we had to walk that tight rope. We had to do our best right then and there.
HNMAG: Ideally, the actor would have the option to come into the room or submit a self-tape online.
BEN: I think you’re right. It was that way. If someone said they were just not available, they could send a tape. In some cases, those actors might have had a slight advantage. They could really hone the piece and not bring that nervous energy in. On the other hand, there are times when that nervous energy is what makes a performance really work.
HNMAG: Ben, when did you first decide to work in Film & Television?
BEN: I did some other things before I pursued acting. I always wanted to prove to myself that I could do something special and not just be a regular guy. I wanted to have big ambitions. I was an amateur boxer as a teenager. I took that as far as I could. I went to the Canadian Jr. Nationals. After that, I fought somebody who really wanted to be a boxer and…
I discovered that’s another world. I played music and was in a couple of bands; we opened for some prominent recording artists, including Bryan Adams, at the Coliseum in Vancouver. Those were really fun and creative times. Then I was trying to figure out where I really fit, what I could really do well. I did stand-up comedy. I was performing in nightclubs, but I knew there was something else I really wanted to do. In 1989, I started taking acting classes. I had some great and encouraging teachers. In 1990, I got my first agent and began auditioning. Ever since I started, I have always felt creative. I did a lot of film and TV. I was cast on a lot of mainstream shows, but I also created my own work. Eventually, I made my first feature as an actor, writer, and director in 2003. It really started when I studied acting and learned what it really was. I was lucky, I got something good from every teacher. I am greatly indebted to Ivana Chubbuck. I studied with her, and she gave me my first teaching job.
HNMAG: Gabrielle, when did you first get the acting bug?
GABRIELLE: I was a painfully shy child, and my mom sent me to a drama class with Green Thumb Theatre. I think I was eight years old.
HNMAG: Was that on Granville Island?
GABRIELLE: It’s on Granville Island now. I went to that class, and I felt like my whole world opened up. I had permission to live out personality characteristics and ideas that I was just way too shy to express. It felt like a lifesaver for me. When I was around sixteen, I started taking classes in North Vancouver with Peter Breck and his wife, Diane. That academy was very supportive and wonderful to me. At the time, my mom and I had a house cleaning business called Have Broom Will Travel. We would ride our bikes to get to different clients. One time, we were cleaning a girl’s house that I went to high school with. She had a sleepover party with all her girlfriends. They were giggling while I was in her ensuite, cleaning the toilet. I felt a little left out. It was a weird dynamic. My Mom told me, Listen, there is nothing wrong with this work. If there is something else you want, you need to focus on it now, because you could wake up in 20 years and still be cleaning houses. That’s when I really focused on acting because it was my true love. Not long after that, we had a showcase, and my agent attended. Nancy Van Gogh asked me to join her agency, and we have been together ever since.
HNMAG: That’s amazing! Was the first project you both worked on together, Robson Arms?
BEN: I think so. We both did a lot of things over the years. I can tell you this. I have always been a fan of Gabe’s. There is something about her acting that really fits effortlessly with how I see the world. There is humour in everything dramatic and drama in everything humourous.
HNMAG: Right.
BEN: That’s completely intuitive and authentic. Gabe was a student in one of my early classes, and that might have been the first time we were creative together.
GABRIELLE: It would have been, for sure, Ben. We were already friends.
HNMAG: Was that at Haven Studios?
BEN: That was at another school before I established my own studio.
HNMAG: Bringing comedy to drama, and vice versa, is significant for Are We Done Now? The first scene is a perfect example. It was so funny, we think this is a Mockumentary. It didn’t take that long to understand that it’s more of a drama. There are a lot of intense moments.
BEN: I’d call it an imagined documentary.
HNMAG: That makes sense.
BEN: In terms of Mockumentary, Spinal Tap is one of my all-time favourite films.
GABRIELLE: “But this one goes to eleven.”
BEN: They’re clearly mocking the characters in Spinal Tap, but they do it so truthfully that when that film first came out, people thought it was real. Now things are so absurd, especially with everything you see on social media, you really can’t tell anymore what’s real and what’s put on when it’s done well. My original intention for the film wasn’t to include a documentary element. It was initially going to be a straight Dramedy. Through the challenges of shooting during COVID, we never say the film is about COVID, it takes place during those years. It’s really about what is going on in these characters’ lives. It’s about their relationships. It was about everything that was going on in these people’s lives during those years. Hopefully, many of us have emerged with a greater understanding and more gratitude and empathy. Initially, we pitched the project with a huge production company. They wanted us to pitch it as a TV series. We had high-level support. It was too close to the bone and too politically charged. We got close with a couple of streamers, but in the end, it was considered too risky. I wasn’t going to abandon the project. I wanted to finish it. I was going to film what’s happening. What we originally filmed was based on true events in the cast’s lives. Gabrielle’s character was the most fictionalized.
