Juliette Lewis and Peter Dinklage for ‘The Thicket’ | Conversations at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation

it was a rare movie you know I think more movies should be done out in the freezing cold and not on green screens um because every time I go out into the middle of the frozen tundra I'm excited and every time I walk into a studio with a green screen I go oh I have to do acting now um um you know and all the great movies that we all grew up with where I grew up with I don't know ages in the room but we're done in real places Dog Day Afternoon that wasn't a set you know all the great movies or real locations and that for us it makes our gig so much more exciting and fresh and everything else that reception should tell you a lot about what people are are ready to hear about this movie um congratulations you know westerns that I I we need more westerns and so it's it's very exciting that this movie is made talk about it looks like it's fun to do one and also challenging at the same time can you talk about what it was like to make western making movies should always be fun and challenging at the same time like a a helix of double helix of both um cuz the more miserable an actor looks on screen the better the film it was 20 below where we were all the time all the time and um but it was really incredible to live in in all that gear and uh tell the those that type of story um I don't know it was I I was first introduced to film through my dad's movies that just happen to be Western so I didn't know this was such a full circle moment for me it's a real big deal thank you Peter thank you and and Peter you've been wanting to make this movie for a while now can you talk about this property this book by Joel Lansdale what interested you about it the character and that journey to get it made because you're a producer too yeah the one thing producing has taught me and I I'm it's still I'm still learning what a producer actually does and I just I like getting creative people in a room together because we're nothing without each other and what we do for a living um but it made me realize that every movie I watch has um hasn't happened overnight there's always a long gestation to everything um and we're not alone in the 10-year Mark but um no my producing partner David Ginsburg and I just fell in love with this book and we just sought it out and Joe Lansdale wrote the book and it's um very cinematic um and we put the pieces together slowly but surely and then the pandemic happened so that stopped everybody for a couple of years we were supposed to shoot in Spain I was all set to go and then boom um and then you know perseverance pays off hopefully sometimes um yeah yeah I I I just I selfishly I read the thicket and I saw Reginal Jones and I went yeah I'm gonna have that so the actor came first the producer came second um yeah I mean talk about what you saw in the character you know that that you were most excited to want to play um well I'm fascinated by how soft we all are and how back then no offense but we are soft um Wall-E I love that movie Wall-E for that reason um the alien the little robot I mean I love W but the the all the the big baby people who are just like looking at screens and oh living on the off world and they're just like and every time somebody walks across Sunset Boulevard and I'm in my car I'm like and they're on the phone yeah it's Wally um um what was the question just no I just love the idea of of um we talk about how cold it was in Calgary but we got to go home to our hotel rooms our warm hotel rooms at night I love the idea of the frontier and survival and that's all they thought about where they're going to sleep how what shelter and food they were going to get because it was um not designated every day like they had no idea so that idea of someone like me my size and that environment how compound that with that how he would survive this and I found that really fascinating and how tough ass that person would have to be so Juliet when you first read bill was Bill a woman when you read it because it's not a woman in the book I thought they were so smart for making that decision and then coming to me that was smart [Applause] um it was so incredible it was a part of a lifetime and when you get a part of a lifetime it's what happens to you is you don't know how you're going to do it but I was given uh such a plentiful ingredients uh a bitch's brew a magic stew of um you know just her what they how they talk about Bill in the story of her brutality and not knowing if it's a male or female all those things I had when you saw me I have to be the person that makes you think all those things and um The Voice came to me first because of a line in the script that described maybe her scars or the way she might talk like a I forget the line but it came to me and I just started playing with my vocal register which I tend to do with um characters anyway whether I because I have this low voice so I sometimes pitch it higher or lower anyway I was happy I was able to talk in long periods of time in that register because it was difficult at first um and then you want to marry the whole thing even the scarring everything was meticulous because you don't want any of those things to stand out one from the other you want it to be this cohesive person and um I'm happy that I the bits I've seen I was like oh okay I think I might have done something I think I might have done it maybe he's kind of sort of I think I did play a character you you totally did yeah I mean we've all seen it sort of it it takes away making Bill a woman is uh it brings this I think it makes it creepier because there's like a weird maternal aspect to it and forgive my language but it with a guy it feels like sorry rapy and you just don't want that hanging over the whole relationship and and the whole thing because and it it gives esme's character Lula a a bit of just an understanding of her captor like Stockholm syndrome type of thing and not that you forgive anything from what she does but