I took part in the filming of Bye Bye Grandma, directed by Roula Ragheb in September 2023, playing Michel, a jazz double bassist who, like so many artists, finds himself facing an impossible choice: keep pursuing the dream that has lived inside him for years, or put that passion on hold to provide a stable life for his family.
That theme spoke to me deeply.
It is a reality that goes far beyond film. How many musicians, actors, dancers or writers take a job that pays the mortgage while hoping that one day they will finally find the time to create again?
I lived through something very similar myself. In 2009, I chose to put acting on hold so I could focus on my family, hoping I might still audition occasionally when opportunities came up. Then the years passed. It was not until eleven years later, in the middle of the pandemic, that I truly began working on roles and auditioning regularly again. Ironically, remote auditions helped make that return possible… but that is a story for another article.
When I returned to sets, I quickly realized that I had never actually stopped being an actor. During all those years, I had kept observing people, imagining characters and telling stories in my head. I had simply stopped practising the profession.
That is probably why Michel affected me so much. He never stopped being a musician. He simply stopped playing. The identity is still there, buried under everyday responsibilities. I think many artists know that strange feeling of continuing to define themselves inwardly through their art while almost nothing in daily life seems to reflect it anymore.
That was exactly the reality Roula wanted to explore. From our first conversations, you could feel how personally important the project was to her. She was not trying to set dreams against reality, but to show how complicated it can be to make room for both.
I especially appreciated that her screenplay refused easy answers. Michel does not suddenly watch all his problems disappear. The film never pretends that following a passion is simple or without consequences. Instead, it suggests that creativity can sometimes return in a form different from the one we originally imagined.
The double bass is never merely an instrument either. It represents the part of Michel he believes he has to abandon in order to become the responsible adult he thinks he is supposed to be. When he lets it go, he is not only selling an object. He is giving up a part of himself.
What still moves me about Bye Bye Grandma is that Michel does not abandon music because of some great tragedy or spectacular failure. He gives it up almost without noticing. A bill to pay. One more day at work. A child to pick up. A responsibility that always seems more urgent than a rehearsal. Passions often drift away like that: not with a crash, but through a series of completely reasonable decisions that, placed one after another, eventually change a life.
Getting to know “Grandma”
To play Michel, it obviously was not enough to look as though I knew how to hold a double bass. I had to create the impression that the instrument had been part of his life for years.
As soon as I learned I had booked the role, I started preparing. The script required Michel to play both double bass and trumpet. I had played trumpet for one year in my high school stage band, but that was a very long time ago. So I managed to get my hands on a trumpet and began practising again.
I had underestimated one important detail: the trumpet may be one of the instruments least compatible with apartment living. Even with a mute, it was difficult to practise without feeling that I was turning my neighbours into an unwilling audience. Let’s just say my progress remained… modest. Still, those sessions helped me reconnect with some of the physical sensations and wake up muscle memory that had been sleeping for decades.
The double bass was a little different. I own a full-size cello which, proportionally speaking, resembles a smaller version of a double bass. I began working on the physical vocabulary using my own instrument without a bow, trying to develop believable habits. Obviously an amateur cellist does not become a double bassist overnight, but that preparation gave me a certain ease before I ever had the actual instrument in my hands.
I also spent a great deal of time watching professional double bass players: their posture, the position of the left hand on the neck, the way their weight shifts, even how they breathe while playing. Those details may be almost invisible to a general audience, but they reveal an actor immediately when they are wrong.
A few days before the shoot, I was lucky enough to have the film’s double bass at home so I could rehearse the movements and the musical piece Michel would perform onscreen. In the final edit, my playing was replaced by the performance of Sage Reynolds, who created the original music for Bye Bye Grandma. Sage composed, produced and mixed all of the film’s musical excerpts. He also performed, recorded and programmed almost everything, with particular attention to the double bass. The trumpet was performed and recorded by Andy King.
Most of the sampled instruments used in the project were also created by Sage himself, including sounds described as Harmonic Flights, Tri-Timbral Flocks, Arco Marimba: Calm/Flux, Fireside and Dangerous Undertones.
That means the music does more than simply accompany the images. It was built as an extension of Michel’s world, using sounds, textures and instruments designed specifically for the project.
Here is one excerpt from that original music:
The title Bye Bye Grandma refers to an affectionate nickname some jazz musicians use for the double bass: “Grandma.” It is a simple image, but it carries a particularly touching resonance in the story. Michel is not only saying goodbye to an instrument. He is saying goodbye to part of himself.
