Christopher Plummer steals the show at The Forger press conference, because of course he does

The Forger is one of those movies that sounds like it was made up by a Mad Libs plot generator. Hatched out of jail early, a master thief and art forger (John Travolta) is enlisted to swipe a Monet and replace it with an exact replica, in order to help his son (Tye Sheridan) who, naturally, has cancer. It’s the sort of thing that premieres late in the TIFF schedule, when you’d be forgiven for missing it.

Veteran Canadian thespian Christopher Plummer, who plays Travolta’s ornery dad in the film, drew applause, and even some “woo!“s when he entered the press gallery, which is pretty unprecedented even in a room that’s hosted the likes of Al Pacino and Robert Downey Jr. over the past week. (“In our book, he’s Sir Christopher Plummer,” joked panel moderator Henri Behar.) For his part, Plummer was eager to shift attention away from himself, hailing young co-star Sheridan. “Even though the role was written without self-pity, Tye’s performance was remarkable,” he said. “He’s a very brave, very marvelous actor...Young actors today are so much better than they used to be.”

As for Travolta, decked out in a beard so shiny it seemed shellacked, he took it upon himself to convince the room that this heist film is not, in fact, a heist film. “It’s described as a heist film,” he said, “but it’s really not. It’s about a father and grandfather and son, set against this backdrop.”