Nate Gibson’s (Charlie Rowe) life changes forever after developing meningitis and becoming paralyzed. Suicidal and lacking hope, his family contacts an organization that trains service animals. He then meets Gigi, a Capuchin monkey that he develops a relationship with. As their relationship continues to grow and help Nate, they become targeted by an animal rights activist (Welker White).
Rounding out the cast in Gigi & Nate are Marcia Gay Harden, Jim Belushi, Zoe Margaret Colletti, Josephine Langford, Diane Ladd, Tara Summers, and more. It’s written by David Hudgins and directed by Nick Hamm.
“I’m excited for them to see a genuinely emotional, entertaining, almost old-fashioned Billy Wilder kind of movie, which allows you to enter a beautiful domestic world and have a great ride, in terms of your own personal enjoyment of watching the relationships that these great actors did. But also, this incredible character at the center of our movie is a monkey. And that monkey, as Marcia knows, is a little movie star,” commented Hamm.
Marcia Gray and Nick Hamm on Gigi & Nate
Rowe delivers an emotionally powerful performance in Gigi & Nate, which Harden had kind things to say about, as she plays his mother Claire in the film. Harden also commented on what it was like to work with Gigi.
“Charlie Rowe, his performance is just stunning in that he’s working with the monkey 24/7, and he’s able to maintain his own self on screen — which I tell you, was a little hard to do for me with that monkey because she is a diva (laughs). And she had her own clan of people, her entourage, and she had her own trailer. She knew when it was time for a close-up. She was amazing. And also, just loving and caring. I formed a little relationship with her early on. She was a little picky about people, but she did like to play with me, and that was fun. She had a double as well… but I think Charlie’s performance is so beautiful, and I want audiences to see this story of hope, the story of tenacity, and determination. I’m a mother, and I can tell you right now if anything happened to one of my kids, I’m a mother, lion, a mother bear, and would go to whatever extremes to take care of them and make their lives better. And I think that’s a beautiful thing that Nick captured in the movie, how a family comes together,” said Harden.
“Everybody came with their A game. What we did at the beginning of the thing, as Marcia will testify as we rehearsed, is that we put somebody at the center of the family. And I was lucky enough to have Marcia who is obviously one of our greatest actors. And she set a tone and a benchmark for everybody’s work on the movie. There was an expectation that you arrived, that you knew what you were doing, that you were professional, and that you were open emotionally to those challenges. And I think Josephine was absolutely part of that. Josephine Langford showed something that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before as a character. I think there’s an emotional depth to her as an actress, which has come through the movie. And there’s an absolute shining beauty on screen that she gives up,” added Hamm.
Charlie Rowe and Josephine Langford on Gigi & Nate
Langford plays Katy Gibson in Gigi & Nate, Rowe’s character’s sister. Together, they have what Harden credited as the “most gorgeous scene” in the film, which “just breaks your heart,” as they have a brother and sister moment, something that “you don’t see a lot.”
“This is a brother-sister moment, and it’s so gorgeous. It kind of reminds that you can count on the dependency that the two have on each other, despite what’s going on in the family, how they’re there for each other,” said Harden.
“I was very excited to work with a monkey,” joked Langford as she referred to Rowe, “this is a story, for me, about grief. But not grief in a traditional sense, but grief kind of when it has to do with change. I think there’s a way that we expect life to go and when it doesn’t go according to plan, I think that’s difficult for a lot of people to accept and to move forward. I think this is a great story about how to accept change that you weren’t expecting, and that can be really hard and difficult to deal with.”
As for Hamm, Rowe had good things to say about his direction style, commenting that “he knows exactly what he wants when he arrives on set. It’s sort of all just about setting up the shot and then we as actors are allowed to sort of move freely within that. Nick was having to balance so much in terms of us as actors, and then having a film where there’s a family sort of involved in the center of it and forming this lovely bond which I think benefited the movie.”
Gigi & Nate is available in theaters as of September 2, 2022, from Roadside Attractions.