Jennifer Peedom on the Tenzing cast
by Murphy Popcorn 🎪: Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe said yes twice to 'Tenzing' and that says a lot. Jennifer Peedom had already worked with him when he narrated a couple of her documentaries, and she told him about the project back then. He stayed curious for years, and once the script was finished she sent it over and he was in immediately. Tom Hiddleston was drawn in by how Peedom wanted to make the thing for real, so he trekked nearly all the way to base camp with Genden Phuntsok during prep, and the friendship they built comes through on screen. Phuntsok was the first one locked because the movie rests on him, and Peedom's search ended when she watched films by the late Tibetan director Pema Tseden. Kathmandu is where they met, and he picked up English, Sherpa and climbing for the part. He also shares Tenzing's background, born on the Tibetan plateau and raised around yaks and potatoes. For the Edmund Hillary role Peedom wanted generosity of spirit, since this belongs to Tenzing. She calls the whole thing somehow destined to be. It's on Apple TV+ now.
Transcript (en)
Yeah, it's amazing the way that just somehow the right people were attracted to this project and presented themselves in the right way at the right time because I feel like they are the perfect three people and we've all been on this incredible adventure together and it's been great spending time together here because we had a life experience together. Gendem was the first person that came onto the project because obviously he had to carry the movie and so that was a huge search to find him. and eventually I discovered him through the work of the late great Tibetan director Pema Sedin and I watched these films and I knew that this was our Tenzing and so we brought him to Kathmandu and we met and, I mean, he had to learn English for the role, he had to learn Sherpa for the role, he had to learn how to climb but he shared this cultural background with Tenzing, you know, So he, like Tenzing, was born on the Tibetan plateau, grew up in a farming community with yaks and growing potatoes, just like Tenzing's family. And so that cultural specificity was really important in the casting of him. Then the next person was Edmund Hillary. Obviously, we needed someone who could carry the role. but also what I needed in him was the spirit of generosity because it's Tenzing's movie. And what I found in Tom was this openness and willingness and enthusiasm for telling the story and approaching it in the way that we did And I also knew someone that I needed someone that was going to be up for the spirit of adventure and the way that I wanted to make the film. And he was attracted to it partly because of that. You know, so he wanted to be in the mountains. He was attracted to the idea that we were going to be doing all of this for real. We'd be on real mountains. I sent him trekking nearly all the way to base camp with Gendin in their preparation and he just fully embraced that experience and the relationship between him, Gendin, became very real. They formed a real brotherhood that you see in the movie but it's very real. Their friendship is beautiful. And Willem was, Willem I had talked to for many years about this film because we'd worked together. he'd narrated a couple of my documentaries and in the process of working together I told him about this project and and he was curious as he is it's one of the amazing wonderful things about Willem Defoe is that he's endlessly curious he's interested and he's also someone that is just interested in life experience and so I talked to him about the way I wanted to do it my relationship with the Sherpa community and he said, sign me up. If there's a role in that for me, I would love to be part of it. And so years later, when the script was ready, I had a role for him. I sent him the script and he came on straight away. So it was somehow destined to be.
