If you grew up in the ‘90s, the filmmaker Amy Jo Johnson will ring a bell. As children, we knew her as Kimberly Hart in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, as well as some of the films in the franchise. When we were young teens, she starred in the university drama Felicity. Once we reached adulthood, she had a leading role in the police procedural Flashpoint. In the 2010’s, Amy Jo Johnson has all but disappeared. Having been a part of viral online content (including her musical performances, like busking as the pink Power Ranger in the middle of Yonge and Dundas Square), the world was able to see another side of a familiar face many of us grew up with. This opened the door to her other voice: filmmaking. Having secured funding for her first feature (The Space Between) using crowdsourced website Indiegogo allowed Johnson to establish an even deeper connection with her fanbase, whilst pursue her goal of making the kinds of films she adored viewing.

Her latest feature is Tammy’s Always Dying: an incredibly dark comedy drama starring Felicity Huffman and Anastasia Phillips. Written by Joanne Sarazen, this film depicts an uncontrollable mother (the titular Tammy, Huffman) and her fed up daughter Catherine (Phillips). Tammy drunkenly perches herself on the ledge of a bridge on a regular basis, and her daughter routinely calls her bluff. Once Tammy is diagnoses with cancer, the testiness of an already rocky relationship begins to transform into uncertainty; how does Catherine feel about her mother? A hilarious look at a toxic relationship in a soured family, Tammy’s Always Dying is the silliness of bitterness that gets tested when reality has thrown one too many curve balls. The film premiered to a sold out crowd at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019.

In 2020, things have gotten a little more peculiar. With social distancing affecting how major events were previously run, something like a simple film premiere for an independent work is now a tribulation. Luckily, Johnson — ever so savvy with social media — and her crew came up with the brilliant #PremiereFromHere contest, where fans could post pictures of themselves dressed up for a hypothetical premiere, use the hashtag, and get included in a massive draw. Lucky winners get to be a part of a virtual watch party experience on the opening day of Tammy’s Alway Dying’s video-on-demand release. Afterwards, they partake in a question-and-answer period with Johnson and other cast and crew members. Many creative submissions were sent, including people setting up their own personal red carpets, or fans in elaborate (and goofy) outfits.

Johnson is no stranger to adaptation, and her story of simply getting Tammy’s Always Dying to us is riveting alone. We were granted the great opportunity to feature that story today, as Amy Jo Johnson sat down with us to promote her latest achievement and discuss her career as a whole: independent filmmaking, comic book conventions, the pros and cons of social media, and finding light within every dark patch.

Tammy’s Always Dying is available on video-on-demand on May 1st. It will be accessible on the following Canadian platforms: Rogers, Bell, Telus, Shaw, Sasktel, Cogeco, iTunes, Sony Playstation, MTS, Microsoft Video and Google Play. The trailer for the film can be found below.

Be sure to visit Tammy’s Always Dying’s official IMDb page, Instagram and Twitter, as well as Amy Jo Johnson’s official website, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Films Fatale: What drew you to the screenplay for Tammy's Always Dying, and made you want to shoot this film?

Amy Jo Johnson: I went to the Canadian Film Centre, and I went to the director’s lab there. That’s where I met Joanne Sarazen who wrote Tammy’s Always Dying. She was actually developing the script while she was at the Canadian Film Centre in the writer’s lab. I heard the screenplay in a reading, and I fell in love with it in a very cathartic way. I think Joanne’s sense of humour is quite wicked. At the same time, the film deals with some pretty heavy subjects. It’s a drama, for sure, but she figured out how to find the humour within the heaviness. For me as a filmmaker, those are the scripts and movies that I’m most attracted to. Those are the projects I’m interested in making.

FF: Not even just lately, but in the last twenty years or so, there’s been a big demand for the dramedy genre. It’s something we’re all identifying with. Finding humour or positivity in the darkness.

AJJ: Yeah! I think it’s the human story. I think that’s what we need: to watch movies that make us feel normal in a way that you can identify with people. To watch flawed characters. Both of these women [the lead characters in Tammy’s Always Dying] are incredibly flawed. That’s what makes the movie special to me. We’re all flawed as humans.

FF: The movie starts off with that idea very quickly. Everything’s taken at face value, and you’re introduced to the characters, especially with the opening moments [a scene where daughter Catherine finds her mother Tammy sitting on the ledge of a bridge for the umpteenth time]. We get a sense of what this film’s going to be like, what these two characters are like. I think it’s established pretty quickly what you’re going to be expecting for the next hour and a half.

