(Piano instrumental)
Living room is this way, right?
Jesus Christ.
Season two of Sensitive Skin is very bold.
Very very bold.
(Unclear)
Season two continues.
With a new perspective.
Davina.
Season two is really about her discovering her own independence.
And in a very funny way because it's comedy.
My husband said no because he had taste.
It's about people facing challenges.
And trying to find out what is the best way to live.
Leave me alone!
What I love about this show is it's packed full of heart.
It's very real.
I just look at it as a slice of life.
Did you ever tell Roger about it?
No you wouldn't!
Should I?
No!
In the first series she is sort of a passenger to what is going on in her life.
Our challenge was to make Davina much more proactive.
Old Sensitive Skin is shed and new skin will start to appear.
I am going insane.
Davina has had big things happen in her life in season one.
If you want to look younger why not just get a haircut?
Excuse me?
The place I call home, you know, the one I grew up in, you sold to buy this cyber loft.
Man: How is your mother?
In and out. It's her fifth stroke.
I don't feel crazy, I mean, I have been depressed lately.
Oh, so have I. And I don't know why.
She's lost in season one and she looks for solutions in other people.
Davina, what are you looking for that I can't give you? Come home.
I'll change. (Groaning)
Davina: It's not you.
Man: Okay, who is it?
It's me...?
It's me.
(Groaning) It is me.
I would do anything for one more day with you.
Anything.
Season two is really her dealing with the fallout of her choices and her going through a process of becoming a complete person.
We decided to start eight months after the last episode ended so you see her still trying to deal with regret and guilt.
Should I move?
Maybe I should, I... I just can't figure it out.
She was really more alone than she ever has been which is sort of what she felt she wanted, strangely.
I just wanted...
Look over the garden wall?
See what's on the other side?
That's what she wanted, this independence, well now she's got it, so now she has to deal with it.
So it's kind of a, be careful of what you wish for thing.
She is sort of forced to be more introspective in season two.
She is forced to both understand who she is on the inside and reengage with the world. When I sign those papers, I, I'm going to be homeless.
In the BBC2 version, Davina moved to a houseboat, but it was in the city of London, that is very much a way of life there.
But that doesn't exist in Toronto.
Man (on phone): Would you meet me at the ferry docks?
Ferry docks?
Man (on phone): I am on the Island.
Sam introduces her to Toronto Island and a houseboat there.
Oh my God.
Nice, huh?
And she walks in, and it's this invitation, really, to live there.
And to start to get more of a perspective of what her life has been like on the mainland.
Do you want to see the view?
So we are literally giving her that view of where she was and hopefully a new perspective of how she can change that.
The city that we got to know so well in season one is now a faint memory in the distance over a body of water but it is very very much there.
Toronto is a character in this.
I know the skyline but I had never seen it from that perspective. It was truly beautiful.
Season one, we were trying to capture that sort of new Toronto phenomenon, those condo buildings that are popping up everywhere. They have a very distinctive look, glass, and white wall, sterile structures, and last season we made a point of avoiding greenery, but this year we embraced it.
This season is more sort of soft and organic, natural in appearance, moody, stormy kind of lighting, other times you get very brilliant luminous summer days, that feel.
The show feels really different, which will be really fun for the viewers.
I'm still getting used to the idea that life isn't going to, you know, happen anymore.
This a very non-charted journey that Davina goes through is very reflective of a journey that one of us would go through. That's what's really compelling about her and Kim's performance, is much much more developed in season two. It's a show about inner feelings and you need a performer that's brave enough to go through it and Kim has done that.
She doesn't even know her own name. Davina!
What makes Davina compelling is her humanity, I guess, her vulnerability. And she's trying to figure it out just like everybody else is.
So why are you here?
Oh, well, I don't know. Curiosity.
Along with aging and the anxiety that comes with that, her feelings of guilt, having had the affair, her separation from her son Orlando, who's mad at her.