HNMAG: Ok, because she is not a therapist.
BEN: Gabe was playing a character that has a very different livelihood but was also going to bring a lot of herself to it. The other actors were playing broad versions or, in some cases, very specific versions of themselves. I was going to do the same. I was going to add an element about me trying to make a film. I created a character who was basically me. I then started doing the interviews, which was a way to make the film without it being prohibitively expensive. There was a lot for the actors to say and do without having to pay for multiple locations. I’m delighted it went that way. It worked out for us. It’s always going to be a very unique, unusual film. I’m really proud of it, and so is the cast and crew. We won an audience award at the very first festival we screened at. It’s gratifying. Our next screening will be at the SOHO International Film Festival in New York. The movie is now available on Video On Demand. It was released on September 30th.
HNMAG: How much of Are We Done Now? was improvised?
BEN: Gabe, how much of what you did was improvised?
GABRIELLE: Not a whole lot.
BEN: The good news is that once we get into it, we forget what was on the page and what was ad-libbed. It might feel like we are making it up at the time, and it’s authentic, but I’d say about twenty-five percent of what Gabrielle did was improvised.
GABRIELLE: Ok, great! Yeah.
BEN: I’d also say that my favourite moments in the film were also improvised, which is when Gabe is actually not speaking, but her reaction to something I’m doing. There was a scene when I was having a meltdown, and I didn’t want to take the camera off Gabe because she was listening and responding so authentically, moment to moment, that we were just there as those two characters living in those moments. Some people think that improv is coming up with funny things to say.
HNMAG: No! Not at all.
BEN: It’s about living truthfully, moment to moment.
HNMAG: When did you come up with the ending?
BEN: I’ve done three of these personal feature films now. It’s taking me a long time to make them. It’s been about ten years between features. When I can’t get the financing, I just must find another way. All three end with a eulogy by the water. I wasn’t aware of that when I was making them. That’s the trilogy, and I’m not going to do that again. With Are We Done Now? that was a very strong finality. What Pamela (Gabrielle Miller) was wrestling with had come to an end. All the struggles, culturally, socially, and politically, that people had been going through during those years, we have to ask that question, “Are we done now?”
HNMAG: Both have made huge contributions to productions set in Canada. One incredible shot in the film is set on Pamela’s front porch with the gorgeous view of the water in Vancouver. So often with Vancouver productions, the location is some US city. How is that changing, and do you feel you are helping to have more productions set in Vancouver?
GABRIELLE: If there is an opportunity to do the kind of films that I love doing that are set in Vancouver, where Vancouver is Vancouver, that is beautiful to me. We are a service industry, and of course, I, the crews, and everyone are grateful for the work we get. Telling our stories, which are about us, as a country, as a province, as a city, the people, is so deeply important. I just want more of it.
BEN: The films that I have made have Vancouver as Vancouver because there was no reason not to make it that way. For me, it was never a question. If there is anything that I can do well is that I can bring authenticity to the table, so I play into my strength. If I ever come up with an idea that needs to be set somewhere else, I won’t feel guilty about it being set somewhere else. I’ll do what’s necessary for the story. Of course, I support Vancouver films. We have terrific casts and crews, and Vancouver has an excellent reputation. We have the best in the industry. I’m glad to shoot in Vancouver, and I’m delighted to shoot in my own neighbourhood when possible. I live near Stanley Park and English Bay. It’s just so beautiful, and I know the locations so well.
GABRIELLE: I want more of our own stories being told. Even if its Vancouver characters traveling to other countries. The exciting thing is that now local filmmakers are doing that because it’s so hard to get a film made and financed. Ben has done these incredible projects. He’s been really creative in the way he had them made. I grew up in this industry. I am thankful to get any work but when I make Canadian projects that tell our stories, it makes me proud and happy.
Are We Done Now? as Ben put it, is an imagined documentary. It’s not like any other movie we’ve seen. It also deserves a rewatch to find those improvised moments of authentic reactions. It is not about the pandemic, but it did take place at that time. The movie is about what we were going through. It’s real, sad, funny, and moving. It’s just like life. Ben Immanuel and Gabrielle Miller are among the best contributors to the Canadian Film and Television industry. We know that they will continue to make us all proud to be Canadian.