A conversation with Colm Feore, voice of Oscar-winning short The Girl Who Cried Pearls

On March 15, The Girl Who Cried Pearls, a Canadian animated short film directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski and available through the National Film Board (NFB), won the Best Animated Short Film award at the 98th Academy Awards. Stratford’s Colm Feore narrated and voiced the film. He sat down with Stratford Film Festival director Megan Smith-Harris for a Q-and-A about the project just a day before the Oscars. Below is an excerpt from the conversation, edited for clarity and brevity.

… I know that the filmmakers had you on their radar for many, many years … How did they approach you about the role?

That never occurred to me. It never appeared that way to me, and it certainly didn't reflect itself in the fee, so I'm not sure what they're talking about, but I was delighted to be approached. I got a reach out at some point, I guess now it's a couple of years ago, to consider voicing this. And so they sent me the show in its rough way, put together in this rough way, representing years of work. And I just thought it was fantastic. I thought it was a fabulous piece. I thought it was beautifully done. It also was … Montreal, where you and I both gone to school. It was all of that kind of snowy, horrible, beautiful Montreal weather and geography … That’s why I thought, “Oh, I know that. But I know what that sounds like; I know what that guy might sound like.” And so consequently, I was very excited to participate.

How did you approach your preparation for this role?

… This show is no different than if I was doing King Lear or Richard III or anything else I would do, and the reason for that is, in fact it’s even more important when you're talking about something from the NFB, which is going to live forever, right? … You have a responsibility to bring everything that you know how to do. I have never felt that just showing up and reading a cold thing would be of value or do justice to my talent and what the folks who were paying needed. And so we meet somewhere in the middle. I do an enormous amount of work so that we can sit and have a wonderful time – and we did. You know, unlike AI I have more nuance, more experience, and I'm hoping that that will allow me to keep working for another year or two, though I'm not so sure.

What was your takeaway from this film?

Well, first of all, I think what has to be recognized is how unspeakably difficult it is to make such a thing. I've always been a huge fan of things like … animation, Wallace and Gromit and all those wonderful kinds of things. So this was an easy sell for me, but it's difficult to explain to an audience that I was the last two per cent of the 98 per cent of the work that went into this, that it took an enormous team of people years to get 17 minutes of something this extraordinary and beautiful. That's been recognized at the Oscars. (It’s) enormously gratifying for the boys and for me and everybody involved, I hope. But by golly, it's hard to do. Now, what do we get when we do all that hard work? If it's done properly, there's something that repays a second, a third and a fourth, viewing – stuff you never saw, stuff you never heard … There was just so much to look into and to mine and to research and to offer that I think it repays, as I say, many, many, many viewings. And so it is my hope and why I invested so much in it, that it will have a real life, that it will be one of those touchstones of their work …

(The filmmakers) will be at the Oscars tomorrow on the 15th of March. Are you going?

I have just come back from Los Angeles from the Screen Actors Guild Awards, where me and my colleagues were nominated as Best Ensemble for a show called Landman, Billy Bob Thornton and Sam Elliott, etc. Alas, we lost to The Pitt, which was – we were robbed, but we were there and it was a very starry affair. It was fun, but it was, it was very, like, hyper glamorous. I mean, everybody, there was somebody.

Do you have a stylist?

No, I had a friend help me. And I tied my own bow tie and I did my own … you know, I curled my eyelashes and away I went. Everybody else had an army of people. The truth of the matter is Paramount Plus flew us in because they had a huge interest in promoting the show and all that. The National Film Board of Canada is playing with your money – and here's to say, I must point out The Girl Who Cried Pearls is already yours. So you must please go see it, watch it again for free because you've already paid for it – but they don't have a lot of extra money kicking around. And so although they were prepared to offer me a ticket in the mezzanine and a ride to the venue, I live some considerable 3,500 kilometers from the venue … You know what, I’m busy here trying to help my genius wife direct and choreograph two shows at the same time. So I have stuff to do and I will be closely watching on television.

The full conversation with Feore, edited by Bill Harris with clips from the National Film Board (NFB), can be found at https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DQuZD7fC1/. To watch The Girl Who Cried Pearls in its entirety, visit https://www.nfb.ca/film/the-girl-who-cried-pearls/.