Producer Ryan Reynolds and Director Colin Hanks teamed up to create documentary “John Candy: I Like Me,” about the Planes, Trains and Automobiles star.Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
Most of us knew John Candy as the comedian of SCTV fame and the actor in such feature films as Uncle Buck, Spaceballs and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. His friends and colleagues, though, also knew the young, prestar Candy by a persona. Dan Aykroyd called him “Johnny Toronto.” To Joe Flaherty, Candy’s larger-than-life image was “Johnny Deluxe.”
This was a guy in the early 1970s who picked up the tab when he and his Second City comedy theatre castmates when out for drinks, even though they all took home the same meagre pay.
“He drove around in limos when he made no money, going: ‘this is who I am, everybody’s gotta catch up,’” Dave Thomas says in the new documentary John Candy: I Like Me.
The film, which premieres Oct. 10 on Amazon Prime, was directed by Colin Hanks, with Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds on board as one of the seven producers. Neither Hanks, nor Reynolds were aware of Candy’s grandiose Johnny Toronto persona before making the film.
“It’s faking it until you make it,” Hanks said in an interview with Reynolds during September’s Toronto International Film Festival. “I think at its core, it’s: ‘I’m not quite comfortable yet. I’ve not quite made it. But I’m just going to will it into existence.’”
ROB Magazine: What business leaders can learn from Earth’s most rizz-tastic human, Ryan Reynolds
Bill Murray tells the story of Candy spending $1,200 he didn’t have on wall-to-wall lime-green carpeting for an apartment with golden drapes and a BarcaLounger, in which he smoked an “elegant” brand of cigarettes.
“He settled back into his Barca with that Rothmans and said, ’Yeah, look at all I have achieved here.’”
The documentary celebrates and attempts to explain Candy, who died in 1994 of a heart attack in his sleep at age 43, while filming the Western adventure-comedy Wagons East in Mexico. Family members along with stars such as Steve Martin, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara and Hanks’s father, Tom Hanks, recall Candy reverentially, often to a soundtrack of syrupy strings.
The film’s story is often in disagreement with its title, taken from a key Candy-delivered line in 1987’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles. “I like me,” said Del Griffith, a harmless schlub and shower curtain ring salesman.
But did Candy like himself? According to Hanks, the title of the film was a source of intense discussion, mostly because Candy’s son, actor/comedian Chris Candy, was against it.
The documentary, directed by Hanks, features Steve Martin, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara and his father, Tom Hanks.Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
“Chris was adamant that John didn’t like himself,” Hanks explained. “But ‘I like myself’ was one of his most iconic lines, and it was speaking to the story we wanted to tell. We all present that we like ourselves, generally. Some of that is an act.”
Candy’s Johnny Toronto, later amplified as the SCTV character Johnny LaRue, was a front. Reynolds, who never met Candy, described the beloved performer as humble and distinctly Canadian.
“I believe the virtues that set Canadians apart are kindness, thoughtfulness and self-effacing, but not necessarily self-loathing. John laughed at himself, and he didn’t punch down. If you’re going to punch someone, punch yourself. And that’s something John did beautifully. He laughed at himself.”
Sometimes he didn’t. Self-conscious about his weight, Candy insisted on wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt during the mudwrestling scene with bikini-clad women in the Ivan Reitman-directed screwball comedy Stripes in 1981.
“The women got into it, they were all fit,” Stripes star Murray recalls in the documentary. “They started pulling his ears and stuff. People would take a little advantage, because they’d think, ‘Well, you could do anything you want to hurt him. You could say anything, you could hurt him. He’s so big, I couldn’t possibly hurt him.’ He didn’t enjoy that. I understood that.”
Hanks and Reynolds pose inside a replica car from the film “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” on the day of the premiere of the documentary film “John Candy: I Like Me.”Carlos Osorio/Reuters
The Toronto-raised Candy was a big man who wanted to be a football player. After a knee injury put an end to that dream, he warily ventured into acting. Aykroyd and Valri Bromfield tricked him into trying out for the Toronto branch of The Second City by inviting him to the theatre to meet for lunch.
“I went down there, I was waiting around, I was looking at everybody kind of in awe,” Candy recalls in the film. “And I hear John Candy being paged.”
Unsure of his comedic chops, he let the improv partner in his audition do all the talking. Candy just nodded, agreed to everything the guy said, and ended up getting the job.
“In a strange way, improv comedy is very Canadian,” Hanks said. “It’s not about going for the jokes and setting yourself apart. It’s ‘yes’ and ‘and,’ and listening. I don’t think it’s a mistake that John found his footing as a performer doing improv. The idea that the group is better than the individual was in his nature.”
Editor’s note: The headline on this article has been updated to correct the title of the documentary.
