Award-winning director and writer Julia Jackman talks through the music that tells the story of her life.
100 Nights of Hero, the second feature-length film from Canada-born director, Julia Jackman has all the makings of a future classic.
A beautifully executed queer fable, it punches high and tight thematically and lands a denouement that feels more profound than ever in 2026. Throw in a trio of brilliant performances from three of the decade's most exciting stars and a beautifully understated - and carefully deployed - Charli XCX appearance, and you have a piece of cinema that's filled with playfulness and poignancy.
"Music is really important to me and always has been," Jackman tells me as we dive into her earliest memories of song a few weeks before Christmas. Hailing from Edmonton – an industrial city and capital of Alberta – she grew up amid a golden age for the area's music scene, with Mac DeMarco, Purity Ring, Cadence Weapon already beginning to make waves. "I think maybe there wasn't much to do there and I went to so many gigs. I was a very teetotal teenager and that's how I met my friend Rollie [Roland "Rollie" Pemberton aka rapper Cadence Weapon] – we were both drinking water at the bar.
"The bands were all a few years older than me but I worked in one of the last surviving video rental stores there, and a lot of the musicians worked in there too."
Jackman's debut, the Josh O'Connor queer romcom Bonus Track, was a film inextricably tied to its soundtrack, but the London-based director isn't someone who necessarily has a grand vision for how music should be deployed in her films.
"I hold it quite lightly, because you never really know what you're going to be allowed to do or not," she explains. "In Bonus Track – which was brought to me by the producers, actor Josh O'Connor and writer Mike Gilbert – the entire thing was was structured through key songs in the main character's life, which is kind of funny considering this interview. Because it was set in 2006 – such a nostalgic kind of time – some songs you can get and some songs you can't. It was about music that signposted time, without being a cliché."
In 100 Nights of Hero, there's just one carefully placed needle drop – a closing song by Purity Ring, one of the bands she grew up around, commissioned specially for the film. "I just had their sound in my head," she tells me. "This quite ethereal, but modern sound."
The Edmonton duo do make it into Jackman's Nine Songs, among eight others chosen largely for the moments of freedom, joy and celebration that have accompanied Jackman's creative and personal journey. "I do have some sad songs that I didn't include in this list," she explains, "songs that I can't listen to anymore because they're associated with death or breakups, but I decided to try and keep it happy."
“Auto Pilot” by Queens Of The Stone Age
JULIA JACKMAN: The earliest memories I have of music – and this is kind of ridiculous – is that my parents used to sing me two songs that I genuinely thought they'd written until I was embarrassingly late in age. My mom would bounce me up and down on the bed and sing "Hello Goodbye" by The Beatles, and I literally just thought she had made that up to sing to me. And my dad used to sing me "Voodoo Child" but he would change the lyrics to "Julia Child"! And obviously I thought my parents were just songwriting geniuses. I finally heard the songs on the radio one day and realised they hadn't actually written them!
BEST FIT: How did Queens of the Stone Age figure into your childhood?
It was actually the first concert that I ever went to on my own. I think I was 14 and they were opening for Nine Inch Nails and I remember – obviously – thinking how incredible but different Nine Inch Nails was. Queens of the Stone Age came on and the air was filling with weed smoke, and I was a very teetotal, straight edge teenager – not to say that I'm super hard living now – but this was Western Canada. And then Nine Inch Nails were the exact opposite. He was sober I guess, and he was so on it and civilised. It was such an interesting gig to go to as a kind of 'tween' girl!
But I listened to them a lot when I was 12, 13, 14 and I remember "Auto Pilot" from when I'd go travelling with my family. I'd get new CD to listen to when I was in a new place. Canada's so huge that if you're going to drive and see relatives, you could be travelling for days.
"Autopilot" made me feel like what one of my friends calls "pre-sad". You know when you're a kid and you're smoking those candy cigarettes when it's cold outside, pretending it's a real cigarette – like it makes you feel worldly and sad about something that you don't completely understand yet because you don't even know what that kind of sadness is! I remember being quite beguiled by it when I was young and feeling melancholy beyond my years... completely theatrically, I'm sure.
