Christine Vachon Jokes She Likes Pedro Pascal Better Than Joaquin Phoenix in Todd Haynes’ ‘De Noche’

Christine Vachon , the prolific independent producer whose Killer Films has backed Happiness , Boys Don’t Cry , Carol and more recently Past Lives , May December and Materialists , said at the Edinburgh Film Festival on Friday that Pedro Pascal is “a revelation” in Todd Haynes’ re-worked gay romance movie.

De Noche , currently in post-production with no release date announced yet, was set to star Joaquin Phoenix before he abruptly pulled out before the shoot began. Vachon previously called the situation “a tragedy” and explained in an industry talk at Edinburgh how she and her long-time collaborator Haynes managed to rebuild the project after Phoenix’s exit. Related Stories Movies Michael Sheen and Director Simon Ryninks Reveal Their Personal Connections to Welsh Sci-Fi Caper 'Out There': "This Really Pushed Buttons for Me" Movies Sarajevo Film Festival Boss Jovan Marjanović on Owning Its Powerful Origin Story: "We Connect This Legacy of War... and Build Bridges"

Host Wendy Mitchell joked: “I actually like [Pascal] better than Joaquin Phoenix anyway,” to which Vachon responded: “I kind of do too!” The tightly-packed crowd at Edinburgh’s Central Hall laughed with them.

Vachon continued: “It wasn’t an easy situation. And as I also stated, it was devastating that Todd didn’t get to make a movie again that year. If you take the […] glass half-full version, and ‘everything happens for a reason’ [perspective], maybe the reason was that this was a role that Pedro was born to play. He is certainly extraordinary in the film, and by the way, so is Danny [Ramirez]. I mean, both of them are a revelation.”

Getting a “do-over” allowed them to find a better shoot location, said Vachon, which showed her everything worked out for the best. Pascal was brought on board via her work with him on Celine Song’s Materialists . “People always say to me, ‘Is he as nice as he seems?’ […] He is. People are so invested. They love him.”

As a titan of independent film production, Vachon — in Edinburgh with her latest film Pretty Babies , directed by Tyler-Marie Evans, who spoke to THR in depth about winning over Vachon just this week — was also probed on the box office success of Obsession and Backrooms this year, two movies that have challenged the status quo in Hollywood. “I do,” she said when asked if she likes the energy coming out of YouTube. “But when we were making movies like Poison [and] Go Fish , we also identified an audience… Back in those days, the LGBTQ audience could go to bars. There were parts of town [where you] could take your leaflets and just go specific places where people gathered and say, ‘Look! We made this! It’s for you.’ That’s just moved online.”

Vachon is extremely buoyed by the current theater-going demographic being made up, predominantly, of people aged under 30. She cannot deny, however, that “we’re at a time of great disruption,” and the queer film landscape is a little rocky with so much division in the U.S. at the moment. “It’s a conundrum right now. We have something like Heated Rivalry which couldn’t be a bigger hit, and we still have politicians campaigning on who gets to use what bathroom. And it’s happening [in the U.K.] too.