A beautifully orchestrated set
I first had the pleasure of reconnecting with Louis-Philippe Desjardins, whom I had met a few years earlier on Fleur de peau, as well as Émilie Sauvage, who played Michel’s former partner. It is always a pleasure to meet colleagues again in a completely different world and discover another side of their work.
I also met Geneviève Goupil, who played Michel’s supervisor. Her character ends up slowing his departure on tour, not because she is cold or unsympathetic, but because she has to keep enough staff on hand to deal with the volume of calls. Geneviève captured that conflict between the very concrete demands of work and Michel’s artistic dream without ever reducing her character to a simple antagonist.
I also worked with Charlotte Cliche, who played my daughter. Her spontaneity brought a great deal of authenticity to our scenes. Aïda Sabra, meanwhile, played Laura, a former major stage actor who has lost her voice. Instead of giving up her vocation, Laura continues nurturing her passion through mime and physical theatre. Her silent presence gradually becomes the catalyst for Michel’s transformation.
I especially love the idea that the person who helps a musician rediscover the desire to create is an artist who has herself had to reinvent the way she expresses herself. Without her voice, Laura has found another way to tell stories through movement. She does not ask Michel to recover exactly the artistic life he lost. She shows him that passion can survive by changing form. It is almost as though one art, after learning to speak differently, naturally wakes another one up.
Beyond the scenes themselves, what distinguished this shoot was the deeply warm atmosphere Roula created around her. Despite everything she was carrying as director, writer, producer and much more, she remained attentive to everyone’s well-being.
She cared for the team with an almost maternal generosity. Home-cooked dishes, desserts and small gestures between takes made everyone feel welcomed, considered and fully part of the project. Roula was not simply directing a film. At times it felt as though she was welcoming the entire crew into her home.
That attention gave the set a genuinely family-like atmosphere. Between scenes, children played in the grass, crew members gathered around a table or near the monitor, and conversations remained relaxed and human. Even on full days with scenes spread across several locations, everything moved forward calmly and efficiently.
As an actor, you feel immediately when a production is that well prepared. Everyone knows their job, the crew is moving in the same direction, and you can focus on what matters most: telling the story.
The people behind the camera
A film is often associated with its director or actors, but every shot is actually the result of many different crafts quietly working together.
Roula was obviously carrying a huge part of the project herself, but she surrounded herself with a professional, passionate team capable of serving the story with sensitivity.
Saad Abas shaped the film visually as both cinematographer and camera operator. Some sequences were also shot on Steadicam by Franz Stapelberg, whose fluid movement reinforces the sense of closeness with the characters.
The visual world also relied on Paul Fayad’s art direction and sets, while Stéphanie Morin in costumes and Roselyne Zhang Du in makeup and hair helped give the characters a credible, natural presence.
Sound — often invisible when it works properly — depended on François Tremblay on production sound, Silas Goodman on boom, and later Roger Guerin for sound editing and mixing.
Roger deserves a special mention. An experienced sound engineer and member of CAS and MPSE, he has an impressive body of work and contributed, among other projects, to the sound production of albums from the popular children’s program Passe-Partout. After the shoot, we met in his studio to record some ADR because wind had made a few takes unusable. I always find it fascinating to see how a scene can recover all its strength through patient work done long after the cameras have stopped rolling.
Around that core team were many other equally essential collaborators: Yanis Kanoun in assistant directing, Henri-Martin Fayad in production assistance and sets, Jeanne TK in unit photography, Axelle Fayad in props and photography, Hayat Ragheb in production management, Francis Binet in online editing and Pablo Perugorria in colour grading.
When you watch credits roll, you see a sequence of names. After spending a few days on a set, you understand that it is never just a list. It is a portrait of a team in which every person contributes an essential piece.
The film’s journey
After it was completed, Bye Bye Grandma made its way onto the festival circuit. The film was selected for the official selection of the 2025 Brampton International Film Festival, a wonderful recognition for everyone who carried the project with such commitment.
A story that still resonates
When I think back on Bye Bye Grandma, what returns most strongly is not only the memory of filming it. It is the idea that passions do not disappear completely.
Sometimes they are simply waiting for us to make a little room for them again.
And if this film can remind a few artists that it is never too late to pick up the instrument they put away in the back of a closet, then I think Roula will have told exactly the story she wanted to tell.
Production details
Film: Bye Bye Grandma
Director and writer: Roula Ragheb
Producer: Roula Ragheb
Cinematography and camera: Saad Abas
Sound editing and mixing: Roger Guerin
Original music and double bass: Sage Reynolds
Trumpet: Andy King
Steadicam: Franz Stapelberg
Art direction and sets: Paul Fayad
Production sound: François Tremblay
