BlackBerry tells the incredible true story of a company that transformed how we communicate. Based in Waterloo, Canada, Research in Motion (RIM), founded by Mike Lazaridis and his best friend Douglas Fregin, faced bankruptcy. In 1996, they accepted Jim Balsillie's offer of a cash infusion in return for a job as co-CEO. The brilliant but reserved Mike and freewheeling Doug ran RIM like a nerd club for engineers. Jim, a ruthless businessman with an aggressive personality, crushed dissent and bullied subordinates.
Mike's groundbreaking idea was to combine phone, internet, and e-mail capabilities on a single device. Jim cracked the whip to build a prototype that stunned the industry. RIM soon became Canada's most valuable company and dominated the global smartphone market.
Director Matt Johnson, who also co-stars as Doug, comically chronicles BlackBerry's meteoric rise and equally catastrophic fall. Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton, who play Mike and Jim, credit Johnson for his script and innovative filming process. The characters' conflicting personalities were "on the page." They also didn't know "where the cameras were." Johnson shot "from across the room" and hid cameras "in shelves." He created "360 degrees" of creativity, a "crazy playground" where rehearsal and between-takes footage ended up in the film.
The actors did differ in their BlackBerry use. Baruchel was a devout user "until two years ago" while Howerton "hated everything it represented," preferring to be "less in touch" with the world, but an admirer of Jim's "drive" despite his raw "belligerence." Baruchel and Howerton spoke with MovieWeb about the film.
Disparate Personalities
MovieWeb: Were you guys CrackBerry addicts?
Jay Baruchel: Yeah, I was. Glenn definitely wasn't. Glenn hated everything it represented philosophically. He wants to be less in touch with the world. And he is to this day. I was an avid BlackBerry guy up until about two years ago.
MW: The movie has two wildly disparate personalities. Mike Lazaridis was reserved while Jim Balsillie is the proverbial bull in the China shop. How did you research them? Was it all on the page?
Glenn Howerton: It was all on the page. And through pretty rudimentary research, you could feel where these guys were coming from. I can certainly relate to somebody who pushes through obstacles in the way that these guys both do in the film. And while I don't consider myself to be as inconsiderate of the wreckage in my path as someone like Jim, I can relate to the desire to push through, create, and do big, revolutionary things.
Howerton: I admire Jim. I think one of the reasons why the audience, in spite of his belligerence throughout the film, can relate, is his drive, his belief in himself and the company that he was building.
Shooting BlackBerry Felt Like Rehearsal
MW: Matt Johnson has these great visual cues. He has the engineers with the underwear bands and cell phones strapped to their head. Jim Balsillie sits at his desk with warrior masks behind it. Did this help to influence your performance?
Baruchel: Big time, especially because we never knew, or we often didn't know, where the cameras were. Typically, nine times out of 10, when you make a movie or TV show, the lights and the camera are right here. So it's a game that you just try to not see it. You try to get set blind, so that you could just kind of do your thing. They were literally shooting us from across the room [in BlackBerry]. They would hide cameras in shelves. They created 360 degrees of creativity for us to forget that we were making the movie. Glenn said it felt like rehearsal. We were just kind of doing it. Then we would find out after that they had shot a thing.
Howerton: It actually happened a few times. We were rehearsing, or at least I thought we were rehearsing. And then I found out they've been rolling the cameras the whole time. There are definitely moments that were between takes in rehearsals. Matt loves that stuff. I applaud him for it. I think it's brilliant.
Baruchel: It's a very sort of 1960s French school approach, everything is the movie. He really just wanted to give us this crazy playground. When you shoot on stage, even just a cursory glance above, you would know that you're not in your bedroom. There was no place anywhere that we shot that would be a giveaway. Whenever we were in a place, we were like time traveled to it, 360 degrees, really cool.
On the Same Page
MW: What's the best and worst day on set of BlackBerry?
Baruchel: The worst day is always the first one.
Howerton: I think that Jay is right. First day, you just haven't got your bearings yet. Am I completely blowing this? You're at your most insecure. You're still in a place of not knowing whether something's working or not, and trying to get on the same page with the director, trying to vibe with the other actors and gel with everybody. Then that last day when it's all over, it's hard to beat that sense of relief. We did it, or maybe we didn't do it, but at least we're done.
BlackBerry will have a May 12th theatrical release from IFC Films.