I also have this very early memory of being really obsessed by the Seal song "Kissed By A Rose". I thought that that song was incredible and very moving. My dad says that every time he put on Leonard Cohen, me and my brother would start crying. We love Leonard Cohen now, but something about his voice back then would just make us cry. We just didn't take to him at an early age.
Did music and film have an equal fascination for you at that age?
Both of them felt like things that other people did. With music, I think it's about how portable it was. Film was a very different thing – I would watch lots of action films, goofy films with my family – it was a very family activity. Whereas I really loved daydreaming and retreating into my own world and music unlocked so much more of my imagination. It felt like this private, emotional world that I could go into to experience things I hadn't yet experienced, or imagine things that hadn't happened to me yet.
Music felt a bit more sacred in some ways, more than something like film – which was mostly watching Dumb and Dumber or Die Hard with my family. But I wasn't watching art films – I was into a much wider variety of music than I was with film.
I think going to see films by auteurs happened when I had left my late teens, in my early 20s. We did have an indie cinema down the road and a really seminal film for me I'd go see there – with a song that really grabbed me – was The Rocky Horror Show and "Sweet Transvestite". I would go to see it every Halloween when they'd have midnight showings, but I wasn't really seeing art house films. I was seeing whatever my older cousins and aunts and uncles had around. I think the first indie films I saw was when I was living and working in Italy, because the commercial films are dubbed there so the only subtitled ones are small, independent films.
The first film I saw where I thought, "this is an occasion" was when one of my babysitters – who would throw a crochet blanket over me if it was too mature – had Velvet Goldmine playing and I loved the music in that. I haven't seen it since I was eight but I remember the songs so strongly and being so drawn to the soundtrack and the characters, so maybe there were little seeds being sown there.
“Give Me One Reason” by Tracy Chapman
JULIA JACKMAN: "Give Me One Reason" would come on the radio when I was driving around with my mom when I was really little. I remember again, this pure rush of dopamine kind of hitting me. I thought her voice was incredible. I actually didn't know even what gender she was – she sounded completely otherworldly to me. I'd never heard a voice like that before.
I tend to have a listening style where a song will make me experience a particular flood of dopamine or colour and then I just want to listen to that song again and again and again. And that was, I think, the first song I could think of that I liked that way. I would just hope that it came on the radio again. So that was the first time I remember really being, as a little person, obsessed with a song.
BEST FIT: It's really a forgotten thing isn't it? How a song used to take on mythical qualities because it was so difficult to repeat listen unless you owned it on record or tape or CD?
And she was like a siren or something. I remember finally, not thinking to ask the first time who was singing... and then finally asking my mom the next time who it was? She was like, "Oh, that's Tracy Chapman." And I was like, "that's a woman?!" I was completely beguiled by her!
I think for a certain generation, her signature song "Fast Car" is one of those first experiences of being melancholy for a lot of kids, the "pre-sad" thing you mentioned.
I think "Give Me One Reason" was actually the first time I felt what 'sexiness' was, even though it was in that way where you can't really picture what on earth that would entail!
“Pass This On” by The Knife
JULIA JACKMAN: The Knife were incredibly pivotal for me as a teenager – I listened to their songs on repeat as a teenager and I brought that music with me when I moved across the ocean. I was a bit homesick for my city, and it really tied me to the memories I got from the music scene there.
The song "Pass This On" is so linked to the video for me, which was the first music video I'd seen that completely blew my mind. When I was either a tween or a teen, I remember watching it and subconsciously expecting something dangerous to happen, and being really scared, and then finding the feeling of joy that it didn't go that way.
It was incredibly meaningful to me – this beautiful woman who you were afraid for, and what people might do, or how they might react to her, and everybody starts to dance. Looking back, I think that was just my first experience of queer joy and seeing it on screen, and the reasons are now clearer to me as an adult.
I think the spiritual sequel to "Pass This On" is the song "Kandy", when she becomes Fever Ray. She gets up on the mic herself, and it has this similar kind of gothic steel drum going on. Many years later, I was in someone's car and heard it and felt the same thing. They push this button, I think for me.
The other Knife song I love is "You Make Me Like Charity" which gets me into this slight fugue state. There's something very hypnotic about it, so weird, and I have memories of putting it on at house parties. I probably had to wait until people were drunk enough, but everybody would dance. It's such a weird song to dance to, but there's something about it that that's always grabbed me and I remember it as part of these moments of togetherness.
