Oscar-Nominated Duo Back in Contention after 30 Years! Guess Who?

We are thrilled to bring you a special edition of the Envelope newsletter, your ultimate guide to awards season. Throughout the opening weekend of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, our team of experts at The Times will deliver interviews, commentary, and insights from one of the events that traditionally sets the stage for the Oscar race. Subscribe here to receive it in your inbox.

The day’s most talked-about premieres

In recent years, it has become generally accepted that Venice and Telluride are the power players when it comes to unveiling new fall films. However, the organizers of TIFF are making a bold bet that the two significant world premieres taking place at some of the festival’s prime venues and time slots on Saturday can shift that narrative.

The first film to be showcased is Ron Howard’s “Eden,” which features Jude Law and a formidable trio of leading ladies – Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Kirby, and Ana de Armas. The film is about a group of individuals in the 1930s trying to establish their community on the Galapagos Islands. Howard, a veteran Hollywood figure, created the film independently and is seeking distribution at the festival, adding a bit more suspense to its premiere.

Following this is the world premiere of Marielle Heller’s adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel “Nightbitch,” a story about a disillusioned stay-at-home mother who embarks on a series of nighttime runs that lead to her transformation into a dog. Heller’s versatility as a filmmaker, demonstrated in the unsettling “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” and the heartwarming “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” brings a sense of unpredictable dynamism to this new project. Coupled with a much-anticipated leading performance by Amy Adams, it’s easy to see why the festival is staking its reputation on the film’s ability to captivate audiences.

Other world premieres on Saturday include two star-studded romances, “On Swift Horses,” featuring Jacob Elordi and Daisy Edgar-Jones, and “All of You,” starring Brett Goldstein and Imogen Poots. There are also two directorial debuts by renowned cinematographers – the boxing drama “The Fire Inside” by Rachel Morrison, and “Pedro Páramo” by Rodrigo Prieto. Check out the full Saturday schedule here.

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An awards hopeful to keep an eye on

Marianne Jean-Baptiste (lead actress, “Hard Truths”)

Almost thirty years after receiving an Oscar nomination for “Secrets & Lies,” Jean-Baptiste teams up with British filmmaker Mike Leigh again to play the lead in his intense new family drama. Her character, Pansy, is plagued by the death of her mother, dissatisfaction in her marriage, and concerns about her adult son. She vents her destructive anger on her community and her immaculate house. No one – drivers, shoppers, charity workers, and even her own sister, the cheerful Chantelle (Michele Austin) – escapes her wrath. But Jean-Baptiste’s remarkable physical intensity and excellent comic timing command the viewer’s attention in such a way that boredom with Pansy never replaces intrigue. Whether or not you can relate to the character’s outpouring of anger, it’s impossible to look away – and I, for one, wouldn’t mind hearing Jean-Baptiste’s hilariously sharp delivery of lines like “Your gentleman client’s not my problem” at the Academy Awards. —Matt Brennan

WATCH: The cast of ‘Hard Truths’ discusses the creative process and character development

Question & Answer of the day

If the idea of a former boxer preparing for one final fight usually doesn’t excite you, trust me when I say that Sean Ellis’ “The Cut” is worth reconsidering. The film, which stars Orlando Bloom as an Irish welterweight who pushes his limits to get ready for a high-stakes match in Las Vegas, has more in common with body horror than Rocky Balboa. Diuretics, lengthy sauna sessions, and more cardio than a marathon runner are just the beginning. As Bloom admits, the physical transformation he underwent for the role has significance beyond boxing. On Friday, Ellis, Bloom, and co-stars Caitriona Balfe and John Turturro visited the L.A. Times studio in Toronto ahead of the film’s world premiere to discuss the film, the evolving body image standards for men in Hollywood, and other topics. The following has been edited and condensed. —Matt Brennan

WATCH: In-depth interview with the cast of ‘The Cut’

Sean, I’d like to start with you. You’ve created what might be the first horror movie about boxing.

Orlando Bloom: Boom! Mic drop.

John Turturro: Film noir.

Sean Ellis: Do we go full horror?

I watched some parts of it through my fingers. So, can you talk about why you wanted to explore this aspect of the sport instead of following the traditional boxing movie format?

Ellis: I believe it’s been done before, and it’s been done incredibly well. What else can you say in that space? I think this was a really unique way to approach a boxing movie. It offers the audience a different perspective on the boxing genre.

Orlando, can you share about your training regimen for this role? And, can you talk about how your own body changed? Because much of the film is about the character’s need to transform his body at any cost.

Bloom: I teamed up with a fantastic nutritionist who put me on a strict diet plan, gradually decreasing my food intake. I was doing about an hour of cardio, increasing to about one and a half to two hours in the morning and evening, along with boxing training and weightlifting. As I started to lose weight, the focus shifted to maintaining muscle to look like a boxer. That’s why my diet was very scientific. I’ve never eaten so much tuna and cucumbers in my life. In the end, that’s all I was eating, for about three weeks. The surprising part was not so much the physical transformation that starts to occur — you see it and feel it. I was like, “Oh, wow, I really like how I feel at about 165 pounds. This is nice.” The mental aspect was the surprising part.

There’s been a recent conversation among film fans and online about body image expectations for male actors. The standards have always been strict for female actors, but the discussion has expanded recently. Could you talk about how this has changed since you first started acting, if at all?

Bloom: There was probably a time when actors like Sylvester Stallone, who I grew up watching, were using performance-enhancing drugs to get in shape. I think it’s fair to say that. [Stallone has admitted to using prescription testosterone to gain weight for “Rambo.”] But there was definitely a shift, right? This [film] is a commentary on male body dysmorphia, eating disorders, shame, and how his relationship with his mother and his past, which we see unfold, has impacted his mindset. And therefore, I think it explains why he is capable of doing what he does to get there. To your point, it’s an exaggerated story. But I think it’s interesting from that perspective because it’s like, “What are we capable of to try and fit the mold?” I’m in the industry, I understand.

Turturro: If you look at fighters over the years, they had lean bodies. They had bodies like dancers. They had long muscles. There was no one pumped-up. Even in the first “Rocky,” [Stallone’s] pretty chunky, you know? So that’s changed. But the interesting thing in movies is that people look like they’re more in shape, but people used to move more because the camera was bigger. And they also came from dance. [They were] acrobats. They were boxers. They were all different kinds of stage actors. And if you think about actors from the ‘30s, ‘40s, they all had interesting walks and physicalities and that really hasn’t been topped, even though people look maybe more sculpted because the cameras are smaller now. If you compare someone like Burt Lancaster, for example, who was an acrobat, he’s incredible to watch him walk across a room or Barbara Stanwyck. You watch them and you’re like, “Wow.” Because they were aware of their bodies, too. But it was different.

And they were very fit, but they were fit in the sense of using the body as a tool for acting as opposed to —

Turturro: Just being Hercules.

Caitriona Balfe: I think the industry pressure has superseded the need to use your body as an instrument. I’ve seen it in just my duration in the industry as well. It’s like you’ve seen how the pressure is more on guys, everyone has to take their shirt off and it has to look a certain way.

Bloom: Six pack.

Turturro: You’re relieved when you see a regular body.

Ellis: I see one every morning in the mirror.

Inside the L.A. Times Studio

SEE MORE: Pamela Anderson, Ben Stiller, Jamie Lee Curtis and others visit L.A. Times Studio at TIFF

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