Harrison Browne's Film Pink Light To Premiere At Toronto International Film Festival

Ever since he first came out as transgender, Harrison Browne has been paving his own way and telling his story on his own terms. Now, he's taking it to a new medium: film. Browne's directorial debut Pink Light will make it world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 9.

Pink Light tells the story of Scott (Browne), a transgender man and former pro women's hockey layer. After taking a bad hit during a rec league game, Scott flashes back to his younger pre-transition self Scotty, played by PWHL Seattle goaltender CJ Jackson. What follows is a poignant look at identity, growth, and what it means to love a sport that doesn't always return the sentiment.

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"It's about representation," said Browne, when asked why he wanted to make this film. "Growing up, I didn't see characters that were like me. I really wanted to show a trans person, but I also wanted to show a trans athlete. I also wanted to show a trans person that wasn't physically transitioned yet, [because] we don't see that a lot."

Since retiring from pro hockey in 2018, Browne's mission of visibility led him to a career in film and television, with acting roles in Murdoch Mysteries, the CW's Nancy Drew, and FX's Y: The Last Man, to name a few. Earlier this year he and his sister Rachel Browne published Let Us Play: Winning The Battle For Gender Diverse Athletes.

Never one to back down from a challenge, Browne opted to not only co-write and co-produce Pink Light, but also to take his place behind the camera as a first-time director: "It was just really accepting that I'm a beginner here," he said. "But once I got to it, and once I surrounded myself with a team, everybody from the grips to the script supervisor and my producing partners and my partner in real life, Nicolette Pearse and Macaulee Cassaday really empowered me, and helped surround me with people that could uphold this vision."

Browne continued, "It was the challenge of being like, I don't have to know all these things. I just have to find people that can do it for me. And being on set, it felt like a hockey game. CJ and I both had that same feeling: we show up, we have a job to do, we perform when we have to. It really brought me back to sports in such a lovely and beautiful way that I did not expect."

Finding the right actor to play Scotty proved to be difficult. Browne was determined to follow a creed of inclusive casting and wanted to choose a trans or nonbinary person for the role. Round after round of auditions followed, but the fit was never quite right.

"That was a really challenging piece that I knew was going to be the crux of the film, finding somebody, and obviously me playing the older version. I needed somebody that looked like me," said Browne. "We auditioned a bunch of really amazing actors. Some people were just a little bit too old for the role. Some people just did not look like me. And I was like, 'this is not believable.'"

At a crossroads, Browne's costar and real-life partner Nicolette Pearse suggested bringing in a hockey player to audition. After looking at PWHL rosters, Jackson's name came to Browne's mind: "I was like, 'oh, let's bring CJ in as a cameo, because they're very popular in the league. And then I started to look at them, and I was like, 'I think they look like me.'"

The vision evolved into more than just a cameo. Jackson agreed to audition and read over a Zoom call with Pearse and Browne. According to Browne, all the pieces fell into place: "I just watched their interactions, and CJ was just so natural and so comfortable in performance. I started tearing up as I watched them...I was like, 'that's our Scotty.'"

For Jackson, who is nonbinary and uses she/her/they/them pronouns, it felt like fate.

"Our lives were actually really aligned," they said, of Browne. "He graduated from the University of Maine in the spring, and I started in the fall. So I had heard lots of stories about him, and I knew lots about him."

Jackson continued, "it was just comforting to me in the way of knowing that there were other people that didn't fit the idea of femininity, right? So I could just be who I was, rather than who I thought I should be. His vulnerability showed me a path."

So what's next for Pink Light? "Right now, we're beholden to festival runs, so we can't release it publicly until that's done," said Browne. "After that, we're not sure where it's going to land, so we'll see. Hopefully we'll get into another festival, and then after that, distribution and find its forever home."

Pink Light premiers at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 9, with another showing on Sept. 13.