There’s something inherently dangerous about satire when the person holding the knife is willing to turn it back on themselves.
That tension sits at the centre of Everybody Wants to F*ck Me, the provocative new film from writer-director Jonathan Schey, which arrived at the Toronto International Film Festival with Taron Egerton stepping into the uncomfortable space occupied by Adam, a character who could easily be dismissed as another variation on the “performative nice guy.”
But speaking with Peter Gray on the red carpet ahead of the film’s TIFF premiere, Schey admitted that drawing such a clean distinction between the characters he’s satirising and his own experiences would somewhat defeat the purpose.
“I’d say whenever you’re writing anything, you’re always grabbing a little bit of your own life because you’re trying to do something truthful,” Schey explained when asked where the film’s satire stops and the confession begins.
Though the filmmaker stressed that what audiences see is heightened for the screen, creating something that felt authentic meant being willing to interrogate himself in the process.
“I was definitely taking things from my own life for things to feel authentic. It’s a total mix. I don’t think there’s a clear bit where one bit ends and the other begins, but I had to look into myself for a lot of it, for sure.”
It’s that absence of a clearly marked line that appears particularly important to Everybody Wants to F*ck Me. If Schey isn’t interested in completely distancing himself from the behaviour being examined, Egerton similarly resisted approaching Adam as someone audiences could comfortably categorise.
His first impression, however, was considerably less forgiving.
“When I first read the script, I thought he was the villain,” Egerton admitted.
A second read complicated that response. Simply treating Adam as the villain, Egerton realised, risked reducing a character who was far more interesting when allowed to exist somewhere between sympathetic and objectionable.
“When I read it again, I felt that it was reductive, and the more interesting space is to play him as a real person,” he said, before laughing at the apparent obviousness of that revelation: “Hey, welcome to Acting 101.”
For Egerton and Schey, the challenge consequently became resisting any temptation to steer viewers towards a predetermined response.
“The choices I made as an actor with Jonathan became about making sure we never fell on either side of the line of making him a guy you’re either supposed to like or dislike,” Egerton explained. “Staying in that space of not knowing is what keeps an audience engaged.”
It’s an ambiguity Egerton clearly relishes as an audience member himself. Searching for an example of storytelling that refuses to provide definitive answers, he landed on one of television’s most famously unresolved conclusions.
“It’s like the end of The Sopranos. No one is sure. No one bloody knows.”
For Egerton, that uncertainty isn’t something storytelling necessarily needs to solve. Quite the opposite. Leaving enough space for an audience to argue, interpret and perhaps even question their own response allows them to become an active participant in the work.
“I love when storytelling requires the audience to be a part of it and engage their imagination,” he said. “I think with my character, it’s up to you. I think that’s fun.”
That sentiment feels particularly fitting for a film seemingly uninterested in offering the comfort of clearly designated heroes and villains. Schey may be poking at a recognisable type of modern masculinity, but his willingness to acknowledge pieces of himself within that satire complicates the joke. Egerton, meanwhile, appears equally determined not to provide audiences with an easy moral escape route by deciding how Adam should be judged.
Instead, Everybody Wants to F*ck Me leaves that work to us. And judging by Schey and Egerton’s approach, feeling slightly uncertain about where your sympathies lie may be precisely the point.
Everybody Wants to F*ck Me is screening as part of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, running between September 10th and 20th, 2026. For more information, head to the official site here.
