In 2023, filmmaker Daniel Roher, at just 29, accepted an Oscar for his documentary Navalny. He’d seemingly punched his ticket for the rest of his career, but then he unexpectedly found himself in a paralyzing creative standstill.

The Canadian writer-director felt a corresponding anxiety that made him ponder the terrifying question of whether he’d be ever able to create again. Fortunately, an introduction to Los Angeles-based piano tuner, Peter White, got the ball rolling on what would become Tuner, Roher’s narrative feature debut. He shadowed White throughout his day-to-day, and that experience, combined with his lingering self-doubt, resulted in the character of Niki White.

Niki, who’s portrayed by The White Lotus season two breakout Leo Woodall, is a highly skilled and intuitive piano tuner who serves as the right hand and protégé to Dustin Hoffman’s Harry Horowitz. Niki’s once-promising future as a virtuoso pianist was abruptly cut short when he was stricken with hyperacusis, a rare hearing disorder that makes one ultra sensitive to everyday sounds. He manages his condition based on the environment around him, alternating between earplugs and over-ear headphones as needed. But he no longer plays or composes music, refusing even the most informal of requests.

When Harry’s health and subsequent financial situation take a turn for the worse, Niki becomes desperate to protect his father figure’s well-being, home and business. During a late-night tuning job, he happens to cross paths with a group of noisy security contractors who moonlight as thieves. Noticing that they’re struggling to crack a safe, Niki offers to use his auditory malady to their advantage. After successfully opening the strongbox and being compensated for it, he eventually falls in with said crooks, turning Tuner into a cross between Good Will Hunting and Michael Mann’s Thief.

Roher shot his backyard of Toronto, Ontario, Canada for the film’s setting of New York City, but at a certain point in development, he received a note to consider relocating the story to Toronto. That’s when he had to remind the individual that his native country would completely undermine Niki’s primary motivation to become a safecracking thief.

“At one point, someone was like, ‘Why don’t you just set Tuner in Toronto?” And I was like, ‘We have universal healthcare. There’d be no story!’” Roher tells The Hollywood Reporter. “The good thing about the incredible ineptitude and stupidity of the American healthcare system is that it can be a good foil for dramatic narratives.”

Having directed or co-directed four feature-length docs, including 2026’s The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, Roher’s history of capturing unplanned moments served him well in one particular area. “Every single day Dustin Hoffman was on set, my documentarian brain came in handy because Dustin improvised a lot, in-character, as Harry,” Roher says.

Overall, one of Roher’s biggest hang-ups going into his first narrative film was whether he’d be able to effectively communicate what his actors needed to hear. He helped his case by casting well, as Woodall and Hoffman are joined by the likes of Tovah Feldshuh, Jean Reno, Lior Raz and rising star Havana Rose Liu. Luckily, his leading man gave him no cause for concern.

“Leo is just like a Swiss watch as an actor. He showed up with the character fully formed,” Roher says. “It seemed like my job was to just get out of his way and let him do his thing. I maybe gave him two or three notes over the course of the entire shooting process. He’s such a phenom.”

Below, during a conversation with THR, Roher also discusses how he and his Oscar-winning sound designer Johnnie Burn put the audience inside the perspective of someone with hyperacusis. Then he looks ahead to his next feature, Positano, a romantic caper starring Matthew McConaughey and Zoe Saldaña.

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The idea of containing multitudes certainly applies to you and your films. Your documentaries were already quite varied, but now you’ve thrown a fictional crime thriller called Tuner into the mix. How do you make sense of your eclectic filmography? 

I’m an eclectic guy with eclectic tastes. I don’t want to be pigeonholed. I want to make all kinds of movies: documentaries, fiction films, big films, small films, films everyone in the world will see, films nobody in the world will see and everything in between. That’s what really excites me.

To put it mildly, documenting reality in the 2020s doesn’t seem like the most pleasant experience. Did that factor into your pivot to fiction at all? 

I wonder when documenting reality was ever a pleasant experience. My pivot to fiction was predicated on my interests, not on nonfiction in and of itself. I still really love nonfiction, but I was just interested in exploring different types of creation and creativity.

To center a crime thriller around a piano tuner is a very specific choice. How did you and your co-writer (Robert Ramsey) arrive at your unconventional protagonist (Leo Woodall’s Niki White)? 

Peter White, who’s the husband of my wife’s friend Michelle, is a piano tuner in Los Angeles. I met Peter socially through our wives, and his work really inspired me and this movie. I shadowed him for a time, observing what his experience was like going to these grand houses and tuning pianos, which informed the start of the film somewhat. 

