![]() ![]() “You know, I could have found some young actors who are just as transformative and just as wonderful and it probably could have worked,” says Baker, before trailing off. Was there pressure to cast a name in Vinaite’s role? After all, Hollywood doesn’t lack for talented, well-known ingenues. “I think the word they used back in cinema studies was ‘contamination,’ where you’re contaminating two things that shouldn’t be together but they are and it’s working and they’re complementing one another.” “It’s about the clash of those worlds,” he says. “When I sent my producers the link to Bria’s Instagram and was like, ‘I really wanna consider her,’ they probably were rolling their eyes, going, ‘Are you kidding me?’” says Baker, but placing a performer like Vinaite opposite Dafoe gives him the frisson he’s seeking from these projects. “When I see a billboard that literally just has five names and they’re all A-listers, I’m just like, What is that bringing to the world that’s new?”īaker did cast Willem Dafoe in a key supporting role as the motel manager, but the veteran actor is surrounded by newcomers, including 7-year-old Brooklynn Prince as irrepressible troublemaker Moonee and, as her mother, heavily tattooed Instagram star Bria Vinaite. “There has to be at least one aspect of something that’s new or fresh that people can grab onto,” he says. That’s why, when trying to fill out The Florida Project’s cast of impoverished eccentrics living at a cheap motel on the outskirts of Orlando, Baker looked not for big names but for personalities that felt real. “And I look at my heroes like Ken Loach, who had a full career in which he always tackled sociopolitical topics. “I’m finally getting recognition for this, so I may as well commit,” Baker says. ![]() It’s an approach Baker managed to bring to The Florida Project, his biggest movie yet and one of this year’s most buzzed-about Oscar contenders, and he sees no reason to abandon the path that led him here. Like many of Baker’s films, dating back to 2000’s Four Letter Words, Tangerine was made for very little money and cast mostly with performers who’d never been in a film before. Oscar Futures: Can a 7-Year-Old Actress Get Nominated This Year? “In so many reviews that I’m reading of The Florida Project, everyone is assuming it’s my second film,” laughs Baker, who broke into the mainstream - or, at least, its coolest and most curated outer layer - with 2015’s Tangerine, a shot-on-iPhone odyssey about trans sex workers. He is 46 now, and The Florida Project is his sixth directorial effort. We are sitting in the lobby of the W Hollywood, and while Baker is as boyish and fresh-faced as the directors who come to Sundance every year with their calling-card debuts, the gray creeping in at Baker’s temples tells a different story. ![]() I would’ve maybe been seduced,” admits Baker. “Perhaps if I hit earlier, things would be much different. Someone like Sean Baker is unusual, then, not just because he makes the films that few other directors are interested in making - low-budget stories like The Florida Projectand Tangerine, which follow people on the margins of society - but because he commits to that independent career, and the sacrifices necessary to maintain it, in a way that few directors with his mounting acclaim do. Winkle), The Tangerine Bear is sure to charm young audiences while reminding them that being different makes one unique, and sometimes happiness is right under one’s nose.It isn’t easy to be an American independent filmmaker, and these days, many directors only dwell in that space until they earn a come-up from Marvel or HBO. With soft vocals and narration by Trisha Yearwood, and an ensemble of notable voice talents including Jonathan Taylor Thomas (Tangie the bear) and Tom Bosley (Mr. And so does his fuzzy coat-to an unusual shade of tangerine.īased on Betty and Michael Paraskevas’ popular children’s book, this made for TV animation retains the gentle feel of a bedtime story. But as the days turn into weeks and months, the bear’s prospects fade. Except for the watchdog, everyone is very accepting of the frowning newcomer who is still anxious to find a buyer. Winkle, the shop owner, places this latest acquisition in the display window with an assortment of other rejected toys. The little bear’s fondest dream is a good home where he can be loved and make someone happy, so he feels extremely dejected when he is sent to a second hand store. ![]() It is not until all his fellow bears are sold that the poor creature discovers what is obvious to every one else. Of the thousands of plush teddy bears shipped from the factory to retail stores, only one had the misfortune of having his smile sewn on upside down. ![]()
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