JACOB TIERNEY

WORDS BY JOSH CLOSE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MILES JAY
ASSISTED BY MAX CHIN
STYLING BY ZAZU MYERS
HAIR & MAKE-UP BY TAMI EL SOMBATI
CLOTHES PULLED FROM CARTE BLANCHE

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I struggled to disguise a serious case of shaky knee syndrome when I met Canadian actor-turned-director Jacob Tierney for the first time in 2002. As a nervous, young actor I was about to audition for his directorial debut and was desperate to obtain and explore one of the leading roles under his careful guidance. The movie was Twist – his self-penned, modern-day interpretation of Oliver Twist set in a seedy Toronto underbelly. Though he was only and unbelievably 23 himself, Jacob beautifully captained the film, which showed at Venice, Toronto and Rotterdam Film Festivals, and has since gone on to write and direct two more  – Good Neighbours and The Trotksy – needless to say, he’s been busy.

“I was still going to festivals with Trotsky when we started shooting Good Neighbors, which was definitely tiring but totally worth it,” he says when we caught up for a chat/interview via email. It’s clear that The Trotsky, which tells the story of a high-schooler who believes he’s the reincarnation of Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky, is a tale close to the Jacob’s heart. “Twist and Trotsky were actually written in the same year, but I lived with Trotsky for a long time, trying to protect it to make sure it got made the right way. It was my baby.” Although the baby now born and available, Jacob isn’t ready to put its titular character to bed. “While I never believed I was the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky, he’s definitely someone I had a healthy interest in for a lot of my teenage years,” he says. “He’ll also probably feature in a new script of mine soon – another comedy. That’s why I never worry about people stealing my ideas – no one else wants them.”

All jokes aside, Jacob is doing his bit to further put Canadian filmmaking (and Canadian locales) on the cinematic map. As the son of producer/director Kevin Tierney [Bon Cop, Bad Cop], who worked as a producer on Twist and Good Neighbours, he moved around a lot as a kid living in China and India, but has shot all of his films in Canada. But while he’s certainly proud of his roots and the fact he’s making Canadian films in Canada with Canadians, it’s not something he thought long and hard about. “I know it must all look like I had a master plan, but really my only thought was that I was going to set the movie wherever I filmed it,” he says. “I’ve acted in enough tax-shelter-style crap to know that you fake a city at your own risk, and if you can’t use the cityscapes and landscapes you have at your disposal, then you’re cutting off your own nose to spite your face.”
Intent on not cutting off his nose in the slightest Jacob has also made the most of the people closest to him including his father of whom he says, “Working together became a really natural evolution for us. Now I’m left with the feeling that even if we never do it again, which is super unlikely, how lucky am I to have gotten the chance to do the thing I love most with my father?” Jacob’s extended filmic family now includes Jay Baruchel (who starred in both The Trotsky and Good Neighbours and coincidentally grew up on the same street as Jacob) and Emily Hampshire who I credit for helping Jacob to hire me to star in Twist. He first met the Montreal maiden when he moved into her old apartment in Toronto. “We became inseparable pretty quickly,” he says. “Now I function more like a translator for her particular brand of crazy, which I love.”

Interestingly, while filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Ken Loach, Stephen Frears, Jane Campion and Jang Yimou all worked their magic on juvenile Jacob’s mind the written word seems to have made an even stronger impression. “I was always a big reader, and since I come at filmmaking as a writer I can’t discount the influence authors have had on me. I definitely feel more intimate towards the novels I’ve read then the films I’ve seen.”

Knees no longer knocking, I consider myself lucky to have made the cut and been part of the Jacob Tierney journey. He’s a friend and director who I completely trust, admire, and would gladly share a beer with any night of the week and an extraordinary filmmaker that I will always line up to see and/or join forces with. As the late John Cassavetes said: “The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to”. And whether it be conscious or subconscious you always feel like Jacob effortlessly walks on that path.