Niki is such an interesting protagonist because he’s quiet, precise and almost emotionally sealed, yet the film never feels cold. Leo is just like a Swiss watch as an actor. He showed up with the character fully formed and his decisions already made. He had a very clear understanding of how he wanted Niki to be, how he wanted him to feel and how he wanted him to sound. So it seemed like my job was to just get out of his way and let him do his thing. I maybe gave him two or three notes over the course of the entire shooting process. He’s such a phenom.

In terms of the character archetype, did Good Will Hunting come up a lot throughout the writing process? 

Yes, I love that movie. It’s one of my favorites.

My dad is very hard of hearing; he also has hyperacusis. Thus, several of the conversations in this film felt eerily similar to ones we have regularly. Do you have someone in your own life whose hearing loss served as an accurate reference? 

No, but first and foremost, it was really important for Leo and me to seek consultation from individuals who actually suffer from hyperacusis. We both talked to people to really understand what this condition is, how it impacts their lives and how socially and emotionally alienating it can be. Getting a better sense of what these people navigate and go through was instrumental for us in portraying this condition with thoughtfulness and truthfulness.

Dustin Hoffman hasn’t done too much acting in recent years. How complicated or uncomplicated was his casting? 

It wasn’t complicated because he really loved the material and wanted to do the movie. It was one of those things that was kind of meant to be. When I sent him the script, I didn’t realize that he wanted to be a jazz pianist when he was a kid, and so his casting had this sort of “beshert” quality — the Yiddish phrase for “meant to be.” It’s something that’s typically attributed to romantic love, your one and only, so Dustin is my one and only.

Was the Rain Man reference already in the script? Or did you add it after Dustin joined the fold? 

It wasn’t originally in the script. It was added as a nod to Dustin.

The failings of the American health care system are used to motivate your protagonist’s foray into crime. As a Canadian, was it always difficult for you to reconcile this story point?

Yeah, at one point, someone was like, “Why don’t you just set Tuner in Toronto?” And I was like, “We have universal healthcare. There’d be no story!” The good thing about the incredible ineptitude and stupidity of the American healthcare system is that it can be a good foil for dramatic narratives.

What day on the Tuner set did the documentarian side of you come in handy? Conversely, what was the biggest adjustment you had to make as a narrative director? 

Every single day Dustin Hoffman was on set, my documentarian brain came in handy because Dustin improvised a lot, in-character, as Harry. As far as the biggest adjustment, working with actors really freaked me out at the beginning, but then I got used to it. So I understand them better now, and I have a new appreciation for the esoteric, weird, ethereal art form of acting.

Being an independent film with minimal time, how much did you ask of your actors, piano-wise?

A lot. Leo and Havana [Rose Liu] trained multiple times a week, and they worked really hard. They had a piano teacher in Toronto called Eve Egoyan, and she’s a wonderful pianist and educator in Toronto. Havana played piano up until middle school, but hadn’t picked it up in a while. And Leo never had any real experience, so both of them took many, many lessons to be able to land those scenes.

The sound design is really well-calibrated. It made me wince whenever Niki endured acute noise. Did your sound mixer basically turn the dials up as far as they could go? 

Yeah, Johnnie Burn is a genius sound mixer, and when he agreed to do the movie, it was a huge day for me. [Writer’s Note: Burn won an Oscar for The Zone of Interest.] He always likes to say, “You can close your eyes, but you can’t close your ears.” So we really wanted to explore and lean into an adventurous sound mix. It’s the quality of the film that really makes it unique. 

We honestly didn’t know what Niki’s world would sound like at first. It’s complex. It’s not as straightforward as if he was losing his hearing. He has his hearing, but there’s tinnitus and a pain index that comes with it. He has to wear these earmuffs that change everyday sound, so there was a lot for us to negotiate and navigate. It was only through trial and error that Johnnie and I were able to find the cadences of the sounds in Niki’s world.

To speak obliquely about the final scene, do you consider what transpires to be a one-off? Or is the original promise about to be fulfilled going forward?

I don’t know! That’s for the audience’s interpretation.

You’re currently in Italy for your next film, Positano. It’s described as a romantic caper. Where does it fit into the earlier talk about your body of work?

It’s the biggest project I’ve ever done. It has the biggest canvas, the biggest set pieces, the biggest action sequences, the biggest everything. I’ve never made a fiction film in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language, so that’s all been really fun. At the end of the day, it fits into my body of work because what I’m really interested in creatively and intellectually is making anything that can take me outside of my comfort zone — and this one certainly does that. The scale and scope, the size of production, and the stress and pressure are immense, but it’s riveting. And getting to work with Matthew McConaughey and Zoe Saldaña has been extraordinary. They’re teaching me so much.

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Tuner opens in limited theaters on May 22, before expanding nationwide on May 29.