Oscar season shapes up for J. Miles Dale
Tuxedo: check. Hockey bag: check. Thirteen Oscar nominations: you bet.
Fully immersed now in one of the greatest seasons of his life, Toronto’s J. Miles Dale is happier than a cat on a dairy farm. He’s the proverbial kid on Christmas morning. He’s a one-man vitamin IV drip.
Having executive-produced the lush, Sally Hawkins-starring bedtime story that is The Shape of Water — now heading into the Academy Awards as the No. 1 film, in terms of trophy play — he finds himself on the campaign trail like no other time. It’s exhilarating, sure, but also tough on the waistline.
“I’ve gained, like, eight pounds,” Dale admits bar-side at Soho House on Adelaide St. W. the other day. It’s the cumulative effect, alas, of opening and promoting the film for pretty much five months straight, ever since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, through any number of other awards show rigamarole and all those requisites noshes with film academy arbiters. To that end, he mentions that he’s meeting his hockey crew the next morning to try and keep up with at least some modicum of physical activity. He plays at Moss Park with a bunch of other “dads.”
“And have you done a hockey guys’ joint excursion to see The Shape of Water?” I ask, being the solid investigative journalist that I am.
“Not yet,” says the 50-something producer, who’s previously produced such durables as Harold & Kumar. “But I am getting more respect in the dressing room. Not for my hockey, but for Oscar . . . and yeah.”
In terms of the black-tie armour that is a must on the hustings, he’s all set with a tux he acquired from local legend Tom’s Place. Score one for Kensington Market. He first modelled it at the Golden Globes, plans to recycle it for the BAFTAs (the British version of the Oscars, set for Feb. 18) and then will bring it on again for the Big Night on March 4.
“I’m a guy,” he grins. “We can recycle.”
Speaking fluent awards-ese, Dale fills me in with a myriad of unreal tales from the last several months, while on the hunt with his Guillermo del Toro-directed, Torontomade flick (which, besides being a critical darling, has also made at last count more than $64 million at the worldwide box office).
Exhibit A: at the annual Oscars nominee luncheon this week at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, he sat at the same table as Gary Oldman and then later participated in the rite-of-passage official nominees photo shoot, getting in the frame with everybody from Meryl Streep down.
Likewise, being on the circuit has afforded him a chance to do things like sit beside the legendary Billie Jean King at a dinner (she was out helping to promote the biopic Battle of the Sexes). “73! And what a ball of energy!” he says. And, as part of the aforementioned BAFTAs, he’s invited to a reception the day before at Kensington Palace.
Oh, yeah: Dale is taking his mother to the Academy Awards.
Sadly, though, his dad is going to miss it. “He just passed in May. We were just editing when he died,” Dale says.
It gnaws at him, clearly, because that was the person, more than anyone, from whom he inherited the “showbiz bug.” After growing up in Toronto, where his father worked for the CBC, the family moved for a spell to L.A. where Jimmy Dale was a musical director, most notably for the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.
“I sort of grew up in the business,” his son now elaborates, adding, “I was quite the scourge of network security at CBS as a child. I was 10 or 11 at the time. Sonny & Cher was in one studio. All in the Family was in this studio. The Carol Burnett Show was in another studio. So it was really a special time.”
In terms of the mechanics of Oscar, what does Dale make of the fact that the two movies that seem to top the heap of Best Picture possibilities — both Shape and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri have momentum and can lean on various Oscar stats — have the distinction of being distributed by the same company, Fox Searchlight? It’s a predicament that’s left the company with a bit of tap-dancing to do, from my perspective: how to craft an Oscar message for one film without putting down the other. These things can be war, after all.
Dale is characteristically diplomatic on that front. “It’s almost like we’re on one team,” he says, adding that he’s spent a lot of time with the Three Billboards cast, especially actors such as Sam Rockwell.
It is what it is, in other words. But while the director of Three Billboards, Martin McDonagh, was very visibly snubbed in the Best Director category, del Toro’s chances in that area look pretty good. As far as the campaign goes, in any case, he’s clearly the secret weapon.
Seen as an auteur and a real cinephile’s cinephile, “he owns the room when he walks into it,” Dale says of the director. “He’s just a charismatic guy. And talking to people about his movie; it’s just soul food for him.”
Indeed, Dale and del Toro had previously collaborated on a slew of other projects, including the film Mama and the TV series The Strain, and it likely won’t be the last time they team up.
Which brings us to another narrative that Dale has been pushing about his Oscar film: specifically that it’s a NAFTA movie. Made in Canada, directed by a Mexican and starring such American MVPs as Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins.
He says it partly in jest, but he’s also dead serious. “This movie, I would venture to say, has twice as many Canadian nominations as any movie in history. Even in Chicago (which was also famously made in Toronto), they were all American. None of the keys were Canadian. Here, we have costume designer nominated. Canadian! Our sound team. Canadian! It goes on. It’s a watershed moment.”
And yet, it’s a resolutely international production, too. The composer, who’s nominated, is French, and the cinematographer, ditto, hails from Denmark.
Having never been to the Oscars, let alone been nominated, I wonder if he has any memories of watching the show from years past.
“Oh, for sure,” he starts to say. “I remember Marlon Brando and Sacheen Littlefeather (when Brando refused to accept his award and sent an activist in his place to collect). I remember David Niven and the streaker. I remember it being — something that is even more so now — as being a truly live moment.”
Finally, though, the guy who started off as a “runner” in the business and grew up worshipping the likes of Mel Brooks — and remains a fan of everything from Frank Capra to the Coen brothers — is pretty philosophical about the whole experience he’s undergoing: “What does it mean, ultimately? I don’t know. Don’t get too low, don’t get too high. We are very grateful for the nominations.
“No matter what happens,” Dale adds, “we’re going to die happy. I know I am.”