AJJ: I think the tone is set right off the bat, for sure. I tried to do that. I love the opening song in the movie. I was in the middle of editing the film, when I was on my way to the edit room. We had a completely different tone going on in the beginning, with the different music. It’s crazy what music can do. I heard that song on my drive to the edit room, and I said “Let’s throw this in there, and see what it does.” You kind of come into the movie with more of a bang [than before], and it sets the tone of the ride you’re going to go on.

FF: It’s funny that you bring up music, because the ending has a specific image and song as well [writer’s note: the scene and song in question is not brought up here as to avoid spoilers]. I’m guessing it was a similar type of experience in the editing room that you found the song you wanted to wrap everything up with as well?

AJJ: That’s my friend Cinjun Tate, the lead singer of Remy Zero which was my favourite band in the ‘90s. I was actually speaking to him early on before we even shot the movie, and he’s sort of my muse in a way. I’ll do a shot list and a lot of my own writing to his music. The ending did take a few turns, curves and changes in the editing room. Actually, we landed back at where we began, to tell you the truth. It sort of got lost for a minute. I had to really sit with the film and myself, and figure out and rediscover the movie that I want to make, and the ending that I wanted to tell. I circled back around to that. I love the ending so much. I love that song. I had that song from my first day in the editing room. We put that song in.

FF: So that [song] was there from the very beginning. This ending shot is very personal. Speaking of personal, it’s no secret that you’re a Toronto native. You frame shots of Toronto so proudly, with the CN Tower and many neighbourhoods clearly visible. What does Toronto mean to you as a citizen? As a filmmaker?

AJJ: I moved to Canada in 2005, and I moved to Toronto in 2010 because Flashpoint brought me here. I really have fallen in love with the city, and it is my home base now. It will be for a very long time. I just find the film community here incredibly nurturing and supportive. It has just been the perfect place for me to be carving out this new career of mine. I wouldn’t have been able to make these first two films without being a Canadian and having the support of Telefilm, Ontario Creates, CBC, and Crave. It’s kind of an incredible place to be a filmmaker.

FF: As you would know more than anybody, the Canadian film industry kind of has its own dogma; the industry is a completely different entity to American filmmaking. Is that something you’ve noticed, especially on what is your second feature full length?

AJJ: Yeah. You know, there was a moment where we were trying to figure out where the film was set. When Felicity Huffman was working on her accent and sending me tapes of different directions she was wondering which was the right one to land on, she was sort of sounding like she was from Rochester, New York at first. I was like… wait a minute. Where are we? (laughs) When I found the bridge in Hamilton, I just decided to set the film there. That was Joanne’s intention in the first place: that it was a Canadian film.

A lot of the stuff that happens within the movie could only take place in Canada, with some of the conversations like when Tammy says “You pay for an abortion, you should get a free cup of coffee!” So Cathy says “You don’t pay for an abortion.” You do in the States, but you don’t in Canada. It definitely is a Canadian film in many ways, because this is where it’s set. I loved the backdrop of Hamilton. I thought it was such an aesthetically raw and beautiful place to shoot. I loved filming there.

FF: That really plays into the film itself, as if [the setting] is it’s own character. The surroundings almost match the people that inhabit them. They’re rough around the edges, but something truly organic is there. Something magical you never lose sight of.

AJJ: I really felt so. I just moved up there for the month while shooting. Pretty much all of the locations were there. We did shoot that one shot with the overpass, and you can see the CN Tower. That was the last day of shooting, when we came back to Toronto to shoot that. It was a fantastic place to shoot and backdrop for the film. It was quite convenient. All of the locations were very close to each other. There was no studio work. It was all set in the bar, the diner, the bridge, somebody’s house… That was all within five miles. (laughs)

FF: Which helps!

AJJ: It does! It’s still a big move, to have a set move, on a particular day. At the same time, it was great. I’d wake up, and I was a mile from work every day.

FF: Tammy’s Always Dying has an interesting, comical look at the dealing of trauma, yet it still has poignant discussions to make. Was it challenging to achieve both the light and dark aspects of the story, so it remains funny and important?

AJJ: That was why I was drawn to the script in the first place. It was the humour that the movie held. I think Joanne’s sense of humour is a bit darker than, say, mine. So I found that to actually be a good match, because I like to make films that take heavy subjects, and finding the humour within them. It was very important to me to maintain that. We did lose it in the editing room for a moment. It became this very dark, dreamy drama. The movie was lost. I kind of hated it at that moment.

It was a moment that I really needed to sit with the film myself. I actually said that to Felicity at that time. She was quite honest. (laughs) She didn’t love it either at that moment. I had to rediscover it, and I put it into my iMovie, and played around with the rough cut, which Bryan Atkinson (who edited the film) did such a good job on the assembly for. I just pulled out the funny bits again, and where we had landed with this drama. I rediscovered the movie I was set out to make. I then brought that into the edit room, and had Bryan find the right cuts and right points to edit in. That was sort of our road map. It was a journey to keep that levity within there. I think we did! I’m quite proud of the film. It makes me laugh. It makes Joanne laugh, too! It might not make some people laugh, but it makes us laugh!

FF: Comedy’s also subjective at the end of the day, right?

AJJ: It’s like the things that you can laugh at, like the lives that we’ve had and our personal connection to the script allows us to laugh. For some people, if you haven’t gone through this stuff, you might not find it so funny. I think if you have gone through it, then you can find that humour.

FF: It’s fantastic that you were able to find the magic again in the editing room. That must be such a frightening thing: if you make a film and you don’t feel happy about it. Luckily for you, you were able to reinvigorate life back into [the film], and now it’s a film you can proudly release.

AJJ: Oh yeah! There was a moment… there was a dark hour, for sure. I had a lot of pressure to lock the film because of banks having to close, and the producer really wanted the film done. I was about to lock a movie I hated. That was really painful and scary. I couldn’t. I almost did, and then I was waking up in the middle of the night and having panic attacks. I finally had to ask for help and put my foot down. I got more time! (laughs) It wasn’t there. It just wasn’t there yet.

I think most filmmakers go through that in the editing room. You come to that dark hour, and you have to pull yourself back out. If we hadn’t gone to that place… there were some really great moments that I kept from making the movie too dramatic. They’re still in the film, and I never would have found [them] had I not gone too far in that direction in the first place.

FF: You’re having a contrast between darkness and lightness. At the end of the day, you ended up with a film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. For somebody who loves Toronto, that has to have been a fantastic ordeal. A massive milestone.

AJJ: Oh! It was such a dream come true. Yes. It did premiere there! It was a wonderful experience for me as a filmmaker. To have my film in the festival, and to be able to watch it with a big sold out audience for four nights, with the cast and Joanne and all the people who put their heart and soul into getting the film made… It was an incredible moment. I’m so grateful for it. Especially now… the movie was supposed to come out in theatres on Friday, May 1st. It’s not now, which is fine. It’s being released online. I’m just so grateful that we had that moment, and that experience. To watch the film with an audience.

FF: I feel like you're handling this big shift [social distancing] really well. On social media, you have this at home premiere… what’s the hashtag again? #PremiereAtHome ?

AJJ: #PremiereFromHere!

FF: #PremiereFromHere! There we go! I can’t come up with a snappy hashtag like that!

AJJ: (laughs)

FF: With #PremiereFromHere, you were inviting people to take part from home. I think that’s fantastic! You’ve always had this finger on the pulse of social media, and the virality of the internet. How vital is social media in 2020 when it comes to connecting with audiences, and do you have any tips on how to make it work as well as you do?

AJJ: I’m really excited for Friday. We are doing this Zoom premiere. It was a contest we had for “Premiere From Here”. People posted a picture of what they would wear, and we had these really awesome submissions. I’m actually sitting here… I was choosing the fifty people who are going to be coming. I love it. I’m so excited that people participated. But, I was a little bit nervous of the tone of what’s happening in the world right now, and having this contest and trying to have this premiere of a movie. I think there’s a balance, and I do think we still need to be able to celebrate things that are happening.

I think that’s part of staying positive, and making our way through this really crazy, crazy time right now. I’m glad the contest is over. It was every day. It’s like… is it weird posting this stuff, or is this okay? We had some people really excited about it, so I’m really excited for Friday! Greg Grunberg — who I did Felicity with — is hosting the event, and Joanne will be there, and Anastasia Phillips (who stars in the movie)… I think it’s going to be really nice just to celebrate. They're all going to watch the movie during the day, and we’re going to have a Q&A and chat about the film at night.

It’s funny, with social media. I don’t know if I always have my finger on the pulse… I’m very hesitant a lot with it. I think you can just get a little bit on an overload with it very easily. I know I have to take massive breaks from it, because it’s one of those habits of looking to see what’s on your phone that everybody goes through. It can become kind of monotonous and exhausting at the same time, so I try to plan a balance with it.

FF: Everything is kind of hectic, but [what’s happening right now] is kind of a restoration of faith in humanity. We can find ways to work around [social distancing], and not just come up with these solutions, but do things we’ve almost never done before. This Zoom premiere is such a neat experience, despite what it took to get there, because… wow. This is possible! We can do this with our viewers! It’s almost incredible.

