The On-Screen Condition That Changed Tuner Star Leo Woodall’s Life Forever

Here’s something you probably haven’t seen before: Leo Woodall — yes, the same bloke you’ll remember skulking about in The White Lotus — has just gone and played a piano tuner with superhuman hearing. Not your garden variety ‘good at music’ scenario, either, but someone genuinely afflicted with hyperacusis. That’s a hearing disorder so extreme that the daily background noise most of us barely notice becomes absolutely punishing. He’s got to wear headphones just to walk down the street.

The film in question, simply called Tuner, dials this up a notch. Woodall’s character, Niki, finds his rare condition actually helps him out at work — he becomes a sort of piano whisperer — and then pivots, in a fashion that feels both a little bit mad and entirely cinematic, into using his talents to get mixed up in crime. Yes, truly: the man turns safecracker for a gang he meets whilst tuning a wealthy client’s piano. You can’t make it up, but apparently someone did.

Welcome to the (Loud) World

Woodall said to MovieWeb that before working on this one, he never thought much about noise — or quiet, for that matter. Now? He’s positively enlightened:

'I think I realised how much I took it for granted, how much we all take it for granted. It’s a very rare condition, and people don’t, obviously, they don’t think about it. Becoming aware of how loud life is, was a really interesting moment for me.'

That’s not exactly the sort of introspection most actors come away with after filming a genre-blender about criminals and pianos, but there you are.

Who’s Who and What’s What

• Leo Woodall – as Niki, the piano tuner/criminal prodigy with a super-sensitivity to noise.
• Havana Rose Liu – plays Ruthie, Niki’s love interest.
• Dustin Hoffman – Harry Horowitz, the old master piano tuner who takes Niki under his wing and shows him the ropes (presumably both musical and more dodgy ones).

Some background on Woodall — before this, he was already on a bit of a tear: from his scene-stealing role as a male escort on The White Lotus Series 2, to popping up in Netflix’s romantic number One Day, the Apple TV thriller Prime Target, and a couple of films last year — Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and Nuremberg. Critics though, seem to reckon Tuner is his finest work to date, calling his take on the would-be villain turned safecracking apprentice both ‘grounded’ and ‘compelling’. High praise, and frankly, fair enough.

Festival Talk and Rotten Tomatoes Glory

Tuner debuted at Telluride last autumn and was scooped up swiftly by Black Bear Pictures. Since then, it’s been cleaning up on the critical front: at the time of writing, it’s holding steady at an almost suspiciously high 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not just Woodall, but Liu and Hoffman have also been singled out for turning in top-tier performances.

RogerEbert.com’s Jason Gorber gave the film one of its splashier write-ups, calling Woodall’s performance ‘quiet yet compelling’, and describing it as a bit of a late-career showcase for Hoffman. He also reckoned the mash-up of styles — with a jazzy score and breakneck pacing — keeps things fresh and surprisingly engaging.

Woodall himself apparently agrees, saying the rapid-fire blend of genres and themes is exactly what drew him to the project in the first place. ‘I think that’s what’s great about this film,’ he said. ‘It weaves different messaging and different themes and different genres into one quite seamlessly, and I think that’s a testimony to Daniel and [Robert] Ramsey writing the thing.’