Sian Heder fought for years to make CODA the right way. She’s still being underestimated.
It’s been a long road for writer-directorwas set up for a studio treatment at Lionsgate. Adapted from the French filmit tells the story of a hearing teenage girl of deaf parents who begins pursuing her dream as a singer. Following a period of Lionsgate conflicts and shake-ups, the project was eventually made independently, with Heder committing to her vision of authentic casting and filmmaking.
But to watch the movie not only come out at Sundance with that kind of reception, but then continue to build and keep finding audiences—we released it in the summer and so I didn’t even know that there would be an awards conversation. It’s been really thrilling, to be honest. I shouldn’t react to the term “crowd-pleaser” because that is what you want, the crowd is the audience. [If the audience is pleased watching your movie you should be so lucky. I don’t know.
You have the Rotten Tomatoes where it was like 96% positive, and I’m scrolling through, of course, trying to find the one splat and read the one shitty review. someone said, “Oh, there’s nothing new here.” I remember feeling so delighted by that comment because I thought, if you really think there’s nothing new here, then I did my job.Part of that job is behind the scenes, away from set, fighting for authentic casting and elements like that.
I love that those things are what people respond to in the film—the things that you fight for and feel like the things that make the movie special. The silent concert scene, everybody said to me, “That’s too long, you can’t leave an audience in silence for two minutes.” Every sound designer was like, “You’ve got to put something in there, a tone, something to fill the space.
Writing is so fluid for me. There are some writer-directors who end up feeling precious about their writing when they get on set, and I’m the opposite. I love finding things in the moment, I love rewriting on set if I see something happen or we rehearse the scene and it’s not working, and I’m very comfortable throwing out what I’ve done and rewriting in the moment.
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