If it’s possible to get to know people from the things that they create, then what do Terri Tatchell’s creations tell us about her?
On the one hand, there is Neverland Tea Salon, the sunlit Kitsilano tearoom Tatchell co-founded with Vancouver theatre artist Renee Iaci in 2013.
Aromatic teas (some quite rare) are poured into shabby chic cups and served to thirsty tea lovers at converted sewing tables. The bustling tearoom is whimsical and welcoming, and a recent recipient of a Top 10 Award from OpenTable.
And on the other hand – make that a sleek robotic hand, covered with grime and gripping a flamethrower – there’s the wild science fiction that tumbles forth from Tatchell’s imagination and into the multiplexes: District 9, for which the Vancouver screenwriter was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Chappie, which kicks off its global theatrical run this week.
“Apparently, people walk in [to Neverland] because of District 9, and they go ‘Um, what’s Terri like? How does this match that?’” Tatchell laughs.
It’s Saturday morning, Oscar weekend. Tatchell is seated at the back corner table of Neverland Tea Salon; as soon as the interview is over, Tatchell will be off to pack for the epic Chappie press tour that will take her and her husband – District 9 and Chappie co-writer and director Neill Blomkamp – to four cities on three continents.
So which of the two hands is Terri Tatchell? Is she Neverland Tea or District 9, shabby chic or Chappie?
“There are so many different facets to every individual woman, and it’s important to embrace all of them and not be ashamed of any of them,” says Tatchell.
And there you have the cornerstone of the Terri Tatchell brand: Diversity.
“You know how you remember all of the slights you’ve been given in your life? Well, many years ago, a local film industry woman said to me, ‘well, aren’t you a jack of all trades, master of none,’” Tatchell smiles. “I will never forget that. Now, my goal is to be a jack of all trades and master of the ones I choose to be.”
When Tatchell – who was born in Toronto but moved to Vancouver when she was two months old – was young, she lived for stories.
“I had a little record player and I had a record of Danny Kaye doing fairytales, and I would listen to it over and over again,” she recalls. “I was seeing a movie in my head as I listened to the records.”
Tatchell – the daughter of an elementary school teacher and a BC Tel staffer – didn’t know that storytelling could lead to any type of profession.
“I did not know anybody with a creative job,” says Tatchell. “I did not know it was a possibility.”
And so, at that critical juncture in Grade 12 when a student must plot out a course for post-secondary studies, Tatchell chose law.
“It was a toss between a lawyer and a journalist, and I think I would have loved either, but I went to SFU for psychology and criminology, because criminals really fascinate me,” she says.
As Tatchell juggled schooling with a part-time job in a local law firm, she quickly learned a hard truth about the legal profession: It wasn’t for her.
“I was like, ‘oh, it’s not how it is on TV, I do not want to be that articling student in that room making no money,’” says Tatchell.
But it was while she was working in a law firm that she met (and was soon employed by) the late Bob Scarabelli, president and CEO of Rainmaker.
Scarabelli – an industry legend during his lifetime – helped spark Vancouver’s journey to its present status as a leader in the visual effects industry. Tatchell was Rainmaker’s first employee.
Tatchell left Rainmaker after a year (“I don’t think I was the best assistant in the world. Bob offered me another position in the company, and I decided to move on”), but she’d be back – and one giant step closer to her current position as a tea-swilling, Oscar-nominated storyteller.
Her proclivity for storytelling is evident in the zigzag trajectory of the interview. Tatchell unfurls her story like a spider spinning a web: rapidly and full of intricate detail, but without any obvious chronology, until you step back and behold a dazzling mosaic.
Tatchell’s mosaic includes additional spates of soul-crushing employment in law firms and a bank, motherhood, divorce, and then the epiphany that she was destined to write stories for the screen – which led her to relevant courses at Langara College and Vancouver Film School, and ultimately back to Rainmaker (telling Scarabelli that she would return to her old job, but only if she got to do PR and read scripts, too).
“I don’t believe in regrets; I think we go on our paths for a reason,” says Tatchell. “I think I’m constantly evolving and changing and learning, from myself and everyone around me, and I look at my life as a movie, and I love watching my own movie. I do! It’s like, what’s going to happen next? God only knows.”
And it was during her second stint at Rainmaker that her collaboration (both romantic and professional) with Blomkamp began.
“He had left [Rainmaker] three weeks prior to my coming there, but he wanted to come back and film a short film in the garage, and he had to ask me,” says Tatchell. “That was the first time we talked on the phone.”
The life that Tatchell and Blomkamp have built together reads like a Hollywood screenplay: From music video director and burgeoning screenwriter to A-list sci-fi tastemakers, developing some ideas independently, and others together – the most notable to date being 2009’s Oscar-nominated District 9.
“He took me on a different path,” says Tatchell of Blomkamp. “I was never focused on Hollywood. I was very Vancouver-focused. I wanted to make my own films here.”
In some ways, the Oscar nomination set her back: Not in the industry, but in her confidence level.
“It paralyzed me a little bit,” says Tatchell. “It was too soon. And if I had just been alone trying, would that have happened? Probably not. But would I have aspired to that? Probably not.”
Being a screenwriter – and in particular a female screenwriter – compels her forward.
“I don’t like it when someone says I can’t do something, whether or not it’s because, number one, I’m Canadian, and number two, I’m a woman, and number three, science fiction, and number four, R-rated,” says Tatchell.
Which brings us to Chappie, the idea she developed with Blomkamp about a mechanized police droid from the near future who is stolen, and reprogrammed to experience independent thoughts and feelings.
Chappie stars Sharlto Copley, a mulleted Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver, Yo-Landi Visser (of Die Antwoord), and Dev Patel.
Tatchell doesn’t think she’ll write with her husband again any time soon (he’s hard at work on the Alien reboot anyway). She’s juggling numerous projects of her own, including an adaptation of Vancouver author Susin Nielsen’s popular Word Nerd, as well as Neverland, whose beginning is, in Tatchell’s mind, forever intertwined with Chappie.
“Chappie started shooting a week after Neverland opened, so those two are married for me, and I feel like I grew so much during that time in my sense of self and my confidence and my willingness to fail,” says Tatchell.
“I’m proud of Chappie.There isn’t a frame I would change.”