AJJ: Yeah! I think there’s so many Zoom things happening, right? Greg was telling me he’s working with… I don’t remember which company. Warner Bros. or something? They're having all these writers write these sketches, and these actors coming on and doing these cool, funny skits on Zoom. Everybody’s being so innovative right now. It will be really interesting to see in a year from now, when the dust has settled (hopefully), and we can emerge back out into society… It’ll be interesting to see what we bring with us that we’ve had to gain during this time, to make things work.

FF: Speaking of public events, it’s too bad that expos, amongst over festivals and conventions, are being postponed or cancelled. You also have a major connection with the comic book crowds, having attended events like Comic Con. As the director of an independent film like TAD, do you view these types of connections as gateways to a whole body of cinema, including your own work?

AJJ: You know, I started doing Comic Cons, I think, maybe five or six years ago. It was around the time I was doing The Space Between. First of all, I raised all that money on Indiegogo crowd funding. It was all fans and supporters… people who watched Power Rangers and sort of grew up with me and followed my career as an actress, and followed me into my career as a director. I’m forever grateful for that. When I started doing the conventions, it was to support my career as a filmmaker, because I was no longer acting anymore and having that paycheque come in. I was so blown away by all of the support and all these people (who are now grown up) who were kids that were watching Power Rangers.

I find it such an awesome way to go and spread the word on what I’m doing now, and get people to watch my movies. On those panels, I get to talk about my passions and what I love to do now. It’s really nice, because it’s really hard being an indie filmmaker and finding the audience for these little films that don’t have this massive engine behind them. They’re very helpful.

FF: We like to send interviews off with the most basic question, based on why we are all cinephiles. What are your top films of all time, and why?

Harold and Maude

AJJ: Harold and Maude comes to mind first. That was one of the first films I watched and was just blown away by the music, by the aesthetics of it, by the humour… Everything about that movie blew me away. I think if you watch The Space Between (my first feature), you can feel a bit of Harold and Maude in there. I was very influenced by that film in a lot of ways.

Café de Flore

AJJ: Café de Flore by Jean-Marc Vallée is one of my most favourite movies. It’s the most romantic movie I’ve ever seen in my entire life. (laughs) I just love that film so much.

Captain Fantastic

AJJ: Captain Fantastic is a newer one that I watched a few years ago that left me in my seat just crying. I was bawling my eyes out. That movie was so beautiful.

Youth

AJJ: Another one is Youth. I know the English name for it is Youth. Oh my God… That movie! (gasps) Have you seen that?

FF: Absolutely! It’s fantastic! The one by the filmmaker of The Great Beauty?

AJJ: Yeah! This movie is so beautiful! Paolo Sarantino… That movie blew my mind. I could not get out of my seat at the movie theatre. I saw it at the Fox theatre, this little theatre down the street. Wow. I had never had a movie sort of play me in a way. The whole… how he was a conductor of an orchestra. I felt like with the whole ending of the movie, the audience was supposed to be an instrument or something. It sounds a little weird, but I was just blown away at what I had felt at the end of that movie. It was just so beautiful.

FF: Out of the four films you picked, they’re all definitely works that love the grey area. Captain Fantastic is so eccentric and domestic and you feel for Viggo Mortensen’s family. Harold and Maude is very much like Tammy’s Always Dying: this traumatic subject made very light. These are perfect for the recipe of a dark dramedy: figuring out the balance in between.

AJJ: Yeah! Like I said, those are the movies that I’m drawn to. Those are the movies that — at this point in my career — I want to make.

FF: On the note of films you want to make, any final thoughts on Tammy’s Always Dying?

AJJ: Felicity Huffman is wonderful in it. Anastasia Phillips, Kristian Bruun is in it, Clark Johnson…Lauren Holly! It has a really nice cast. I’m proud of the film.

AB: It’s saying a lot because of who we’re talking about, but it’s one of Felicity Huffman’s finest performances. Look at her body of work!

AJJ: It makes me excited for her! We had a great review with Deadline, and they raved about her. I was so happy because she deserves that. She was so brave to come here and trust us. She didn’t know us at all! She just loved the script. I was so happy. Greg actually texted it to me, like “Dude!” (laughs) I was like “Oh my God!” The reviewer really raved about Felicity’s performance, which is really awesome.

We thank Amy Jo Johnson for discussing independent cinema, much needed optimism, film and Tammy’s Always Dying with us. Check out Tammy’s Always Dying’s official IMDb page, Instagram and Twitter accounts. Also check out Amy Jo Johnson’s official website, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Tammy’s Always Dying is out on video-on-demand May 1st on the following Canadian platforms:
Rogers, Bell, Telus, Shaw, Sasktel, Cogeco, iTunes, Sony Playstation, MTS, Microsoft Video and Google Play.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.

Amy Jo Johnson and Tammy's Always Dying: The Joy Found Within Hardships