Good, bad and ugly vibrations

For Beach Boy biopic, actors tap Wilson's peaks and valleys, Jeffrey Hodgson reports in Toronto.

The two actors who portray Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys in a film about his troubled life say getting a deeper knowledge of the revered Californian songwriter's music helped their performances nearly as much as spending time with the man himself.

Love & Mercy, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, stars Paul Dano and John Cusack as younger and older versions of Wilson, cutting between his creative peak in the 1960s and painful recovery from mental illness, addiction and abuse two decades later.