Beyond Awards, Director Guillaume Lonergan Wants a Big Canadian Audience for EMPATHY: ‘I’m Very Proud of This Show’

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede It certainly speaks well for the new Crave Original series EMPATHY that even before its debut across Canada, it has already won a major international award. Veteran director Guillaume Lonergan is certainly thrilled that EMPATHY earned the Audience Award at the prestigious Séries Mania international festival in France late last month. But what means more to him in the grand scheme, critical acclaim, or large audiences? “Well, when I was younger, I think I wanted the awards, just to get a kind of recognition,” Lonergan said. “But right now, my main focus is that I want the largest amount of people to see it. That’s really my main goal, not only for the show, but also for the industry, in Montréal, in Québec, and in Canada. I’m very proud of this show. This year there was kind of a wakeup call for Canada. I’m very patriotic these days. Of course, when you win an award in a foreign country like France, it’s always a big deal. But let’s use that spotlight to make sure that as many people as possible watch it in Canada.” Canadian audiences will get their chance beginning on Thursday, April 10, as EMPATHY premieres on Crave with English subtitles, and also in French (EMPATHIE). Over 10 episodes, EMPATHY follows Dr. Suzanne Bien-Aimé, played by the multi-talented Florence Longpré, who also wrote the series. Dr. Bien-Aimé is a former criminologist turned psychiatrist, starting a new job at the Mont-Royal Psychiatric Institute. EMPATHY delves into the lives of patients with diverse conditions, offering an emotionally resonant exploration of mental health. This is the fourth collaboration between Longpré and Lonergan, and they have developed a storytelling style that deftly combines drama and comedy, which is especially important given the delicate subject matter in EMPATHY. “This show is maybe a bit heavier than the other shows we have done together, but I needed to direct it in a way that you always have to find the humour in every situation, but not make jokes for just the sake of the joke,” Lonergan explained. “So we have big drama, we have humour, and we have those poetic kind of dream moments in the show, a magic realism. When I first read the script, I was a bit scared. I was kind of like, ‘okay, this is great, but it’s going to take a lot of work for it to go through the lens and exist visually.’ But I prefer to do a show where I feel there’s a really big challenge. That’s a great motivator.” Longpré is brilliant in her role as Suzanne, and Lonergan’s expert direction finds the proper pacing – not too fast, not too slow – as audiences meet patients who are experiencing horrible mental difficulties, but have also committed unspeakable crimes. For tonal guidance, Lonergan impressively drew upon Silence of the Lambs, the classic movie from 1991 that won the OSCAR® for Best Picture, and is available for streaming on STARZ. “I watched that film a lot when I was preparing this show,” Lonergan said. “There were long scenes in Silence of The Lambs with lots of discussion about psychiatry, and I got really inspired by the way (director) Jonathan Demme filmed the conversations in that film. I mean, he did a lot of closeups, yet you really have the feeling that you’re with them, you’re in the conversation, you’re almost physically there. Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster are almost looking directly into the camera. So in terms of filming, I thought it was really a great, great film. For me, it’s almost a masterpiece, and it was really one of the inspirations for the way I directed EMPATHY.” So is there a specific message about mental health, and the way that society deals with the issue, that Lonergan and Longpré are trying to convey with EMPATHY? “The title of the show kind of says it,” Lonergan said. “We need to have empathy, even for the people who we consider to be the worst of society, who are not only sick and have mental health issues, but also have killed people, or committed horrible crimes. Who is going to take care of those people? Who is going to try to understand them, or have hope that they could get better, or improve? The human race needs to have empathy for each other, because otherwise there’s no hope. And we have to salute those who are even willing to do it, because those people also need help.”   billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv