“Tenzing” is one of those based-on-a-real-story adventures whose basis in historical fact doesn’t make the story any less thrilling.
It recounts the expedition of New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary (played in the film by Tom Hiddleston) and his Nepalese-Indian sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay (Genden Phuntsok), who became the first two people to summit Mount Everest, back in 1953. The Apple Studios film will be on Apple TV later this year, although you’ll probably want to seek out its limited theatrical run. The movie looks big. (You might want to skip if you’re afraid of heights.)
“Tenzing” marks the debut narrative feature from documentarian Jennifer Peedom, an Australian filmmaker whose credits include 2008’s “Solo” (with David Michôd), 2015’s “Sherpa” (filmed during a 2014 avalanche at Mount Everest) and 2017’s “Mountain” (which was narrated by Willem Dafoe, who appears in “Tenzing”).
Given the subject of her previous films, “Tenzing” seems like a natural progression, and she said she was spurred by the story at the heart of the film to make her narrative debut.
“It was the story, really. In this particular story about Tenzing, Norway, it’s a very interior journey. I made a documentary feature called ‘Sherpa’ 10 years ago that was at TIFF, and which followed an Everest expedition from the Sherpas’ point of view, and for many years I’d been fascinated by Tenzing and his story,” Peedom told Steve Pond at TheWrap’s studio at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival.
“That project deepened my understanding of him, and I think I reached the point where documentary had taken me as far as it could and this is a story about faith and family and belonging and identity. It was an interior journey and it needed drama to be able to tell it properly. It was really the story that dictated the form.”
Phuntsok said that, prior to being cast, he knew about Tenzing Norgay’s story but not as much about “the detailed things.”
“After I got this character, and then I prepared for this role, I read all the books about Tenzing and documentaries. Some books I read maybe four times again and again,” explained Phuntsok.
Peedom that it took a while to find her Tenzing and cast Phuntsok. But it was worth the wait.
“Actually, it was the work of the Tibetan filmmaker Pema Sedan, who I was introduced to by a friend of mine who shared his work with Genden in it. He’s been in some amazing films that have been at Venice Film Festival, and Genden is an accomplished actor, but has never worked in English before,” said Peedom. “And so, once I saw those films, we got in contact, and it took a little while. Eventually, we brought him out to Kathmandu, and we did some big casting sessions over there.”
While it might have been a journey to find Phuntsok, it was just a matter of getting through formalities. Like scaling the seemingly impossible mountain that you know you want to climb.
“I knew from the minute I saw the first film that Genden was in that he was our Tenzing,” said Peedom.
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