She has a lot to cope with.
I'm sorry I'm such a royal pain in the ass.
In a strange way, you know, Davina's the centre of this whole world that's changing around her. Her life is evolving and she's trying to keep up or trying to take control.
I don't know how this works. We again have been faithful to what Hugo brilliantly wrote, but we've made it our own.
Look, I shouldn't really come here to talk to you about vaginas.
Alright.
I am proud of this season. I think it came out of genuine collaboration between me and Bob and Kim, and we all brought different things.
Alright, that's good.
Don McKellar and I outlined the entire series roughly and then brought in these three wonderful writers... Rosa Laborde and Susan Coyne and Lynn Coady... And they did a wonderful job.
This is going to work!
Coincidentally, each are in a different decade of their lives.
I was really excited to be working with three women to give Davina a voice.
We got together at the very beginning and we talked about the themes that we really felt connected to as a story of a woman at a certain age.
Nobody tells you about this part.
We were able to share stories from our own experiences to kind of bring in to the world of Davina.
She's having to discover who she is again in completely different circumstances.
The universe is at work in this series.
There seems to be a lesson there for Davina that she just has to learn.
Davina, you've got to stop wasting your time looking for something that isn't there.
You mean meaning?
Every one of our returning characters have major challenges and major twists.
(Laughing) Oh, Christ, I can't take this anymore.
What?
Her husband is changing. She doesn't recognize her life, and so Veronica has to find herself.
You just project all of your own bullshit on to me.
Amazing, it's my fault.
Last year it was young Evil Knievel, and now it's an aging Knight Rider.
It's the confusion and the hardness and the jealousy is still there, but you see more of the cracks and you feel for her much more.
You know I'm the one person in the world who will always tell you the truth.
She can bring out that fragile yet aggressive persona that really charges the scenes. I love watching Kim and Joanna do that stuff together.
Davina: Let's dig into the past, shall we? Have a little chat about the thing.
Put two gals in a room and let them figure it out, you know, as sisters.
It's terrific.
I'm not sure I'm really a scarf person.
I'm a scarf person.
He's burst upon his family and friends as a new person.
He's released the part of him that was an assh*le.
A true artist empties himself of all things.
Unfortunately he's also answering charges of fraud.
You make me feel really, really alone.
Well, that'll be good practice, won't it, for when you (Unclear). He has an artist's soul.
It's a really nice season for Roger because he makes a very noble sacrifice that shows his sort of true colours.
Davina: You're praying now.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, to...
To God.
After a two-month binge drinking phase, I discover Jesus Christ and I become a born again Christian.
♪ If there's joy ♪
It brings me out of my rut and I meet a girl.
Hello! (Laughing)
Nick, he has great comic timing, and he's wonderful.
I'm very happy this year that he's clean shaven.
I felt in the first year he looked too old to be my son.
I'm sorry. It's one of these shows where you can really kind of weave in the heart and the comedy.
This show really takes a lot of left turns, and it's really interesting.
If you're right, you can gloat, and if you're wrong, you can shut the hell up.
They're old friends. He knows exactly what buttons to push with her.
Can we just skip ahead to the part where this is a funny story?
Sam is one of the most important people in her life, a great ally.
You're my best friend.
This divorce, it's been a big, open wound for him.
Davina has been the only solid thing in his life.
Sam!
In season two, Sam has a chance to heal and move forward himself.
Moving is a journey. It doesn't matter if it's across town or across the hall. And aging is like a, like a guru.
Theodore is evolved to become Davina's confidant and real estate agent.
Half a dozen agents went through this unit a day, and I guarantee they each did a line.
We really wanted to fly with his character, and Theodore becomes an extremely important person in Davina's life. He becomes her therapist, basically.
He, I feel, out of all the characters, is the only adult, somebody who sort of has a worldview.
Your mind would never create something you can't have. Your mind is not an assh*le.
He's probably the realest character on this show.