it's it's it for me it it lands a lot harder because it's it's unexpected and it's um maternal and you don't want that from maternal you you get it from paternal but not no it's one of the most disruptive characters i' I've seen in a western in ages I mean you always feel like when you're looking at gender bending you know it's like it's always antioc and Calamity Jane it's always you know it's like it's always on the comedy side of things it's it's rarely like this and this felt like did it feel like you were doing something that you'd never ever seen anywhere close before yes and but I've met so many people in my life in all areas of this um I don't know you meet people that have lived really hard and um I looked at bill as like callous pain she was the embodiment of pain as a person but with just callous brutality and the story they gave me of her history um it was really interesting to play that it was very uncomfortable for a long period of time to be in play this personality cuz I never wanted to lose it because usually I'm pretty I mean on set I like to be wound very tight I never fully relax uh just cuz it requires so much Focus for a long period perod of time and this character I just never want I wanted to feel so real I don't I just really wanted everyone to believe it not just be cool in a movie although that's fun [Laughter] too Peter do you remember seeing Juliet as Bill and set for the first time and what that was like yeah it's a bit awkward because all you want to do is like as actors we hug a lot um and you go oh my God Juliet oh it's creepy weird like should we be doing this um and we didn't have many we've seen the movie we have one scene together and um but kind of as much as an actor I wanted every scene with her less is more in terms of these two characters um and uh actually it was really uh I think I don't know you guys think for me it was like the most honest scene in in the film because we ironically and sadly and everything else are the two characters that are most alike um we've W we've felt similar pain in our lives we've gone through similar experiences and there's an honesty there that um is sort of I think beautifully scripted and obviously beautifully played by her um but anyway as an actor I wanted more more more and I I think I went in for the hug when I first saw her yeah we hug character method acting be damned oh yeah no well there's so much respect and that scene was so loaded the day was so loaded cuz we knew how important it was yet you know you can't uh there's so little spoken in it so it's all about what's not said and the Pres and it was just really magical and she doesn't know but I know just there's like that little narrative Cool vibe going through it and uh but we don't dismiss each other which I like we there's humor to it but I do think at any time she thinks someone's out to right kill her so that at any time yeah yeah yeah that's how she walks through life yeah that's why I had both hands on the on the bar so when you when you know you're I mean when you know that's such an important scene do you want to talk about it first with each other or do you think it's better to just kind of see what happens when you I don't know I it's like I talking about acting is like dancing about architecture for me sometimes um you just do it you just do it and I don't know I don't I don't know until I'm across the room from this one until I only respond with what I get um and I don't know what I'm going to get and that's the fun part for me um so talking about it beforehand you could do it and then talk about it but you got to you know throw [ __ ] at the fan first Yeah you mentioned how your characters are are alike uh but certainly when we first meet Bill Bill can certainly stare somebody down and when we first meet you that's seeing you know you're trying to get money from those guys there's a you're kind of like not you you don't want to look at them you're sort of like I mean and it's sort you can sense it's maybe a little bit like I hate these people and I don't want to look at them and or I mean but it's an interesting that you're you're kind of playing somebody not really good at hiding they're in total cynicism yeah well um I'm I'm in my 50s now so I love playing characters my age because there's like a history behind them so I just go this is so far not the first time he's been in a room exactly like that having that response to collecting the $2 he knows where the exit is he knows who's the strongest man in the room he knows to um their their sort of you know underestimation of him is to his own Advantage um and he knows hopefully that he'll get out alive with his $2 they're drunk they're playing cards they're easy targets and he doesn't want it to happen unlike maybe the villain of the piece sometimes that's the difference between the the antagonist and protagonist they're like bring it on this person just wants to get his $2 and be gone but they didn't give him his $ two um I'm always interested in what unlocks a character for an actor um whether it's a line of the script they love or a a piece of clothing a prop being on set can each of you talk about these characters uh maybe an aha moment you had I mean in your case let's let's leave the voice aside if it if it couldn't be the voice what what other you know and just talk about for both of you what helped unlock the characters for you um oh wow I was sort of utilizing um being at the end of one's rope I feel like when you meet her she's heading toward the thicket toward a home but she's you're meeting this P I think she's in an existential crisis whereas maybe if you met her 10 years ago and she's maybe had some gold and a good group and some good times she might have been in in Joy about her villainy but if is that a word um I feel like you're really that's how I felt and I I just as me was coming at the end of a chapter maybe a lot of people went I don't know enough about astrology but coming through the pandemic coming through some hardship coming through and you're sort of