The possibility and fluidity of their work is so freeing to me too. When I was working in the video store – even though I was a minor – the store would close really late, sometimes at 2am and I would put The Knife on when I was cleaning up, and so I also associate it with that first rush of independence: having my first job at this store, and then going overseas to live on my own for the first time!
“Sekou Oumarou” by Songhoy Blues
JULIA JACKMAN: This is one that's really wrapped up in watching them live in around 2015.
My friend Cosmo Sheldrake is a fantastic musician – I was with his brother for years – and he puts on a phenomenal live show. He opened for Songhoy Blues at Oslo some years ago and they played this song live and I've never seen someone so happy playing the blues. These men were all beaming at us and dancing and having the best time, and we were all dancing too. It was just palpable how it was a calling for them.
And later on I learned about their story, having to leave Northern Mali when Sharia law came into effect and music was outlawed. I found their extreme joy very poignant – and seeing them live was a really transcendent experience.
This is a song that you just let take you over, and whenever I listen to it, I feel like I can access that feeling of discovery, the joy you get at discovering a new artist, especially when you go in blind. We don't really go in blind to things anymore that much do we? Because the discourse is everywhere....
“Wolf Like Me” by TV On The Radio
JULIA JACKMAN: "Wolf Like Me" is the closest thing they have to a hit. I love so many of their like lesser known songs, but this one I had to go with because it reminded me of a very specific day – which is the day that I first got this job at this video store.
Again, I was this very shy teenager but I was always putting myself out there and the store was a very special place for me. I'd always gone there and rented videos from there, so there was an enormous amount of joy to get hired.
So I got the job, and around the same time, the person who ended up being my first love had asked me out, and I remember this song coming on. I'd never heard it before and I remember feeling like, "What the fuck is this song?!" It's quite an ecstatic song and reminds me of life opening up new experiences for you. I think I just associate that with this.
“Blue Crystal Fire” by Robbie Basho
JULIA JACKMAN: So, you know that the ultimate sign of affection was making someone a mixtape in the 2000s? Well I think it was Rollie - Cadence Weapon – who made me a mixtape called "Wild Combination Rollie and Julia" which was obviously named after Arthur Russell, who we both also loved, because we were an unlikely duo.
And he put this song on – it was the first song on the tape – and it sounded like a ghost. It was the most haunting voice I'd ever heard, like there was something almost operatic and I advise anyone reading this to listen to him. He has the most amazing otherworldly voice.
I keep all the mixtapes people make for me and I'm very, very fond of them, and Rollie is a really good friend. People made me tapes when I was heading off to university – one was called "Don't Forget Your Roots" and there was loads of Pavement on that, which didn't make the cut here.
But this one, it's an evergreen one, it's a song that I can always revisit. And in my increasingly busy-brained existence, my increasingly shit attention span, this slows something down in me and reminds me of a time where I where I could just sit and listen to music. I so rarely do that anymore, but when I'm on a commute or while I'm walking, there's something about this song that just makes me want to stop and listen.
BEST FIT: Do you often write to music?
I don't listen to music with lyrics in the background that much, because I end writing down the lyrics – they get so in my head so easily. Music really affects me! It makes me want to walk around, daydream, and think about things. One of my exes used to listen to music while showering and stuff, and I never really understood that. I go for long walks and I listen to music. I didn't listen to podcasts or audio books until shockingly recently, I thought everyone was just walking around just listening to music.
“Ai Du” by Ali Farka Touré
JULIA JACKMAN: I think – in a similar vein to Tracy Chapman – “Ai Du” is one of the most sultry sounding songs that I'd ever heard.
There's this place called Blues on Whyte in Edmonton that had these really watered down pitchers of beer, and it was mostly people in their 50s and 60s who went there. I would go with my friend, we would be the only young people, and they would play blues music. It was very divey and cheap, and they didn't check our IDs.
I was not 18 when I would go to this place but I wouldn't drink – I was there to listen to the music. Everybody would just dance – very uncoolly, it was a lot of older people and had very similar vibes to The Knife's "Pass This On" video; people shuffling around in what looked a little bit like a hunting lodge.