He's not trying to impress anybody.
He's just who he is.
Let's just get this over with and we'll smoke a joint or something, alright.
That's part of the reason why Davina feels she can put her trust in him.
You should... you need to take my class.
It's great to have Mary back.
She, I think, is the Samantha of Sensitive Skin.
She's bigger than life, bolder than life.
(Groaning) You can do better than that, Davina, come on. (Shouting)
Sarah is trying to get women to grasp their power and to speak from, you know, the depths of their uterus.
Dig down deep enough and find, find that...
(Shouting) You need a brassy person to play that, and there's no one more brassy than Mary.
You think so? You ready?
Up, up! Oh!
There's my girl, there's my girl!
One of the true stars of this season, William, played by Pixel the dog.
I was very adamant William become more of the story of a bond and also a healing.
(Whistling) Willie?
Her investment in this dog is really one of the clearest arcs in the whole series. They become this team that's going to survive whatever they face.
I see you've brought William.
You don't mind, do you?
She enjoys Kim to the moon and back.
They really have a beautiful bond and both of them have big hearts, so I think that's why they get along so well.
Pixel was our number two on the call sheet.
He did more days, I think, than anyone else other than Kim.
We're amazed by this animal. I'm not entirely convinced it's a dog, frankly.
There's a great comfort in working in this environment, and it's instant. One of the things that's critical is that Don McKellar is still directing.
Working with Don, it's a joy. We have a shorthand.
The direction that I've got from him, it grounds me in a very secure place before a take.
Okay, cut.
And that's a really good feeling when you have that communication with your director.
Don allows for invention; he welcomes it.
And he has a kind of unfailing ear as to how an episode will build, and he keeps you in the music.
He does these really long, beautiful Steadicam takes, and sometimes you get it in one take and he moves on.
He's just got a great eye for it.
The tone is very kind of mixed, and he's excellent at that.
You couldn't ask for a better director.
What is happening here? Is this real?
It can't be real.
The delusions in the first six episodes were about characters outside of herself talking to Davina, warning her or encouraging her sometimes to not do the most healthy thing.
I'd go for it.
One of the things (Unclear) really wanted to do this season is demonstrate how memory becomes torturous.
I'm not completely convinced that my mind isn't an assh*le.
And this season, all the delusions have been focused on Al.
He becomes her delusional life.
Al.
She's experiencing bigger emotions, something more obsessive.
Oh Christ, Al!
All the things that she's afraid of, Al tells her.
You're just not thinking clearly. It's... darling!
It's kind of a poetic license to still keep the audience in touch with what's going on inside of her in the form of Al, being encouraging, shaming, being loving, sweet, playful, but it's really her id, it's really Davina.
I'm really trying to reengage with reality.
I think good storytelling takes you in a direction that you didn't expect, and what I really love about half hour comedy now, it comes out of the given circumstances and the characters' flaws.
That's the stories that I like to hear, that I like to see.
They reflect more of what's going on in life.
Sam: Should I be worried about you?
These are big, dramatic periods in people's life that's not really explored very much. (Sighing)
We hope that we show Davina as being empowered.
Oh, talk about a transformation!
(Gasping) It's very dramatic.
These are life and death issues, but it's also hilariously funny.
Who knows where that penis has been, right?
It really came together in a quite a unique statement.
Don't worry. It's just skin.
The courage with which Kim approached the work really set the bar very high for an honesty...
This cannot be healthy!
She comes to terms with the crisis that got her into this situation, which is what is her life about, and how to choose for herself.
The themes are very universal.
f*ck off!
We met them with things simmering, and now everybody erupts in one way or another in season two.
I am not amused... at all.
There's something so touching about this story about someone who's reached this age and still has so many questions and is looking for peace, inner peace. It's not in a relationship and it's not in being a mother or a sister.
It's about her as a person finding that.
(Sighing) I'm going to heal that sh*t.