The Stunt Driver premiered last week at TIFF 2026 and proved to be a pleasant surprise to festival-goers, myself included. The film tells the story of a quirky Canadian stunt driver, Ken Carter, who wanted to jump one mile over the St. Lawrence River and spans almost a decade of his journey. Based on the documentary The Devil at Your Heels, actor Jay Baruchel and director Michael Dowse felt strongly about bringing this story to the big screen.
I was able to sit down with Dowse and Baruchel at TIFF this year just after The Stunt Driver premiere. Both grateful to be premiering the film in Toronto, we talked about why they wanted to bring Ken Carter’s story to life, first reactions to the film and challenges of making Canadian stories mainstream. I thoroughly enjoyed The Stunt Driver, and though I went into it expecting something absurd, the film had plenty of depth I didn’t expect.
We have two Canadian treasures here, premiering a Canadian film, The Stunt Driver, at TIFF 2026. It’s pretty perfect, isn’t it? What does it mean to you as Canadians?
Michael Dowse: It feels great. TIFF feels like the right place to launch it, for sure. It’s always good to come here; I love the crowds. It’s a very positive festival for that. It is set in Ontario, partly, so it makes sense to come to Toronto, even though it’s shot in Quebec. It’s very much a Quebec/Ontario story, so yeah, I love coming to TIFF, and it’s been a minute since I’ve been back here. It makes perfect sense.
Jay Baruchel: Yeah. No, of course. If they hadn’t programmed us, I might have had different things to say [laughs]. Very happy to be here. I’ve been coming…I’ve had movies at this festival on and off for the last 20‑some‑odd years and some really great moments here. The best thing about this festival is that it’s open to the public, and a bunch of people get to come in and watch the movie with you. The screening was absolutely lovely. It would be a shame if it hadn’t premiered here.
Now, I went into The Stunt Driver—I was there with you last night!
Jay Baruchel: Oh, awesome.
Michael Dowse: Oh, great!
Cheering very loudly.
Jay Baruchel: Oh, thank you.
I went in completely blind, only really knowing your past work and that I was going to see a kooky stunt driver. So what I got instead…you made me cry three times!
Michael Dowse: Oh, really?
Jay Baruchel: Alright. Great.
And I know Ed Helms on stage said something similar. How do you feel, having watched it yourselves and—
Jay Baruchel: What made you cry? First, tell us.
[Redacted]
Jay Baruchel: Of course. Oh, yeah. That’s a bummer, eh? Well, thank you.
Seeing that reaction from me, from the audience, from Ed, for The Stunt Driver, how does it feel?
Michael Dowse: I mean, it feels really satisfying, to be honest. I try to do that with all my movies—get people laughing and then try to have an emotional undertone and have some weight to it. For me, it’s always a goal to elicit some emotional reaction, whether or not it’s laughing. But I think the crying, getting that out of somebody, feels like I’ve succeeded as a director in terms of having them invest in the characters and in the story. So yeah, it’s amazing to hear that.
Jay Baruchel: Yeah, super, super rewarding. Thank you for the kind words. You are—all you ever really hope to do is either make someone’s day or fuck their day up, right? That’s the goal here with these. And if you’re really doing your job properly, it’s both, because it speaks to—for lack of a less hokey term—truth. There’s lots of unearned melodramatic bullshit that tries to make you feel something and makes you feel absolutely nothing. So if you can actually get people to feel things—anything—that’s half of it. That’s the whole goal when you make something.
So yeah, it was a pretty special thing to watch it with the audience. I have a hard time not looking around and checking everybody’s reactions the whole time, but I still did it. And people seem to be digging it.
How do I say this delicately? A biopic about anybody can be really challenging. But to bring something to the big screen, to a film festival, about a Canadian—that tends to limit your audience a little bit. And it doesn’t seem to be the case here. What about Ken Carter made you think The Stunt Driver could be more than just a Canadian story?
Michael Dowse: I think the first thing is how bananas his quest is. The scale of it—the size of the ramp, the size of the car, what he’s doing—I think that’ll translate internationally. Anybody with two eyes can look at that ramp and figure out how crazy what he’s doing is. And then his character—I mean, he’s Canadian for sure, and we don’t hide away from that. But how inspiring he is and how complicated he is, I think that’s universal as well. Obviously, the Canadian is on our sleeve; we’re not avoiding that. But he moves beyond borders in terms of a character anybody can relate to and look up to.
Jay Baruchel: I think if you set out to make a thing for everybody, you’ll make a thing for no one. But if you make a thing local, it’ll end up being universal if you do it right and it’s honest and truthful and not full of shit. Our stories and people and history are as interesting or boring as anybody else’s. I love that I come from a country where people ask those questions, but I also know most people don’t in other cultures.
Someone makes a movie in the States or England or Australia, and nobody says, “Are you worried about it?” It speaks to our shared humility and our self‑deprecation that’s baked into us, and our self‑doubt that’s baked into us, which I believe is our true national pastime. It’s a function of our deep‑rooted pragmatism, for better or worse. However, I think if you just make an awesome thing, people will find it at some point.
I saw a lot of improv—I assume, anyway—in The Stunt Driver. What was the line? “Let’s make breakfast.”
Michael Dowse: I spent years crafting that. [laughs] No, no, no.
Jay Baruchel: Finely honed.
Michael Dowse: Yeah. Finely honed.
Was there anything that you were really surprised to see make it into the final cut of The Stunt Driver?
Jay Baruchel: Literally anything that I came up with. Dowse is a nice man, and he humours me, but I just say a bunch of bullshit and assume they’ll cut it out and use the stuff that’s from the actual script and the movie we’re actually shooting. So yeah, literally all of it—I was surprised that all of it made it. Very flattered and chuffed, and think it’s funny shit. But of course, I think I’m very funny.
Michael Dowse: Just on that line—it’s a testament to Ben [Foster] and Jay here, because Ben comes back quick: “The fuck? What the fuck does that mean?” And then you’re like, “It’s something that we say,” and it turns it into a national—
Jay Baruchel: It’s like something we say up here. But no, no, I’ve never heard anybody say—no one’s ever called “Let’s fight” “Let’s make breakfast.” [laughs]
And to wrap up, what do you think Ken Carter would say about The Stunt Driver?
Michael Dowse: I talked to Gloria [Carfter] about this. She’s still alive in Montreal, and she seems to think he would be very happy. I hope this film helps to cement his legacy like he wanted. There’s sort of a meta thing about hopefully this film helps everybody remember Ken’s name.
Jay Baruchel: I would like to hope that, and I would hope he was able to see himself in the kind of epic, romantic context that he always wanted to be seen in.
That’s awesome. Thank you.
The Stunt Driver had its premiere on September 11th at TIFF 2026, but makes its theatrical debut on September 25th, 2026.
