Dildos, porn, and your last meal being between k.d. lang's legs—it suffices to say, you wouldn't expect your grandmother to talk about these things. (Unless your grandmother was Joan Rivers.)

But they do pour out of the foul mouth of the feisty, butch Stella, played by Olympia Dukakis, in Cloudburst (which opens in Vancouver on Friday [March 15]).The Canadian-American indie romcom follows Stella and her longtime partner Dotty (Brenda Fricker) on a road trip from Maine. When Dotty's granddaughter (Kristin Booth) separates the couple by putting Dotty in a nursing home, the pair attempt to reach the Great White North to get legally married.

The octogenarian thespian, on the line from New York City (where she's contending with a cold), says that Stella's "colourful language" didn't faze her. However, director Thom Fitzgerald, in a separate phone interview from Halifax, Nova Scotia, tells a story of a slightly different shade.

"She did express hesitancy to say all of the coarse language that I wrote," he says. "But you know, she's a professional so she said the script is her bible and the director is her god so she would do it. But…actually I only wrote about half of the coarse language in the script and the rest was once given permission to curse on film, I could not stop her. The both of them [Dukakis and Fricker]. That was their contribution to the screenplay. I wrote all of the non-dirty words."

Whatever the case actually was, the script clearly liberated the actors. Fitzgerald points out that it was also Dukakis' first leading role and her first time playing the hero of a film. He adds that he had her in mind while writing the character. (Dukakis previously starred in Fitzgerald's 3 Needles and The Event.)

"She's very different than Stella in many outward ways. She's in real life a soft, maternal, grandmotherly, wise person. But she does have Stella's sense of rage. And she's just as opinionated."

Dukakis acknowledges that there other characteristics she shares with Stella.

"I have a streak of rebelliousness in me and a willingness to confront and stuff that comes from my background, being on the streets…and fighting with all the different ethnic groups, et cetera," she says. "And I'm quick to stand up, draw the line in the sand. I'm quick to do that. You don't have to push me much for that one. If I recognize something's happening, I go bang—I'm right there with it, you know? I guess when I was a kid, you had to let people know they couldn't mess around with you."

However, when she finally watched herself in the film, she was struck with emotional insights about the toll that being tough can take on a person. Including herself.

"I watched this film, and about halfway through, I began to feel so sad, because I saw the price this woman was paying for that. And I recognized that was in the film because I knew about it. Thom says a lot of this is me. And it wasn't until I really saw that, that I really saw that had happened. To be honest with you, I didn't realize that that's what was happening in those moments. I didn't see that that moment was not just a moment, it was actually part of the bigger picture, not only in the film but in my own life." 

Dukakis says Stella's emotional arc—"how she moves from a place of rebellion and resistance and confrontation, to a place where she's more vulnerable and more willing to live with give and take"—proved to be her biggest concern. She points out how this transformation is the inverse of Dotty's shift from passive to active.

"Brenda's character, who starts off much more protected and frightened becomes more daring and willing to come forth and be herself, and not negate herself and her life," she says. 

In spite of the differences between the characters and the two best supporting actress Oscar winners (Moonstruck for Dukakis in 1988 and My Left Foot for Fricker in 1990), Dukakis says they established a complementary working relationship.

"We were very protective of each other, but at the same time, we were ready to take each other on, which was great," she says. "And she's very funny….When I'm working, I tend to get humourless, so it's great to have someone like that around."

Again, Fitzgerald reveals a different, amusing facet to that story as well.

"They would get together and rehearse every night, the following day's scenes," he says. "Although really, as far as I can tell, they were just drinking. They certainly never seemed to arrive on set having come to some sort of mutual agreement. But bless them, they kept trying. And the tequila bottle got emptier and emptier."

Their lack of agreement probably reflects their very different acting approaches, as Fitzgerald explains.

"Olympia is the type who shows up with a binder full of notes, and scratches and words underlined and punctuation circled. And Brenda, she's an entirely emotive actor. She really lets herself feel the moments and I would say Olympia constructs a performance and Brenda feels it."

Dukakis can add Stella to a growing roster of LGBT or LGBT–related characters she's portrayed— from transgender woman Anna Madrigal in the TV series Tales of the City and More Tales of the City to the mother of a man dying of AIDS in Fitzgerald's The Event set in New York City's gay community. But in real life, her formative struggles might also resonate with queer audiences.

She describes growing up Greek American as having "lived in the hyphen", or having a hyphenated identity. She say she navigated between different worlds, something that many queer people, searching for their place or wrestling with identity issues, can identify with.  

"I could see what I didn't want to be a part of in both cultures," she says. "My effort was to find out for myself where and how I was going to evolve and be, and whatever. And I think that may be true for if you're a gay or a lesbian—you have to figure it out. You don't get easy passage."

Over the course of the time that has passed since the film was being made and originally began touring the festival circuit in 2011, Dukakis has witnessed significant shifts in the Stateside same-sex marriage debate.

"What's changed is that there's a dialogue going on. Very active in this country [America]. Very active. And the whole thing has swung. The majority of Americans are in favour of gay marriage, are in favour of legal protection and rights for partnership, et cetera, et cetera. And that's the best thing that's happened."

While same-sex marriage and lesbian characters are central components of the film, Dukakis feels that the film transcends identity politics and issues to touch upon universal themes.

"The film encourages us to look at and see and know that love is love, wherever it is. This is a love story…and it happens to be about two people who lived lives that they had to be separate…from society and protected and defensive about themselves, and this film is a journey from that to some other place where they're not as isolated and can feel more part of the fabric of life. That's what's so beautiful about the film."

Actor Ryan Doucette will participate in person in a post-screening discussion, along with writer-director Thom Fitzgerald via satellite, at the 8:30 p.m. screening of Cloudburst on March 15 at Vancity Theatre.