Forty years after whispering “Bastian” from a collapsing ivory tower, Tammy Stronach is back on the big screen—though you might not recognize her under all the prosthetics, robes, and gleeful menace. Man and Witch: The Dance of a Thousand Steps isn’t just her return to acting after four decades—it’s a self-made fairy tale about self-made fairy tales, written by her husband Greg Steinbruner, shot during the pandemic, and somehow starring a goat herd cursed in both love and hair.
“I wasn’t sure people would want to see me come back as this like shriveled, angry witch with horrible hair,” Stronach laughs. “But it didn’t matter—it was the story that mattered. And the witch has layers.”
She’s not kidding. This witch hides in a semi-invisible house, has trauma-based invisibility powers, and masks her bruised heart with a barking attitude. “She’s so soft underneath,” Stronach says. “She’s just been hurt. She’s hiding. Most of her labor is about not being seen.”
The character was born out of a pact the couple made—if Tammy was going to act again, the role had to be worthy. “I want to play a multi-layered, complicated, rich character with a real arc,” she told Greg. His response: Okay, here’s the witch. Her response: Oh, this might be hard.
Hard, and also weirdly timed. What began as a modest short film spiraled—thanks to a pandemic, some very bored actors, and a massive Spotify ad featuring Falkor plastered across a building near their house—into a full-blown indie feature. “We thought we’d just make a ten-minute short,” Steinbruner explains. “Then Tammy saw the script and said, ‘This is good. We should make this.’”
Cue the snowball. Suddenly, Sterling Castle in Scotland was available. (Thanks, tourism collapse.) Actors were answering emails. Costumes were being sewn. And Greg? Greg was losing his mind over the haircut.
“I finally get to star in a movie, and they give me that haircut,” he deadpans. “It’s my real hair. We sprayed it, puffed it. I was like, can we at least not make it look like my real hair?”
Tammy chimes in: “It’s the exact haircut he had when he was eight.” And yes, it looks like someone upended a salad bowl on his head and followed the rim.
The story itself is an homage to everything from The Princess Bride to Monty Python to, yes, The NeverEnding Story. A cursed goat herd must complete three impossible tasks for a reclusive witch if he ever wants to find love. It’s silly. It’s sincere. And it somehow balances both.
“We were trying to straddle this weird tone,” Steinbruner says. “How can it be silly and emotionally resonant? Usually you have to pick one. We didn’t.”
The dance of a thousand steps—central to the film—isn’t just a joke either. Stronach, who became a professional dancer after leaving acting, choreographed the sequence herself. “Michael Hines, our director, said it couldn’t just be a gag. It had to be beautiful,” she recalls. “It’s ridiculous. But it has to matter.”
And matter it does, especially as the film arrives right on the heels of The NeverEnding Story’s 40th anniversary, which—despite no one’s original plan—lined up perfectly for a double feature premiere in New York. “We’d love to say it was strategy,” Steinbruner admits, “but no, it was just dumb luck. Really, the whole movie is proof it’s better to be lucky than good.”
Still, they’re hoping lightning strikes twice. Their company, Paper Canoe, has sequel ideas waiting in the wings. “This world… people are falling in love with it,” says Steinbruner. “It’s niche. But we think it’s a big niche.”
As for Stronach, who’s now a witch, a choreographer, a producer, and a symbol of Gen X fantasy nostalgia all rolled into one?
“I would love to keep acting,” she says. “It feels very rebellious to insert myself back into the acting space as a middle-aged woman. And I love that rebellion.”
Maybe the story never ends after all.
Watch the full interview above and then check out the trailer below.
