Heart To Heart: Pilot Episode To Screen At Series Fest As Writer Tells How David Tennant Came To Play A Talking Heart.



Following its online premiere during OUTFest, Heart To Heart, the short film featuring the voice of David Tennant, will be available to stream during US virtual festival Series Fest.

Heart To Heart is a 10-minute episodic pilot, one of two episodes commissioned by Sky Studios, and was due to premiere at this year's SXSW Festival before it was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak. The film stars Fern Deacon, Siena Kelly, Felicity Montagu and Jo Martin and features David Tennant as a talking heart. Heart To Heart is written by IR Bell-Webb and directed by Lilah Vandenburgh. 

After waking up from yet another heart surgery, Liddy (Fern Deacon) starts hearing a voice telling her that she risks dying a virgin, and that's unacceptable...it's her heart Lump (David Tennant) talking. He's planning to help her get with hot nurse Kim (Siena Kelly) and learn to live a little.

Heart To Heart will be available to stream from today until Wednesday 24th June as part of Digital Short Series Block 1 in the Series Fest Virtual Festival Digital Short Series Competition.

Heart To Heart is planned as a series of ten episodes of ten minutes each. Interviewed about the pilot by cinema website Solzy At The Movies, IR Bell-Webb and Lilah Vandenburgh describe how David Tennant became attached to the project.

IR Bell-Webb says, "There were very few big name male actors who I would trust with providing the inner monologue of a young lesbian. Lump says such gross things and there’s a version of that that’s just offensive, you know? Whoever’s voicing him, should be hilarious but not predatory, and that required an actor who didn’t have the gross funk of toxic masculinity rolling off him. David Tennant was pretty much the only ‘name’ who came to mind who I felt confident was the right fit: smart, funny and sensitive. And in the end I wrote him a letter – with help from Russell T. Davies, who I was lucky enough to be paired with through BFI Flare’s LGBT mentorship scheme years ago and has been an awesome buddy of mine ever since. I also just got lucky that my agent knew David’s agent." 

Lilah Vandenburgh adds, "David very graciously accepted the role and I think it’s pretty different from anything he’s done before. We reached out to him in the normal way, through agents, and I think he could see the strength of IR’s writing and the importance of the story we were trying to convey but also the fun and heart. We feel very blessed he connected with the material. For me it was a personal treat to have David for a day of sound recording. He’s a consummate professional and very dedicated to giving you what you want. There was no ego."




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