KJ Apa grew up in New Zealand with little exposure to old Hollywood, which made the job in front of him feel close to impossible: becoming Jimmy Stewart. The Riverdale star headlines Jimmy, the biopic of the beloved actor and war hero that arrives in theaters November 6, and in an interview with Variety, he says that when he was being considered for the role, he sat down with It’s a Wonderful Life and wondered how he would ever pull it off.
“I don’t look anything like him. I don’t sound anything like him. I’m not as tall as him,” Apa said. “Like none of it lined up, but by the end of the movie, I was like, ‘I have to do it.'”
Closing that gap took total immersion. Apa worked with dialect coach Eliza Simpson “every second of every day,” watched all of Stewart’s films, and drilled the famous voice in private, a change from roles where he would practice an accent out in the world. “I was in no man’s land for the duration of the prep,” he said. “I had not shared it with anyone. I was terrified. My only sounding board was Eliza.” The method itself was simple repetition: “You just have to spend a lot of time listening and repeating, listening and repeating, listening and repeating.” Even then, his first scene in the voice was, in his words, “really nerve-wracking. It could go two ways. I realized it was such a fine line.” As for the online jokes about whether he could resemble Stewart at all, he shrugs them off: “If I look like a fool, I look like a fool. I did my best.”
Preparing also meant understanding the man Frank Capra handed the It’s a Wonderful Life script to. Stewart had come home from the war unsure, as his daughter Kelly told Apa, whether he was a retired actor or a retired pilot, and Hollywood seemed to have forgotten him; he considered moving back to Indiana, Pennsylvania, to work in his father’s general store before Capra convinced him to play George Bailey. “Frank Capra gave him that script and he was going through a lot of what George Bailey was going through,” Apa said. “I honestly think It’s a Wonderful Life was like therapy for him. He was able to continue in his career. I think he was lost.”
What Apa most wants audiences to take from Jimmy is the service record behind the stardom. “I want people to know what he did for this country,” he said, still sounding stunned by the résumé he first read in the script: an Oscar-winning leading man who then spent more than 20 years as a B-24 bomber pilot, took part in the D-Day invasion, and returned to Hollywood for more than 50 additional films.
Jimmy, directed by Aaron Burns and written by Justin Strawhand, follows Stewart from his Oscar win for The Philadelphia Story through his combat missions over Europe and his return home to make It’s a Wonderful Life, with Jason Alexander, Sarah Drew, Neal McDonough, and Max Casella, as Capra, rounding out the cast. As TDN reported, the film opens nationwide November 6 from Burns and Co. Entertainment and Fathom Entertainment, and its first teaser showed Apa recreating the George Bailey prayer scene. The film recently held its world premiere at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis, where Apa sat for the interview ahead of the screening.
The conversation also finds Apa characteristically open about his addictions and recovery, which he discussed at length this summer on Dylan Sprouse’s podcast Wildmen. “These thoughts that go into an eating disorder or drug addiction or other addictions, they are all part of who I am and have taken up so much of my life,” he said. “I’ve had so many people come up to me saying, ‘Thanks for sharing that.’ I honestly didn’t realize that it would have that reaction. It was cool.”
The Stewart celebration has only grown since. At the Newport Beach Film Festival, Apa received a Spotlight Award, and Jimmy itself took home Outstanding Achievement in Narrative Filmmaking there, on top of Audience Choice at Heartland, where it tied with I Play Rocky, and Best Feature at Washington West. Early screenings for ticket holders began November 1 ahead of Friday’s nationwide opening. And the season closes with the real thing, as Fathom brings It’s a Wonderful Life itself back to theaters starting December 18.