Calgary is a beautiful city. You can often see the Rockies as a majestic backdrop to lush plains where the city limits begin. Lucky Star tells a darker and more poignant story.
We had a chance to sit down with writer, and director Gillian McKercher before the big screening at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).
HNMAG: Congratulations! Are you excited to screen at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF)?
Gillian McKercher: Yeah, this is my first time at VIFF and Vancouver is beautiful. The festival’s so good; I’ve admired its programming for a long time, and I feel proud to be alongside some other amazing films. Lucky Star is an Alberta-BC co-production. It feels good to have some crew and cast in attendance.
HNMAG: Did you grow up in Alberta or BC?
Gillian McKercher: I was born and raised in Calgary and the movie was 100% shot in Calgary.
HNMAG: With all that snow, it certainly wasn’t Vancouver. You grew up in Calgary. Did you become interested in making films from a young age?
Gillian McKercher: I would say I’ve been interested in making films since I started watching the Oscars. I watched every year with my mom, and I admit that I was taken by the glamour. The award categories were how I learned about roles like screenwriter and director. I clearly remember wanting to be a filmmaker as early as the 2000 Oscars – an iconic year for movies! Then when I got a bit older, I would read the Calgary Herald’s Entertainment section every morning, every day. I lived for Thursday’s reviews from Roger Ebert. My mom bought me a weekly subscription to Us Weekly when I was 12, I kid you not. I was kind of getting on off-hand industry education, while at the same time watching a lot of movies. It wasn’t until after I finished university that things started to really happen for me from a filmmaking perspective, because I went to school to be an engineer. I graduated from chemical engineering and I worked in engineering as an engineer in training for about three years before I really dedicated all my attention to making movies. It took me that long to really believe I could be a filmmaker.
HNMAG: Did you have an inspiration for the character Grace?
Gillian McKercher: Grace was inspired by a fellow student who was my best friend throughout university in Calgary. She worked full-time at Aritzia and she was one of the store’s top sellers in the country. She worked full-time while she was going to school full-time for engineering. She always looked incredible because she had to go to Aritzia right after class and just seeing her do that was really inspiring. She lived at home with her family, so she opted not to do the more glamorous thing which would be to go to a university elsewhere. She didn’t party that much but she got it done and she finished school debt-free. That’s where the inspiration ends though – my friend didn’t cheat or have a family like Grace’s!
HNMAG: Was there any connection to gambling as well?
Gillian McKercher: My grandma was a prolific mahjong player, and my grandfather actually forbade her to teach it to their children. One of the inspirations for the film is my great-grandfather, who lived in Calgary for a long time. The story goes that he gambled away a block of Chinatown in a single night of cards.
HMMAG: Have you played a lot of poker?
Gillian McKercher: I admit, before I started writing this film, I did not play poker. But researching this project, I started to play. I listened to a lot of podcasts. I watched a lot. I was put in touch with a professional poker player. I played in a couple of tournaments, only the small daily ones at the casino.
HNMAG: Lucky’s favorite hand in hold ‘em is King Queen suited. When he has that, he knows, it’s obviously a good hand, most likely the nut. His eyes light up when that happens. It’s a high stakes game. The flop comes, it’s two hearts and he has hearts. It’s surprising that he quits. Was that symbolic?
Gillian McKercher: Totally. There are two things that were happening there. I think gamblers look for signs. I wanted Lucky to think he was seeing a sign, a sign for something. And then I wanted to show he had agency, that he could turn away and l leave the table. I also was really inspired by this video that my friend sent me where it’s like an every-person plays with the pros. The normal guy gets dealt pocket aces and it looks like he’s going to win, but he folds. He folds his pocket aces! It was good that he did because he would have lost, but before the river, it looked like he was obviously going to win. I was so inspired by that because the guy said, “no, I already have the money that I need. I’m not going to tempt myself with this perfect hand”. I wanted to do something similar in the film where Lucky chooses to walk away. It shows that there still is hope for him. He’s not a total degenerate. He does still have the ability to say no, which I find very inspiring. He’s not so far down a path of addiction that he can’t say no yet.
HNMAG: Did your parents stay together?
Gillian McKercher: I’m so lucky. OK, first of all, I have the most amazing dad. I have amazing examples of men in my life. I also have seen people who really let you down within the family dynamic. Lucky is toxic. When I made this film, I really wanted to understand, if I had a dad like Lucky, how could I still love him? Is he redeemable? Why do people not kick him to the curb, so to speak? And you want to root for Lucky. He does have a redeemable character for sure. It’s not so black and white.
HNMAG: Your film is set in Calgary, you shot it there, which is a bit rare for independent films. How important to you to be authentic to our own stories?
Gillian McKercher: Removing any commercial influence, it’s necessary for artists to reflect the places that they’re from. We’re holding up a mirror, right? We’re digesting the experiences that we know and putting them out into the world. So I did that with this film. I wanted it to be set specifically in Calgary because, to me, Calgary is an unsexy city. Like, it doesn’t have the dark magic of L. A., or a go-get-‘em attitude of New York or even Toronto. Lots of films are set in those places and perpetuate those myths. To set it in Calgary is to say there are people here who also have stories that need to be told and the stories are different here. I wanted to authenticate that.
HNMAG: What’ s your advice on how we can make more movies like this moving forward, even commercially?
Gillian McKercher: My advice is to focus on the script and the storytelling, because it can hurt the story when you think commercially too early. But there are certain archetypes that people are drawn to. With Lucky, he’s sort of an antihero. We want to see him redeem himself.
HNMAG: How long did the whole process take you to make Lucky Star?
Gillian McKercher: I started writing it in the winter of 2019 and then I went to the Canadian Film Centre and developed it further. I finished my first draft while I was there.
HNMAG: Is that where you met your producers, in Toronto?
Gillian McKercher: No, we had four producers Guillaume Carlier, Amanda Verhagen, Matt Drake, and Nicola Waugh. I met Guillaume and Nicola in Calgary, and we founded Kino Sum Productions together. Amanda Verhagen and Matt Drake, I reached out to them because they were very interested in the film.
HNMAG: Did you just phone their production office or how did how did you get ahold of them?
Gillian McKercher: We were introduced through Telefilm. I reached out to Matt and Amanda after I told Telefilm about Lucky Star. I asked Telefilm if they knew the producers of To Live, To Sing, a Johnny Ma film that I really like, that they co-produced.
Lucky Star is a compelling and realistic movie that is worth checking out. Gillian McKercher has a strong point of view. She’s a smart filmmaker and writer. We are looking forward to seeing the many more terrific movies with authentic Canadian stories that she will bring to the big screen.