Film director calls Winnipeg a ‘chill’ place to shoot

The action-comedy Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (now streaming on Disney+) stars Vince Vaughn as Nick, a gangster who employs time travel to right a personal wrong.

So it’s only fair to ask the film’s director, BenDavid Grabinski, to step back into 2024, when he worked on the film in Winnipeg from May to October.

Winnipeg wasn’t a particular culture shock for Grabinski, by the way. Though he is based in Los Angeles, he was born in Nebraska and spent his formative years, ages 16 to 23, in Iowa, so he was familiar with a Prairie landscape.

“I gotta tell you, I had a really good time in Winnipeg,” says Grabinski, 43, during a Zoom interview Thursday. “I shot 42 nights in a row, so I didn’t get to have that much of a life.

“But the movie theatre with the giant surfing Batman became my spot,” he says with a laugh, referring to the Scotiabank Cineplex at Polo Park. “I saw so many movies there and then I would take the cast there on the weekend. So we saw, like, the new Alien movie and Venom 3.

“And then there’s this bar there called the Handsome Daughter. I went there a lot,” he says, recalling how he posted an image of the Sherbrook Street venue on Instagram because “they were playing Dragon Ball Z on the TV.”

Since Grabinski’s last project was as the showrunner of the Netflix animated series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, he had a special affection for animated cult series.

“Then the bartender said, very loud, to the room: ‘Does anyone know why the creator of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was here today?’ And they started talking about the show I made, and I was sitting there and I didn’t know what to do. They were talking about it for a while and I (confessed), ‘That’s me, I’m still here. I’ve been here for a while, but I’m glad you guys liked the show, otherwise it would be really awkward.’”

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice — which features Vaughn in a double role, along with James Marsden and Eiza González — is set in a nebulous urban environment; Grabinski deliberately kept the time and place non-specific. That may have been just as well, since he didn’t have a say in the shooting location.

“That decision was made above my pay grade. I thought I was going to go to Australia for about six months,” he says.

“Then one day someone said, ‘You’re going to Winnipeg.’ I was like, OK. And then I googled movies shot in Winnipeg.”

He was relieved to see Ilya Naishuller’s 2021 action fest Nobody on the list; that film starred Bob Odenkirk as a government assassin triggered to resume his dangerous lifestyle after a home invasion.

“I love Nobody,” Grabinski says. “I watched that movie again and (thought), I’ll be fine. This is awesome. They totally use the city well. There seems to be a variety of architecture and stuff. I was like: this will be easy.”

Grabinski says the film’s crew matched his own passion for cinema.

“Prep was just very, very, very long days. And then the shoot was nights. And whether you’re shooting in Winnipeg or you’re shooting on the moon, most of it is just work,” he says, adding that he’s worked all over Canada, including Vancouver and an animated show that takes place in Toronto.

“But I’d say Winnipeg was the most kind of relaxing and chill place that I’ve worked in Canada.”

He says the laid-back vibe helped with his stress levels.

“I can’t tell you how much people having a good attitude and being happy to be there kind of just has a feedback loop for everybody, because it makes you have a better time and it’s a really, really difficult movie to make.

“I had really great people around me with a lot of experience. And I think they responded to the fact that I was very passionate about everything. Movies are like my favourite thing in the entire world.”

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