Jonathan Baker is a writer/director/producer, a man like very out there. I know another Jonathan who is just as amazing, but your subject today is Jonathan Baker. He’s all about delivering a top notch story in the style of yesteryear. Filmmaking isn’t about show business like it once was, he told me.
From his amazing perspective: “What you get, you realize whether you’re the director, producer, or just selling the thing off because you just want to make movies. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that as a storyteller I like to think that I am the gatekeeper to telling the story. Whether I do it good, bad, what matters is that I love the process. It’s meant that I can get people excited, that’s the only reason people come aboard. I picked my cast, kind of as a director/producer. I command all the power, and if I don’t do that, we get off-track. When I get into a production bubble, their job is to get that movie made and get it made on time and they don’t care whether they’re running over the actors, the system, or over me. It’s my job to bend steel at that point and tell them, NO. We do it this way, and in independent filmmaking it’s extremely hard to do that in today’s day and age, because there are no independent filmmakers. There’s just television and streamers, and then there’s little me on an island called Theatrical Release that everybody abandoned. Guess what? Good for me, I’m so happy because I’m going to take this concept, put it in the theatre, and there’ll be nothing to pay money for except my movie. “
Just that quote in particular was enough to get me excited when we did our interview. I met Jonathan at the Metropolitan Hotel where I did a couple more interviews and we got to talking. As we connected, he was very fascinated to learn about me and this website, just as I was to learn about him and his upcoming movies. I could just tell this interview would be awesome, and it was. It will be even more awesome to read it. To quote a former writer on this site, roll the tape!
HNMAG: Tell me more about the film. What can we expect?
Jonathan Baker: Fate is an epic love story, it spans over 70 years. It’s got Faye Dunaway, who is a legend, an oscar winner, who is so amazing. We don’t see movie stars anymore, but I recognized her. I didn’t want to go one way, I worked with her in my last film, and I worked with her in this film, because I know that she is a legend, and we have few legends left. Paul Newman, not around. Robert Redford? Not around. Steve McQueen! Not around. These are movie stars! It breaks my heart that they’re not around. But Faye Dunaway is still around, and they’ve kind of forgotten where she is. With that said, she is the REAL star of our movie. It doesn’t matter if she is on screen for 1 minute or 100 minutes. What matters is that we believe that 70 years that she travels, is going to populate with emotion and music and the movies that will allow when it shows up on the screen to what I’m hoping it will be and why I’m putting all this energy into everybody. 2: Andrew McCarthy. He hasn’t done a film in 15 years. Great big movie star, had great movies, Pretty In Pink, All the Way Down the line joined The Breakfast Club, got a documentary coming out called Brats. Unbelievable! Nobody has remembered him, he’s been gone until I showed up, plucked him out of obscurity and wondered, “Why is nobody looking at Andrew as an actor?” He’s in this movie, it’s an amazing story and inside that story, is… what I hope to do for him what Quentin Tarantino did for John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Maybe not as powerful, but it’s a much lighter movie, and he plays a much over-the-top arrogant asshole. That’s why I picked him, I knew he could do it in Less Than Zero and I just turned the volume up!
Jonathan explained to me how Donald Sutherland was originally supposed to play the lead role, and he was amazing. Jonathan crafted the role with him for 6 1/2 months and they talked about it planning things out as Jonathan has a deep perspective on actors emotions. Unfortunately, Donald had broken a bone and couldn’t come on set. Plus we’re all aware that Donald died recently. Jonathan was heartbroken, but he went on to find someone else because that’s how Jonathan Baker is. Resilient. He has an interesting way with actors, and thanks to destiny, he found some other talent. For instance, Harvey Keitel. Stay tuned for that whole story in an upcoming article.
HNMAG: It’s also my understanding you really got family members. Does that make the process of making this movie more beautiful?
Jonathan Baker: It’s harder than you think. Nobody wants family to be involved, and they think it’s that you’re giving somebody a break. I don’t work like that. I believe that you give opportunity to talent and the worst thing in the world is wasted talent. That’s why I make everyone hold the same line as me. If they don’t, I will run them over. You can’t teach talent, talent is nurtured and it shows up. What you do at that moment is all on YOU. Whether it’s my family, or a stranger. Just the family’s lived through it a bit longer.
HNMAG: Now, Jonathan. This is your penultimate film, will it be a stand-alone or will your final film be a sequel to this one?
Jonathan Baker: Really good question, because I haven’t had anybody ask me that and I’m proud that I could put it out there without asking what my last film is. I don’t really care for anything except Fate. My last film is called Icon, and it’s completely different. It’s about a soul who travels through a hundred years, until it reaches destiny as a rockstar. 4 generations of 1 family and when the last generation looks back on its generational curve through 1921 all the way to 2021, all the ancestry in America from Ellis Island, California and all the music from Vaudeville to Rockabilly, Disco to Grunge Rock. The last person that is literally almost 100 years later takes all that information and puts out music, then becomes a MASSIVE rockstar.
HNMAG: Now back to Fate, it’s been around Canada quite a bit. How many locations were used?
Jonathan Baker: I was supposed to shoot this movie in Newport, Rhode Island, in the Great Gatsby House. I was ready to do it, and I wanted to do it, and I had a slight problem with the way that the tax credit and the unions were working. They weren’t working with each other and they thought they should give me more support than what I wanted. One of the producers said I make a lot of movies in Canada. Now, I’ve been to Whistler, and here, but I’ve just spent some time. First of all, I love the city of Vancouver. If I believe the world is going to be reimagined, it should be reimagined with the Canadian political system. I love the fact that you’ve got socialism that works, I love the fact that you are 2 seconds away from America and you brought in Capitalism. I love that you’re all happy, everybody is happy here for the most part. I’ve been here for 100 days, and for that 100 days I’ve seen nothing but amazing people, an amazing platform no matter where I go, and I’m a sailor. I see all of the boats, I see Victoria Island, Vancouver Island, and I just believe that you guys have it right. With that said, I didn’t know any of this when I came here. I was humouring somebody, I didn’t really want to come, but when I got here I didn’t see anything. It takes a lot to impress me. Maybe I’m jaded, maybe I’ve seen too much, but I know the difference and I know a thing or two about a thing or two when I see it. The moment I can imagine it, it happens. None of this happened by accident. I walked into the Hotel Georgia, all they did was make excuses because they were remodelling. All I saw was a beautiful diamond. I walked in there and I fell in love. I’ve been waiting the entire movie to film there and I have fought to film in that location. We have gone to the depths of hell to come out in this amazing beautiful space and that hotel mixed with the amazing people of Canada, made me move from Newport, Rhode Island to here. If it wasn’t for Hatley castle, I wouldn’t have been able to shoot the entire movie here, I would’ve been able to shoot HALF the movie here. When I saw that and put it together, I believe what I have is the makings of an EPIC FILM. It all comes because of THAT lobby in there.
HNMAG: What do you hope the audience will take away from this?
Jonathan Baker: “It takes” Let’s hope that the audience resonates with that quote. I know I’m a romantic and I know the world is better good than it is bad, and all you have to do is give them something to kind of go off of and they will populate their journey.
What it all comes down to is the magic of the team behind this whole production. It’s like my filmmaking mentor would always say, “It takes teamwork to make this dreamwork.” and Jonathan knows this much like his cast and crew and just as well as anyone else who works hard in this industry of film that makes movies thrive and truly make an impact. It’s not just a movie, it’s a blockbuster. I don’t come across a lot of films that truly are blockbusters when they say they are, When Jonathan says Fate is a blockbuster, he means it. It’s sure to be. I only hope one day I can do a review on it.