For Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom the main motivation for making the biographical film Tenzing has been to give the legendary mountaineer Tenzing Norgay his deserved place in history. An ambitious new addition to Apple Original’s much acclaimed, exclusive slate of premium programming, it premiered at Telluride followed by Toronto International Film Festival and is all set to drop on Apple TV on October 16. Popular stars Tom Hiddleston and Willem Dafoe star as Edmund Hillary and John Hunt alongside Tibetan-Chinese actor Genden Phuntsok and Tibetan-Indian actor Tenzin Dalha, who play the titular character in two different ages and phases of his life. Tibetan-Nepali actress Thinley Lhamo plays Tenzing’s wife Dawa. The New Indian Express caught up with Peedom, Phuntsok, Dalha and Lhamo in Toronto for an exclusive chat. Excerpts:
I’ll begin with the most obvious question to you Jennifer, why a biographical film on Tenzing Norgay?
Jennifer Peedom: My film career began 23 years ago as a camera operator in the Himalayas. I wound up working in the mountains somehow. Very early on, I met one of Tenzing’s grandsons and one of his sons, and I was fascinated by his story from the very beginning. I also have friends who were very close to the Sherpa community and so my introduction to the Himalayas came with the introduction to the community. I was most interested in the people who lived there, as well as the extraordinary landscape. I would see films in which the Sherpa people were being left on the cutting room floor. So, 20 years on, it struck me that Tenzing had become a supporting character in the story of the first ascent of Mount Everest. Most journalists still describe it as when Edmund Hillary summited the mountain with his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay. It was time to redress the balance and tell the story through Tenzing’s perspective, which is an extraordinary story of overcoming adversity and obstacles, even just to get to the starting line, without even climbing the mountain itself.
I thought the film also goes beyond the individual to delve into the cultural schisms and how the Tenzing-Hillary friendship transcends those differences…
JP: It was an important part to show that when we come together and work together, beautiful things can happen. There is compassion and curiosity and friendships can form that can deepen the experience for everyone. Clearly, it did for Edmund Hillary, who dedicated the rest of his life to the betterment of the Sherpa community. John Hunt remained friends with Tenzing for the rest of his life. It is a beautiful story of a friendship even though there was adversity and some conflict along the way because of their differences in approach. Fundamentally, what was driving Tenzing up the mountain was something quite different from what was driving the Westerners, and that was what I was interested in exploring.
When Tenzing likens climbing to getting into the mother's lap...
JP: Mother's lap! That came from Tenzing himself. He talked about the way to approach the mountain, and I always loved that idea and wanted to find a way of getting it into the screenplay.
Genden, how did you relate to Tenzing Norgay? How did you approach the character?
Genden Phuntsok: I live in China, in the Sichuan Tibetan plateau. I have some cultural similarities. We live in a Himalayan range. The place and the lifestyle are quite alike. That helped me in shaping the character. When I read his story, I found that when he was young, he was a potato farmer and herded yak. Some of this I also did when I was young. Even now, I have my farm, and I plant barley, potatoes etc. Every year I harvest them. October is the harvest season in my hometown so after TIFF I have to go back to harvest my barley and potato.
So, is acting something you do alongside farming?
GP: Earlier yes, but now I really love acting. I can lose my life for a role like Tenzing Norgay.
What made you pick him up, Jennifer?
JP: Part of it was the cultural similarity. I was looking for someone who had a similar cultural and spiritual background and the fact that he grew up farming potatoes and herding yaks was really important. I came across his work through the late great Pema Tseden, the Tibetan director, through his film Jinpa in particular. There was a gravitas to Genden and that was important because Tenzing Norgay had a tremendous command over his team, there was a lot of respect for him and what he had achieved at that point. When we meet him in the film in 1953, he was probably the most experienced Himalayan climber alive. There was a magnificent smile, a sparkle to him that I had heard about from his children and other Sherpas who were on that expedition. Genden has gravitas but also this effervescence and energy and a very hearty laugh. It was a combination of all those things and he is an incredibly accomplished and experienced actor anyhow.
Tenzing Norgay also had this urge to ask questions…
JP: A deep curiosity really defined Tenzing. He had worked with many cultures. He'd worked with the Italians, the French, and the Swiss, and the British. He had a way of observing people and being chameleon-like. He was able to absorb the culture, customs and behaviour of those on the expedition. He was a highly intelligent man who never learned to read or write.
Acting involves a lot of give and take. How was it for you with such celebrated actors like Tom Hiddleston and Willem Dafoe?
GP: With Willem Dafoe and Tom Hiddleston, I never got the feeling that they were big stars. We discussed every detail of the story and how we could make some aspects better. Sometimes we’d imagine we were in 1953. What they did at that time, or at that place? It made me very relaxed.
JP: Genden and Willem were in a cabin in New Zealand and they both used to feed the ducks outside their rooms. They would run lines together and just call out the lines to each other. Both were so incredibly generous.
One of the things that I wanted to do with the relationship was that they should form and build one outside of the shooting time as well. So, we sent them up to Khumjung, which is where the main character of my previous film, Sherpa, lives. I wanted Genden to spend time with him learning to be a Sherpa. We spent time in that community, with that language. I wanted Tom and Genden to experience this incredible landscape and just have some time together as people. They did a lot of character work during that time.
GP: You have to experience real life to perform well. When he was young, Tenzing Norgay didn’t have shoes, and carried heavy bags bare feet. So, I just put stones in my bag and carried it bare feet. I walked for almost half a day.
Where did you shoot?
