TIFF 2025 | Carney, Canadian actors honour hometown comedy legend John Candy

At a time of heightened patriotism in Canada, the Toronto International Film Festival kicked off its fiftieth version with a documentary honouring Canadian comic John Candy.

The world premiere of John Candy: I Like Me on Thursday night had the viewers, together with Prime Minister Mark Carney, rolling with laughter remembering the comedy legend’s basic characters and pulling out tissues as they discovered concerning the actor’s struggles with stardom.

Candy is understood for traditional performances on the comedy-variety present Second City Television in addition to Hollywood blockbusters similar to Splash, Stripes and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. TIFF opens at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats to annex Canada have inspired Canadians to assist home-grown companies and movies, journey domestically and shun U.S.-made merchandise.

“In Canada, our sovereignty our identity, has come under threat, and when Canadians heard those threats, they channelled their inner John Candy, stood up, elbows up, wrote our own lines. … We have our own plans,” Carney mentioned earlier than the premiere.

“Don’t push a Canadian too far,” he instructed the group, drawing applause and cheers as he reminisced about watching a few of his favorite characters Candy portrayed, together with his first private political idol – the mayor of Melonville on SCTV, he joked.

Directed by Colin Hanks and produced by Canadian Ryan Reynolds, the documentary brings to life Candy’s basic characters and his work by archival supplies and testimonials from household and associates together with Canadian co-stars Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy. Other Candy co-stars similar to Colin Hanks’ father Tom, Bill Murray and Macaulay Culkin additionally share tales. The documentary additionally attracts consideration to fatphobia and nervousness dysfunction, points that shadowed Candy’s life and profession. The Ontario native died of a coronary heart assault in 1994 at age 43

“It turns out that the very things that he struggled with were the same things that we all struggle with. And so that sense of him being that everyman, I don’t think people understand just how accurate that was,” Hanks mentioned. He walked with producer Reynolds, who wore a Canada T-shirt and blazer embroidered with the coordinates of Newmarket, Ontario, Candy’s hometown. The documentary will stream on Prime Video in October.