I recently had the opportunity to interview Cody Lighting and Hannah Cheesman, who co-star in Hey Viktor!, a semibiographical film about Cody's experiences after starring in the indie hit Smoke Signals when he was a child.

The movie will have its world premiere at Tribeca 2023 and will be screened at the Village East by Angelika and AMC 19th Street.

If you're interested in seeing it, you can purchase tickets at ⁠https://tribecafilm.com/films/hey-viktor-2023⁠.

Listen to the interview using the audio player above. If you don’t want to listen to the interview, keep scrolling for the transcript of the interview.

Keep an eye out for my upcoming review!

Chapters:

00:00 - Intro

01:22 - Balancing Cody's actual life with the fictionalized version of his life

03:42 - Working with Liam Mitchell

07:27 - What attracted Hannah to Hey Viktor!

09:19 - Characterizing Kate

11:18 - The documentary aspect

12:47 - Outro

Austin: Hello, everyone and welcome to another Tribeca interview. I'm here today with Cody Lightning and Hannah Cheesman from the film Hey Viktor!

It's a kind of autobiographical film about Cody's experience with his childhood stardom in Smoke Signals, which kind of plays a role in this. And Hannah, she plays oh, gosh, Kate. I always wanna say Anna is your character. I don't know why.

Hannah Cheesman: Huh? Huh. That's, that's interesting. Maybe we could overdub it.

Austin: Yeah.

Hannah: Change it to Anna.

Austin: Yeah, just. That super cheesy oh gosh. The room over dubbing Yeah. Totally fits the piece. Yeah, for sure. And for those who are traveling to New York, it's playing on June 8th. At the Angelica Theater at 7:30 PM Eastern AMC 19th Street, June 9th at 9:30 PM Eastern and June 17th.

Also at the Angelica at 9:00 PM Eastern. It'll also be playing at Tribeca at home. So if you're not in New York, you'll be able to watch it from the comfort of your own, wherever you watch movies from as long as you're in the us. But yeah. Cody, let's get I it, this is an interesting movie because it's talking a lot about your experiences after Smoke Signals, which so let's talk about that.

What was how did you balance the autobiographical stuff where you're talking about your own life with this kind of fictionalized version of your life?

Cody Lightning: So, a lot of the story are actually real with a little bit of, twisting and turning with dialogue and a couple of things that were altered to make it fit. When I was a kid working on I grew up in Los Angeles and I had somewhat of a different type of popularity than other kids for different reasons.

And mine was for, because I worked in film and television and riding that throughout like my teenage years and into young adulthood in the First Nations community. I was known. So, when I would go to powwows or any kind of indigenous events, people recognized me, Smoke Signals, kid, oh hey, Viktor!

And it's something that stuck with me my whole life. And so I had certain experiences. Based off of that popularity and, indigenous fame, and even now until this day, people will recognize me even though I look completely different from when I was a young man and a teenager, and still it's like, Hey, Viktor!

And so there was a whole rollercoaster of events that have happened throughout my life, both good, bad, everywhere in between. And yeah, so that was, so the writing aspect of putting all that all down into this project it just worked, it fit and it was very, it flowed very well.

And with my team involved in my partner Sam, we were able to create something amazing out of it from, life experiences and then some I adapted from my friendships that I had. I with the, my, the Kate character that character's based off of a real friend of mine that I'm really close with.

And the uncle character and different parts of the film are all adapted from real life and actual family members and friends that I've had throughout my life. So I don't know if that answers that quite well, but

Austin: No, it does. And going a bit back, you talk about being known. Going to powwows and things like that.

I wanna point out something your cinematographer is oh gosh, I had it right here. Liam Mitchell. Liam yep. Yeah. And he shot he worked with Joe Buffalo for I think a couple of shorts. Yep. So, what was it like working with him? And alternatively, if you wanna make it a more broad answer how did you wanna bring Native Voices, both in front of and behind the camera?

Cody: Joe Buffalo's actually a cousin of mine. We're both from Muskochese. Joe's mom is my mom's auntie. So Joe and I are related in that way. Liam, I knew of Liam. I never met Liam until he was brought on board, but through the skateboarding community, cuz Liam and I, and also Dave, our other cinematographer, were all skateboarders.

We all knew of each other through that world. And so when we brought him on board, it was really odd. He's amazing, the things that he can do His creative input on, his, the way he wanted to shoot certain things was awesome to have on board, very direct and clear with his vision visually with how he wanted certain things to look and those who watched the film are going to see certain shots and certain things that we did that are just, and yeah, it was awesome to work with him and Dave as well.

In front of and behind the camera. It's been a long time coming to get more indigenous faces out there. And right now there's a quite a bit of indigenous projects out. There's Killers of the Flower Moon is coming out and there's Reservation Dogs and Res Ball, and there's quite a bit of projects being made now. And a long time ago, in the eighties, nineties, there was like one indigenous project per year that everyone flocked to, to be a part of. And now there's, the doors have opened for, a broader spectrum of our storytelling and our visions and all of that.

That's great. And then also we had quite a few interns as well that are getting into film. And television that we're able to shadow certain positions on our crew. And that as well has to grow, not just talent in front of the camera, but behind as well, so that we can start hiring more indigenous, DPs and writers and grips and locations, all of the stuff behind the camera and behind the scenes that's all very important. And it's happening not rapidly, but it is happening. And yeah, I'm proud that I can be a part of that. It's, it was really a tough struggle growing up and having very limited projects and having limited resources for behind the camera style of work, and now it's starting to broaden. And so I'm really happy to see that.