JP: A lot of thought went into that, and having spent so much time in that landscape myself, I wanted to depict it in the way that it affected me emotionally. That culture is inextricably linked to that landscape. So, we shot all of the cultural story up until Base Camp, in Nepal, including the aerials of Everest and up the Icefall and all of the drone shots on Everest itself. We did a big aerial unit on Everest but we shot with the actors in Nepal, in the monasteries, in villages. From Base Camp up, we shot in New Zealand. The New Zealand Southern Alps are almost as big from bottom to top, as the Himalayas. They start almost at sea level, at a much lower altitude. But because of the team that we had from New Zealand—the country has a lot of very well-known, Everest mountaineers—and our head of locations and safety, Guy Cotter, who had climbed Everest five times and been running expeditions to the Himalayas since the 1990s—we were able to find the exact locations that matched Southern Alps to Everest. We wanted to give the audience as visceral an experience as possible of actually being on Everest.
Quite clearly it would have been a long and tough shoot…
JP: It was endurance. I just kept reminding myself it’s just like climbing Everest, one step in front of the other. New Zealand, in particular, was very cold, had very short days. It was highly technical and difficult, but that was part of the original vision. Everyone who signed up was aware of that vision and very supportive of it. We deliberately had the cast and crew that we knew would flourish in that environment. We all had an amazing experience, there was a beautiful camaraderie. It really was like being on an expedition together.
Tenzin and Thinley, how did this film come to you? Did your previous acclaimed film, Shambhala play a vital role in that?
Thinley Lhamo: I auditioned for Shambhala later. I auditioned for Tenzing way before. I got an email saying I had been shortlisted, but they're on a hold for a year, so they'll get back to me when they start on it. And then Shambhala happened. Two years after doing Shambhala, I got an email saying they would like to meet me for a second audition which I did online and then we met in person.
Tenzin Dalha: The first audition I gave was with Danny Long [casting team] back in 2020. Then Shambhala happened and meanwhile Nikki Barrett came on board and then I auditioned in India with Nikki and Sanjeev Maurya. I'm eternally grateful to them and Jennifer Peedom for making me a part of this. I do think that Shambhala did play a big role so thank you to [filmmaker] Min Bahadur Bham.
Would this be the first international project for you?
TD: If I consider myself as a Tibeto-Indian, then a Nepali film like Shambhala would also be a foreign production for me right? But having to be in the same room as Willem Dafoe, nothing can come close to that. It’s an experience. He’s one of the most beautiful human beings I've ever met, and I was smitten by him.
Tenzin you’d be the third or fourth generation Tibetan descent person who's grown up in Delhi?
TD: I think I would be like two and a half generations because my grandparents settled in Darjeeling for the longest period of time, even my mom grew up in Darjeeling. So, it was more of an economic migration to Delhi.
Did your Tibetan roots create an affinity for your individual characters?
TD: The particular period that I am playing [the younger] Tenzing in, I think would be around 1938 to 1945. He ascended Everest later in 1953. In 1947, the British had left India, but there was still this lingering feeling of British elitism, colonialism, especially in the expedition in Darjeeling.
Tenzing then was considered an outsider within the Sherpa community itself. But the Sherpa community and Tibetan community, because the borders are so porous, have been mingling, interacting. The religion that they practice, the customs, food, even language are practically similar. Dr. Lhakpa [Norbu Sherpa], who was our cultural consultant, is a linguist as well. So, he says that 97% of Sherpa language is Tibetan, 3% is Nepali. Sherpas don't have a written language, so it's very hard for the later generation to adopt Tibetan as the written script. He is right now figuring out a way to have a written script for the Sherpa language and feels that Roman would make more sense. Like how we have in Khasi in Meghalaya.
TL: It is similar to Tibetan but we were helped with the rhythm in the language. It's more like stop, pause, pause, pause. It doesn't have a flow in it. I would say that for us it is an advantage because we have seen that culture. We have grown through it, so it is definitely a lot easier. But it has its clear differences too.
There are three actors playing Tenzing of three different ages. Did you need to coordinate with each other?
TD: I have to credit the screenplay by Jennifer Peedom and Luke Davies. For me, it was such a complete screenplay, I wouldn't want to change a word in it. Every beat was so perfectly written. The motivations of Tenzing of each period were so well-defined. The Tenzing that Genden is playing is economically more secure. He's not living in barns anymore. He has been interacting with the British. He dresses himself up, is clean-shaven. At that age he had already interacted with the Italians, the Swiss. It was his seventh ascent. He was pretty much exposed to the way of life of the Europeans as well. Some books also say that he was a really good chameleon, he could find his way through crevices, fit the room that he was entering.
Thinley your presence as Tenzing’s wife is very ethereal and you are the core philosopher in his life…
TL: I think that's one of the most tricky things, you don't have much of a reference about her. Tenzing goes on the journey with one vision. Dawa brings out the feminine thing, leaves her family and moves with Tenzing? It’s his spirit and Dawa was just supporting that, to just help him achieve his dream.
How much had you known about Tenzing Norgay and how much did you gather about him while doing the film?
TD: Tenzing Norgay was part of our curriculum in India. I don't know if there’s the personal affinity of sharing the same first name but I always thought of him as a superhero. I discovered later that Tenzing was just a footnote in the history read in the West. Having grown up in Darjeeling I have known that his house in Ghang La was very famous. Tenzing was the most famous man in Darjeeling. I read his 1955 autobiography written with James Ramsey Ullman, Ed Douglas's Tenzing: Hero of Everest, Touching My Father's Soul by his son Jamling Tenzing Norgay, and Tenzing and the Other Sherpas by Judith and Tashi Tenzing, his grandson and his wife. I learned the most about Tenzing, the man, then. I also watched some documentaries. My mother shared that when she was growing up, she would see Tenzing walking, just like a regular man, in his shorts, his hair gelled back, strolling in Chowrasta.