“Well, the movie has her name, Diana, on it, so she obviously loves it!” Stoll told the Princess of Wales Theatre at the Toronto Film Festival on Thursday night during a post-screening Q&A. Stoll stood in for Nyad, who was a no-show at the international premiere at TIFF after Telluride due to her membership in SAG-AFTRA, as were Bening and Foster due to their own Hollywood strike restrictions.

The marathon swimming drama depicts the two women as self-centered and driven or, as Foster’s Stoll tells her best friend in the film, “You have a superiority complex.”

The movie dramatizes Nyad who, in 2013, became the first person to swim the 110-mile distance from Cuba to Florida without the aid of a shark cage. It was her fifth attempt, and she completed a 53-hour swim through the dangerous open ocean that included overcoming sharks and poisonous jellyfish.

The script, by Julia Cox, tells a remarkable true story of tenacity, friendship and the triumph of the human spirit. Nyad recounts a riveting chapter in the life of world-class athlete Diana Nyad. Three decades after giving up marathon swimming in exchange for a prominent career as a sports journalist, at the age of 60,

“It’s a tale of obsession with completing an epic swim that always eluded her,” said director Vasarhelyi about the 110-mile trek from Cuba to Florida, often referred to as the ‘Mount Everest’ of swims. Determined to become the first person to finish the swim without a shark cage, Diana goes on a thrilling four-year journey with her best friend and coach Bonnie Stoll and a dedicated sailing team.”

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi attended the show without her co-director Jimmy Chin in Toronto to present her narrative debut, where she heaped praise for Bening and Foster’s performances. “These actors have access to these emotions and craft and having that as tools for us to tell this story was incredibly helpful,” she recalled.

Stellar Cast of Women

The casting of two superlative actresses elevated considerably what could have become just another conventional crowd-pleasing biopic about triumph of the will against all odds, including older age (Nyad was 60; Bening is 64).

Bening is already a four-time Oscar nominee for The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right, though she is also known for The American President, Captain Marvel, 20th Century Women and Death on the Nile.

Jodie Foster stars opposite Bening as Nyad’s best friend and coach, Bonnie Stoll. Foster is herself a two-time Oscar-winner for The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs, with some of her other well-known credits including Taxi Driver, Contact, Panic Room, Inside Man and The Mauritanian. Upcoming, she is going to be starring in the TV series True Detective season 4.

Rounding out the main trio of the Nyad cast is British act0r Rhys Ifans, who plays John Bartlett, another person who helps Nyad with her dream. Ifans is a BAFTA-winning actor viewers have seen in Notting Hill, Spider Man-No Way Home, and House of the Dragon.

Stoll told the audience that she had enjoyed spending much time with Foster, but that she never offered her an advice about playing her role. “I never said a word about anything, until after I saw the movie. And from the first time I saw it, I was watching myself up there,” she recounted.

Vasarhelyi talked about making her and Chin’s first narrative film after winning the Oscar Award for their 2018 documentary Free Solo, about rock climber Alex Honnold. She also opened up about diving into dangerous waters for Nyad, with cameras rolling in a giant tank of water in the Dominican Republic, where most of the movie was shot.

“It was tough fir all of us. We shot for 41 days, started shooting in a tank. I’ve never directed actors before, and all of a sudden I’m given a bullhorn and told to yell at Jodie Foster and Annette Bening across the water. To their credit, they were always gracious, when they were wet or  dry, Vasarhelyi remembered.