Austin: Yeah, just what was it in february? Murders...Murder in Big Horn came out on Showtime. And there's been a probably too many to name honestly this year. Yeah and funnily enough, in that interview, she mentioned Killers of the Flower Moon.

I think I talked with the director of that. But yeah, I do think it's been a long time coming, especially with I was, especially with, I think Sundance has a lot of roots. I know we're not in, in talking about Sundance, but they take a lot of pride in indigenous cinema. If you ever watch go to Sundance, you'll always see a statement an aboriginal statement.

And played in front of the film, each film, short. What? And I believe any talks they have so it's in yeah. But Hannah, I wanna talk about your role first pretty boilerplate. I just wanna know what attracted you to Hey Viktor! As bougie as that sounds, I, because I think it's a kind of two-hander where both of you have to carry the film.

So I'd love to get your thoughts. Yeah,

Hannah: for sure. First and foremost it was the script. It was really funny. And and frankly, really funny projects are few and far between, like immediately it was really funny. The audition sides were really funny.

And they had said in the breakdown like, you can improv. And I was like, Ugh, dreamy. Doing that, and also being curious about to, to Cody's point there are only so many indigenous projects and that made this particularly interesting because this is a world I didn't know and a kind of comedy I wasn't, like privy to because I do feel like this project brings like a particular.

By the nature of what it is, like a particular point of view in terms of the comedy as like native or, middle of Canada First Nations comedic tone. So, it was exciting from the get-go. And I also loved the fact that. The scripts and the film and the relationship between Kate and Cody's character is that it's not romantic.

And I feel like that is so rare, to have a buddy comedy that is, not romantic. If it's two genders or two different genders or something like that. Stereotypically, it is romantic. And the fact that this steered clear of that and allowed there to be a friendship, like a deep, meaningful, best friendship with comedy between a man and a woman, it was just like, just spoke to my feminist heart.

Austin: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, Kate is a pretty complex character. I think because. She's, yes, they're pals, but, and I don't know how much we want to talk about it, but she also has moments where she's maybe not totally being a friend to Cody. And so I guess how would you characterize.

Those aspects of trying to play the difficult parts of her as well as those Hey, I'm just trying to help you moments

Hannah: So what are you referring to when you say where she's not being a friend without, I guess giving spoilers away? Sorry.

Austin: Without, without giving spoilers. So there's a moment where it's revealed. She wants to head back to LA.

Hannah: Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah so I actually still think that's her being a friend. I think that Kate's real internal struggle has to do that. With that the fact that she's really devoted herself as a friend to this person and devoted herself to the dreams that they've shared together.

And I think that it's actually not, that she's not being a good friend. When she, at least this is the way that I portrayed it and chose to the direction I chose for her. It's not that she was not being a good friend anymore, it was that she thought for the first time in her life she would, she was considering putting herself before.

Everybody else before all of the expectations of her, before her best friendships and her most important relationship with Victor. Like before putting that ahead of her, she was like, for the first time just thinking, maybe I shouldn't do this. Maybe he doesn't deserve it. Maybe he doesn't put me before him.

And so I think at least for me it was with that psychology in mind, it really was easy to justify that kind of behavior because, It made a lot of emotional sense to me that this woman would wanna do that because it didn't feel selfish in that way,

Austin: yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

And then Cody, so this this film is shot like a documentary, I guess the closest analogy. As much as I hate the show. The office, it would be the closest analogy is of how it shot. All handheld, I'm sorry. I hate the office. I'm revealing that in front of all the entire world, but I hate The Office.

But yeah. What inspired that? The documentary aspect of it?

Cody: The Office? No, just, no. No, just because it's a lot more, we were able to be a lot more raw with it and a lot more edgy. And yeah, as you can see, if you, when people watch it, you, the grit comes from that. And that's what we were going for. We wanted it to be very raw. So pretty much that's it.

Like, I'm not a huge documentary person to be honest. But handheld, wobbly camera, on the fly is something that I do it's not like for all projects, but for this one specifically, it's, that's how I had envisioned it from the get-go. So there wasn't any one project or show or anything that I.

It was like, this is what I want. It was more work though, just to capture those moments, and I think with the documentary style, you can really capture those looks, those glares those punchlines and all of that. So that's, I don't know if that answers it well, but it, there wasn't any kind of, anything that I had watched or had in mind specifically for the style that we did.

Just that I know. Or I knew, sorry, that we could be a lot more, we could play a lot more with this format. And that's pretty much why we did it this way.

Austin: Yeah, that makes sense. And to answer your question, that does answer my question and yeah. Cody, Hannah, I want to thank you so much for your time and Again showtimes are June 8th, seven 30 pm Eastern, June 9th, 9:30 PM Eastern.

June 17th, 9:00 PM Eastern the June 8th and June 17th. Showings are at the Angelica Theater and the June 9th, one is at a m c 19th Street. And then after that is when Tribeca At Home opens, I believe from July, June 19th to July 2nd. So yeah, go check it out. Yeah. Thank you both so much.

Cody: Thank you so much, Austin.

Hannah: Thank you.

Until next time!

Thanks to Shane Conto, Joseph Davis, David Walters, Ambula Bula, and Brian Skuttle for supporting Austin B Media on Patreon!