Tony Hale is bringing a unique film to the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival that has been years in the making.

PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at Sketch, a heartwarming, thrilling movie he collaborated on with longtime friend Seth Worley.

In the film, which also features D’Arcy Carden (The Good Place), Hale, 53, plays a father grieving the recent death of his wife, while Bianca Belle and Kue Lawrence portray his children, Amber and Jack, who each struggle with their grief in different ways.

Amber engages with the loss by doodling creatures in her notebook that verge on the disturbing, while Jack discovers a pond in the woods that seemingly can bring inanimate objects to life.

After Amber’s notebook accidentally falls in, those monsters come to life, endangering the entire family and their community.

“When shows are wrapped, you’re always excited ’cause everybody got through it, but with something this personal, I have never had adrenaline like that in my life,” Hale tells PEOPLE of finishing the movie after seven years in development.

Worley tells PEOPLE the idea for the movie stems from his childhood.

He remembers his younger sister getting into trouble for drawing “a comically violent picture of her teacher being pelted with arrows,” and the counselor who told her the decision to draw out her feelings “was significantly healthier than actually doing it.”

“It’s probably the most badass thing anyone’s ever said to a kid, in my opinion,” Worley says. “This thing that you did that made everyone scared of you and made everyone treat you like there was something wrong with you was actually evidence that you were a good person.”

Worley was further encouraged to write the movie when his own daughter went through a similar situation. He even wrote the lead role with the Arrested Development star in mind.

“He is a dream, man,” the filmmaker says of working with Hale. “Just a legitimately generous, kind guy, and proactively kind in a way that is unparalleled with anyone I’ve ever met.”

Hale, who shares 18-year-old daughter Loy Ann with wife Martel Thompson, tells PEOPLE his family saw an earlier version of the film that screened in Nashville in 2023, and he enjoys watching audiences react to the movie as it screens.

“I love seeing people’s reactions to the film, and my parents and my family obviously loved it,” he says. “I get really a kick out of that.”

“I’ve been doing this for over 25 years, and when you’re this passionate about something, it’s just — I cannot wait,” Hale says. “I cannot wait for people to see it. I’m so stoked about it.”

Sketch makes its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 7.

Source: People