coming in just like scraping the the um bottom of some trial and error stuff and um anyway so I really knew I guess as an actor you know how to experience well or tap into emotion and so I bring that to the equation but also imagination plays so much again the G the ingredients I was given was so um rich with her history of having love of a or just indoctrination that just Brut brutalized her and made you go cold real young early on so all those things you're imagining that and I um anyway it's so tough I don't know I don't know that gives you a blend of knowing your own experience your own history and then the imagination and people you've seen who've lived hard and uh yeah empathy and sort of but it was so hard because I wanted to walk everything about her wasn't me so I was like how do you walk the walk is great oh good you just have to show it's like day one the first thing we shot for me was her walking through the snow and I was like wait a second I don't have her walk yet I haven't lived in this yet but you fake it till you make it so I love that it's like how much the villain thinking the villain sorry judgment but it's like how much longer am I going to get away with this it's like the serial killers who like kind of want to be caught and they just are like biing their time you know it's like a it's that sort of thing which I love about Bill Bill in a way that's sort of I'm scared to see it for the ending scene cuz I actually broke my heart playing it I don't even know what's in it in the movie what they kept of it but it makes me so sad when I did it it was really I me it was sad for her me too okay yeah oh yeah you no I know you got to bring Humanity to every character so Peter with um with Reginal Jones what uh what helped unlock him for you when you when it got to actually phys physicalizing him the Hat I know I'm wearing a hat now but um I love that hat our costume designer made it espcially for me um because I have a big head and I demanded a certain unique hat I didn't demand it I asked for it um I I don't I try not to have any preconceived notions I mean it's so funny because we've been sitting with it for again a decade and then you just have to throw out all those expectations of what it's going to be um and then you just go in um and um surround yourself with Incredible people including Elliot Lester our director in this one and uh I don't know know it's it it's it's just it was a rare movie you know I think more movies should be done out in the freezing cold and not on green screens um because every time I go out into the middle of the frozen tundra I'm excited and every time I walk into a studio with a green screen I go oh I have to do acting now um um you know true and and all the great movies that we all grew up with or I grew up with I don't know ages in the room but we're done in real places Dog Day Afternoon that wasn't a set you know all the great movies or real locations and that for us it makes our gig so much more exciting and fresh and everything else all right let's have story time tell us a story about acting in the cold okay when have you ever been to Cali yeah did you get the the like the Vaseline jelly that you have to spread all over your body um because your skin it really starts to go like crazy like you're somebody at the Beverly Hills having lunch no um um um sorry um but I've never like felt such intense [ __ ] in my life and it cracks I'm live in New York which is a essentially a swamp in the winter in the summer um and uh we're not fit for it and the locals are like oh yeah you should get that stuff and then they give you this stuff and you're like oh my God and then the first couple of days you cover yourself in it until your skin adapts to it um I know cold but I don't know that cold yeah says the guy with left over guyliner on sorry just came from shooting Juliet do you have a good cold story well I have an everything story with just sitting you know on set with my comrades and all our gear and the belt the belt with the guns and the knife and a this and a that was about 15 lbs and stuff it was the one time you're happy with all the layers cuz you could put they did have but don't let it fool you that it kept you that warm but we did have have these electronic Long John a little bit um so that was interesting but the your face is still shown so you figure it out it certainly keeps you awake oh yeah for long periods there's no napping also I should I assume a fast shoot like not many days I mean yeah thank God yeah yeah that's probably helping too yeah it was an indie movie yeah 30 I mean You' you've both made both kinds of things big things small things this qualifies as a movie big in scope but small in terms of like so is it more energizing to shoot an indie like this that's very fast and has to be done quickly um well uh it keeps you on your toes I like it I like a short shoot um because all the uh in pre-production all the work has been done and then we get there and it's like everybody's ready because there's no time to waste um or money to waste and uh less time in a trailer for me of course we most movies like this we don't have trailers anyway so um what's a trailer uh but it keeps you sort of going and active and in the moment and like onto the next one and I did a TV show for a long time and that sort of that sort of uh work ethic I really admire and love um to just keep going it's not Precious on to the next and then with the lack if you like make a scene too precious and overthink it it kind of dies on the vine a little bit for me at least um and if you just serve it serve the narrative serve the story serve the character onward it's great yeah as long as you trust the director do you agree with that Julian yeah I all the shoots I came up on that you all know we didn't have the luxury of a lot of takes except for scorsi every now and then would like he just had fun um one time I was doing we were on the ninth take and I was like Marty is something wrong and he went no I I just wanted to see what you're were going to do next I was like oh cuz I just kept like trying new things until but that was that day he had the luxury of takes but you usually it's I've done things in one to three takes or like that yeah nowadays things are getting more Compact and I did come from a couple TV shows so I was craving movie Life there it's what I understand and um just cuz it's finite and uh you know your beginning middle and end you know what's coming you know who your character is and so I really like that but I would always want a couple more days on some of these shoes I've done yeah lucky to work with Sydney Lett on one of his last movies um and we rehearsed but he would always do one take and then he would just go you want another one and of course you go yeah but if you want one he goes I'm good but if you want one oh no and then you do that back and forth for like five minutes and go and and if you did that he' go let's do another one I like okay yeah but he was so and Sydney so you just trusted him but he would he came from television Sy he got his start on TV doing those um live TV where yeah live like so he just was like that machine and that's why he made so many amazing things and he just got great actors because he trusted them that's right and he was foolish foolishly trusted me um this movie I mean is an exemplary ex like a great example of just the fact that westerns are ultimately about Outsiders straddling good and bad kind trying to figure out which which they are you both have played so many great Outsiders what is it that's particularly wonderful about playing Outsiders who's inside is I was just gonna say I nobody here is inside if there's an inside Club let me know I feel like everybody's an outsider that's a judgment you know about some inside thing that doesn't exist um people in the right wing but they're weird now I'm kid um um um uh uh um sorry can't help myself but yeah exactly but who's on the ins you know it's like I I don't know I I like playing um morally ambiguous characters um because we're all have 1% going on in that department um where we doubt our decisions and all of that morally um and that's just that's the outsider thing you know oh um I like yeah I guess I'm always looking to play what I haven't played before um but again when I came up there was always this little Runway looked like a trap I knew it was a booby trapped but it was like the it's like straight down the middle like the pretty girl or the the object of something or you know and uh you know nowadays storytelling it's all runs the gamut of so many kinds of stories and people so that's neat to see um but there's certain things I wanted to avoid um anything too hung up on looks uh but however then when I play somebody who is hung up on looks that's interesting cuz I hadn't leaned big into that um I don't know so knowing when to Swerve like that kind of thing I mean do you mean swerve or do you mean like I've done this now it's time to do this the thing I didn't think I wanted to do now I want to do it yes and then by Bing it becomes interesting it was like after um wait was it natural Killers I did yeah after natural Killers I did a Nora Efron comedy with Steve Martin and Adam Sandler meline KH but nobody saw it so you sort of get known for what becomes a success but I always I always like doing opposites and trying to do the unexpected well so if I I sometimes like to assume that you know people who have been like working a long time learn something new about what they do every time they work on a project um if I were to ask that about the thicket for both of you what what is that you learned about yourself or yourself as an actor from from making this um I like Stillness um somebody who's like that guy in that movie there um just doesn't want eyes on him he wants to be sort of unseen get his $2 and get out even though his people's eyes are on him he wants to be invisible he doesn't want to help anybody he's begrudgingly gets involved in this um so like the the my favorite actors are um growing up in the 70s like you know like like you know like crazy and they're they they have such a skill set of getting away with that and um that sometimes I probably maybe I think personally can't get away with so I love uh being still I don't know I I I don't uh I'm not good at chewing scenery maybe I don't know so I admire the character in his stoic virtue of Stillness I see that where there's so much going on um for me when you asked that I just thought that I can do it cuz I because in the the harder the thing I'm like I don't know if I can do it every day on the I can I do it why am I doing it why am I doing this this is so harsh especially first days I think all first days on film should be like shots of coffee cups because it's literally like no matter how many you've done it's like the first day of school like nobody will like me I'm a [ __ ] actor I'm getting away with something that I don't know how I'm getting away with it but then after that you're like oh I made friends dear Mom I made friends up in Calgary it's day two and we're going out for a beer yay now I know how to act again well the movie does seem to be about creating a family right I mean that's what the movie is kind of about right how are you raised I mean what kind of family I mean you have to come can we turn the table back on to you that's your idea of family I mean you have to come together to do things and you have to like you you can pick who you want to be within life and and this what this movie seems to be saying to me I mean they starts off the movie starts with the death of a mom and dad I mean you know that's that's sort of the the frontier atmosphere that we're dealing with and you grow up really quick and then you get kidnapped and then you meet me and people shoot each other and welcome to adulthood it's really no different than living in Brooklyn all I can say is uh thank you both for making this movie and being so great in it and thank you all for coming thank you guys and Peter dink Julia everyone thank you so much go sag [Music]