Windsor has always been a strange breeding ground for talent that punches way above its weight class. It is a border city with a chip on its shoulder and a theatre scene that refuses to quit. Now we have *Weirdo*. The short film is currently making the rounds on the prestige genre circuit and it features a performance from Spencer Hanson that suggests the kid has been paying attention in the wings of Windsor Light Music Theatre.
The industry is taking notice early. Hanson already snagged a nomination for Best Actor at the GenreBlast Film Festival which kicked off the first weekend of Sept. 1. For a 14-year-old, that is a heavy lift. Most kids his age are struggling with algebra or trying to figure out how to look cool in a hallway. Hanson is busy figuring out the internal mechanics of a "deranged" protagonist.
The news of the nomination did not come via a formal gala or a call from an agent in a glass tower. It was a digital discovery on a quiet afternoon.
“Well, it took me by surprise,” Spencer says about his nomination. “I was sitting on our front porch and then the director posted something about the festival. I looked and saw her name in the list of Best Directors and I was like, that’s cool. Then I looked at leading actors and I saw my name. I screamed, ‘Oh my god, I never knew this would happen!’”
That porch moment is the kind of indie film lore that sticks. But it is the work on screen that justifies the noise. Hanson is not a newcomer to the hustle despite his age. He carries two IMDb credits from 2020 alone. There is *Weirdo* and then there is *The Silent Lay Steady*.
His resume reads like a kid who never sleeps. He has been a fixture in local staples like Cardinal Music and Windsor Light Music Theatre. He is already booked for *Mamma Mia!* and *A Christmas Story*. It is a lot of stage time. And stage time breeds a specific kind of discipline that translates well to the efficiency required on a short film set.
The production of *Weirdo* was a lean, mean operation. Directed by Toronto-based filmmaker Ashlea Wessel, the shoot took place just outside the GTA. The aesthetic of the film relies heavily on a sense of isolation and decay. You can feel the dampness in the frames.
“We filmed 45 minutes out in Toronto near this forest in an abandoned school,” Hanson says. “It was a two-day shoot. One was the bike school and everything that was required inside was filmed on the next day. It was all outside and cold.”
There is no glamour in an abandoned school in the middle of a Canadian autumn. It is just grit and shivering between takes. Wessel seems to have found a way to harness that discomfort into the performance. Hanson speaks of her with the kind of professional respect you usually hear from veteran character actors discussing a Big Five director.
I’m one of those people that don’t want to see myself on screen. It’s because every time I see myself on screen, I just feel like, oh, I could have done that better. I do enjoy being on the screen though.
“Ashley is a very nice person overall,” he says. “She’s very understanding and patient with people and she’s a really good director.”
The film itself is a dark slice of social commentary. It follows an "odd" boy who hits a breaking point after being tormented by a bully. It is a familiar trope but Wessel and Hanson take it to a place that is significantly more unsettling than your average after-school special.
“The film is about a kid who has been picked on most of his life. He’s a little bit deranged in his head and doesn’t really know it and becomes a bit of a psychopath by this one bully,” Spencer says.
That word—psychopath—is not used lightly. It suggests a level of psychological depth that Hanson had to navigate. He has explored the dynamics of bullying before but from the opposite side of the fence. He previously starred in a viral anti-bullying campaign where he played the aggressor. That project racked up more than two million views.
Playing the villain gave him a different perspective on the power structures of a scene. It is about control. Or the lack thereof.
“Being the bully, you feel like you have more power over the scene and you can control what happens in the scene,” Spencer says. “When you’re not the bully but the kid being attacked, you don’t feel as powerful and you just have to go along with what the bully is doing. It was different and much easier being the one being attacked.”
It is an astute observation. The victim role requires a surrender to the narrative flow. The bully dictates the rhythm. Hanson’s ability to articulate this power dynamic shows a maturity that most adult actors are still trying to find in their second act.
Despite the accolades and the viral hits, Hanson is his own harshest critic. He had the chance to watch *Weirdo* during its online screening at GenreBlast, but he approached it with a healthy dose of trepidation.
“I’m one of those people that don’t want to see myself on screen,” he says. “It’s because every time I see myself on screen, I just feel like oh, I could have done that better. It’s a good way to push myself to do better next time, I just don’t like seeing myself on screen at all. I do enjoy being on the screen though.”
That dissatisfaction is the engine of a real career. If you are happy with your work at 14, you have nowhere to go. Hanson is already looking at the exit ramp from local theatre toward the big leagues. He is eyeing NYU and UCLA. Those are the institutions that turn raw Canadian talent into industry mainstays.
The festival run for *Weirdo* is just beginning. Beyond GenreBlast, it secured a spot as an Official Selection at the 2020 Horrible Imaginings Film Festival in Santa Ana, California. It is a long way from a porch in Windsor.
But that is the trajectory. You start in the cold, in an abandoned school, and you end up on a screen in California. Hanson is just getting started. And if he keeps this level of self-imposed pressure, he might actually get everything he is looking for.
The film is a reminder that the "weirdo" in the room is often the one with the most interesting story to tell. And Hanson tells it with a chilling, quiet precision.
He is one to watch. Not that he will be watching himself. He will be too busy looking for the next role, the next director and the next way to be "better." That is the only way to survive this business. And Hanson seems to know that already.
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