Simpsons writer plumbs his small-town past

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This article was published 30/07/2021 (1900 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you happen to know that screenwriter Tim Long was born in Brandon, you may not be surprised to see the opening shot of the film he wrote, The Exchange, shows snow sweeping across a desolate country highway, with the title: “Hobart, Ontario, Godforsaken Canada. 1986.”

But you know what happens when you assume.

The inspiration for the fictional town of Hobart is actually a province away from Manitoba, in the little burg of Exeter, Ont., 40 kilometres north of London. Take it from Long, who clarifies all in a Zoom interview from his home in Los Angeles, where the writer-producer has been working for the better part of the past socially distanced year at his day job as a writer and producer on The Simpsons.

“I was born in Brandon, but we moved to Exeter, Ontario, when I was four and I haven’t been back to Brandon,” he says, adding, “I have always wanted to make a trek back, but I haven’t made the trip yet. Exeter is really my hometown. I’m back to Exeter all the time and I love it. I have no beef with Brandon.”

One of the specific things that connects fictional Hobart to real-life Exeter is a population of white squirrels, one of bizarre small-town calling cards that results in signage such as “Home of the White Squirrels.”

“I consider my childhood to be kind of like a buffet from which I can pick and choose,” Long says. “So even though it’s not really Exeter, I thought the white squirrel was too funny a detail not to use.”

The Exchange follows the journey of a friendless high school student named Tim Long (played by Australian actor Ed Oxenbould) who believes his dire social standing will be improved when he invites an exotic French exchange student from Paris to join his family in the rural Ontario backwater of Hobart.

The student Stéphane, played by Vancouver actor Avan Jogia, proves to be a worldly lad, whose ease with girls and dismissive attitude to the classic French films Tim loves somehow exacerbates his alienation.

Given that the hero’s name is Tim Long, one might assume the film is wholly autobiographical; the filmmaker claims that’s not entirely the case.

“The one character who is really based on a real person is the Tim Long character,” he says. “So the only person who has any reason to be worried about how he’s represented is me. I felt this is sort of based on my experiences as an alienated teen growing up in the ‘80s, so I might as well name it after myself.”

Long jokes that he was serving his own self-interest on the set of the film, which was shot in Almonte, Ont., southwest of Ottawa.

“I felt, as the screenwriter, I would probably have more power on the set if the character was named after me,” Long says. “Nobody could say, ‘Well, the character wouldn’t do that.’ Because then I could say, ‘Well the character is me.’

“I thought it was a way to win the argument. It really wasn’t,” he says. “People still said, ‘No we’re not doing it that way.’ But I did my best.

“I think it is the degree to which it’s true is it we’re talking about a teenage kid who thinks he’s very worldly and cultured but is nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is.”

It is not unusual for writers to venture into directing with their coming-of-age stories, but Long resisted that urge, satisfied the directing task went to Dan Mazer, an Englishman who has worked extensively with Sacha Baron Cohen on various Borat and Ali G projects.

“My experience with film is really very scant,” says Long. “I worked in live-action television but I felt like we needed to get someone who was really experienced in film and I feel we really got him.

“Dan Mazer’s experience couldn’t be more different than mine but he really got it”

The film gave Long a chance to plumb his own childhood, but he says his 20-year run with The Simpsons has occasionally allowed him that privilege too, in episodes such as Skinner’s Sense of Snow, which saw Bart and his schoolmates trapped in Springfield Elementary during a blizzard, something Long experienced in Exeter.

“There have been a few episodes about blizzards in Springfield and there have been some Canadian episodes of The Simpsons,” he says. “I think any writer, especially someone who’s been doing this as long as I have, it’s very hard not to let your past seep through into the film.”

The Exchange is available on demand today.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing