I was a showbiz dad: How my toddler’s appearance in a TIFF movie captured a wonderful period of her childhood

When the New Yorker critic Pauline Kael reviewed “The Exorcist” in 1973, she wondered about the parents of the kids who had auditioned to play the demonically possessed Regan McNeil. “When they watch Linda Blair,” she wrote, “are they envious? Do they feel, ‘That might have been my little Susie — famous forever’?
I thought of Kael’s words two summers ago when I agreed to lend my then-one-and-half-year-old daughter, Avery, to an independent movie shooting in Toronto titled “Matt and Mara,” starring Deragh Campbell and Matt Johnson. Not that she was going to be asked to rotate her head or levitate off the bed (her older sister, Lea, would have been perfect for that role). Instead, Avery had been cast — and not exactly against type — as an adorable, semi-verbal toddler.
Like such classics as “Jules and Jim” and “Mikey and Nicky,” “Matt and Mara” is named after its two main characters: a pair of aspiring writers testing the boundaries of their long-standing and intensely platonic friendship. Still, I arrived on set with a proposition: I asked one of the producers, Candice Napoleone, if it would be possible to change the title to “Matt and Mara and Avery.” (“Like ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,’” I said.) The creative team wouldn’t budge. I had to remind myself that since Avery had gotten the part without auditioning, we didn’t have much leverage.
Nepo baby discourse is big these days, so in the interest of full disclosure, Avery’s acting ability (or lack thereof) was not really a factor (as NBA scouts like to say, the best ability is availability). Her casting was a gesture of friendship: I’d met the film’s director, Kazik Radwanski, back in 2009, when he and his producer Dan Montgomery were fresh out of film school with a short film (my wife, Tanya Koivusalo, was their first TIFF publicist).
Other pals on set included the associate producer Samantha Chater, who had suggested that Avery had a face for cinema, as well as Deragh Campbell, who would be playing her onscreen mother. As for Matt Johnson, we had remained on speaking terms even after I dubbed him “the evil Anglo enfant terrible twin to Xavier Dolan” in print.
Because I teach Kazik’s work in my annual course on Toronto cinema at Innis College, I was already familiar with his directorial methods, which are exploratory in nature. An avowed fan of John Cassavetes, he likes to put his actors into situations that force them to bounce off of various problems.
Cue Avery, who didn’t have to do much more to pressurize her scenes than go about her usual business of wandering, playing and having the occasional post-nap meltdown. Jean-Luc Godard once observed that every fictional film is a documentary of its actors, and it’s true. Every time I looked at the monitor to see Avery’s onscreen parents (including her frustratingly handsome stand-in dad, Mounir al Shami) trying to speak to each other in full sentences while mollifying the moody young ingenue with crunchy snacks and YouTube clips of “Baby Shark,” it felt uncannily like cinéma vérité.
Whenever I would report back to friends and family about my adventures in showbiz parenting, I made exactly the kind of corny jokes you’d expect from a working film critic: that W.C. Fields knew better than to work with kids; that there were no small parts, only small actors; that Avery was ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille. But in truth, I was deeply moved by our weekly ritual. Much of Avery’s first year had been spent under sporadic lockdowns, and she hadn’t met that many people in our friend circle, so chauffeuring her around to different locations felt more cathartic than anything else.
The production also provided Tanya and I with a very palpable and bittersweet way of marking time. By the last few shooting dates, it was obvious that Avery was growing up too quickly for script continuity. Clothes she’d worn during her first rehearsals were now bulging at the seams; in terms of her personality and performance style, she’d graduated from the silent era to the talkies.
Earlier this year, we watched the final cut of “Matt and Mara” (which premieres at TIFF this week) and offered Kazik some well-reasoned artistic feedback: more Avery. Obviously, I can’t talk about — or review — the film in any kind of unbiased way; I enjoyed it, and I’m proud to have been of assistance. I didn’t get much in return, sadly, just beautiful moving images capturing a wonderful period of my daughter’s childhood, and wonderful, embarrassing stories about her pseudo-diva behaviour that I can tell her when she’s older.
The other day, I asked Avery if she remembered the time that she helped some people make a movie and she shyly shook her head, unsure of what to say. I realized that starring in so many of our Instagram stories probably made it hard to remember one more digital lens being dangled in her face. She also told me that she wasn’t sure she wanted to be in another movie, which is fine with me. It’s a tough business (just ask Linda Blair).
Honestly, I don’t mind if my little Avery isn’t famous forever. But I’m looking forward to this week.
“Matt and Mara” screens at TIFF on Sept. 11 and 12. Go to https://tiff.net/events/matt-and-mara for more details.