I remember this song coming on and thinking it sounded so special, and then having to hunt for it – I asked people what it was, and they didn't know. Hearing it again years later when I was in the car with someone I was seeing and saying "What's this? What's this song?" And thankfully they knew the answer: Oh he's really famous. I think I was around 20 or something when I finally go to hear it again.
So I associate it with my own first bit of being a rebellious teenager, going out to this place with my fake ID – [name redacted] – who was a Sagittarius. Someone gave it to me at a house party. It used to be their ID, and they passed it on to me.
I guess it was a light transgression – I just wanted to go to all these places that these musicians, these older musicians I worked with, were hanging out at. I just wanted to be allowed to go in and listen to the music. I did start drinking when I went to university, but at that point I still thought alcohol tasted gross.
“I Comb My Hair Like” by Andre Nickatina and Equipto
JULIA JACKMAN: Andre Nickatina is a rapper, and he was always playing in my house; my brother and his friends would get together, smoke and listen to him. So I learned his entire oeuvre by osmosis and I started to really, really like him.
And this song had this refrain, this thing that he would repeat that comes into my head occasionally, because it's one of my favourite lyrics ever, where he'd say really assertively: "I comb my hair like God!"
I remember hearing this when I'd be trying to get to sleep, and just giving into enjoying him and finding this lyric really funny, but also really great in the way he said it.
It's one of those lines that's stuck with me through my life. Occasionally I re-listen to the song just for the hell of it – it wasn't even a song I put on back then, but it was played so often in my house that I could rap all of his lyrics. You know, it's weird, those songs that just seep in by osmosis.
“Lofticries” by Purity Ring
JULIA JACKMAN: Purity Ring did the end song for the movie. There was originally another song of theirs I really wanted for it called "rubyinsides" that I was very taken with... but then we got to talking about doing an original – and why not create something new?
BEST FIT: When Charli got involved in the film, did that have any impact on how you thought about how the music might work?
It was quite a separate thing – she does music for a film, or she acts. And this film is such a tonally different thing to her music. We were much more interested in her exploring a different tone with this as an actor. But we know she has a huge amount of range musically – like we've seen now with the Wuthering Heights soundtrack – she can do it all.
I think that I stayed away from thinking too much about her music because what I associated with her was in a different space. She was such an incredible support during this film, and incredible to work with as an actor. I'm so interested to see what she does next because she she's truly led by what genuinely interests her, and I think that's what will always make her exciting and eclectic.
But I think I'd always had Purity Ring in my head – even before the rest of the team, the actors and even the producers were involved – because I'd optioned Isabel's book – and before anything I just saw it with them. I did actually ask Charli what she thought of them because I was being presented with different options for music, but I just kept coming back to them. And Charli really loves Purity Ring, it turns out.
I guess maybe there was something for me about light and colour being so important in the world of this film and I remember Purity Ring blowing my mind when I would see their own installations of light and colour at their live shows. And how sort of synesthesia-adjacent it is, how MJ's voice is very ethereal but very powerful. I just couldn't shake them from my head. And luckily I sent them the film, and they were really down to do it.
There was definitely something meta about Charli being in the role of Rosa because, weirdly, Rosa – far before Charli came on board – was always there with a guitar... so I'd even debated changing that, and then I was like, 'God, what am I going to do? Like, have her dancing or doing needlepoint?', which isn't as visually interesting, and so we ran with it.
It's quite an unexpected role for Charli to take and I think will surprise some people
I think having Charli was quite meta because Rosa is someone where this man wooing her is projecting so much onto her, and he's imagining all these things about her. And there's something about her holding back and being mysterious and compelling. You do get the sense that she contains multitudes, and there's sometimes a private joke happening under the surface. And that was really fun to play around with.
It wasn't until meeting her that I understood how good a fit she would be, just as I think she wanted to see what was possible too: there was a thoughtfulness there, but at the same time with a really nice dose of, like, fuck it! She's not overthinking it, but she's being thoughtful, and she's not going into acting on a whim.
No shade here, but I didn't want it to be like a Love Actually cameo - like, here's Claudia Schiffer! And I know that she had no interest in that either. So it was interesting that she became part of the central myth [as that character]. But when I met her and was speaking to her, I thought this role was so different from her musical performance that I think that people will hopefully forget after a bit that they're watching her. It's a very different feel!
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