'Train Dreams' writer and director Clint Bentley drops by the THR studio at Park City with lead actor Joel Edgerton to discuss the creation of the movie adaptation of the 2011 novella.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00I have done bricklaying for loving, I could build a wall, I think I could still build a wall.
00:06I look like I have a worker's hands on the outside but they're a little softer on the inside
00:11because of my day job.
00:16It was actually, I read it many many years ago when it first came out and it was the first
00:20Dennis Johnson piece of writing I'd ever read and it just happened to be like I was getting out of
00:24college I think at the time and it came out and I just I read it and I was blown away and then
00:29I devoured everything else he had written and I just became a huge Dennis Johnson fan and then
00:35fast forward to and Joel also has a history with the book that precedes us making the film together
00:41and then fast forward to I had made Jockey and it had premiered here and and a couple of producers
00:48had the rights to the book and were trying to find a filmmaker to make the book into a movie
00:52and they saw Jockey and felt like I might be a good fit and I don't know that I would have had
00:56the courage to do it otherwise had they not asked but it was just like as soon as it the idea came
01:03across it just felt like the most exciting thing. I don't really often get to read for pleasure
01:10you know I'm a slow reader I read a lot for work and so sometimes I equate reading now with
01:17like like part of part of a job and somebody had gifted me the novella at the end of a job and I
01:26read it you know for pleasure and was so taken with it and you know I'm also a filmmaker and I
01:32I was so taken with it that I made an inquiry about the rights to the book and of course they
01:40were taken and I was like look it was you know so be it and then years later when Clint contacted me
01:48it felt like somebody had really it felt like something special was in the air I was like how
01:54did somebody know that I was so taken with this story and so I felt very lucky and then
02:02I was very nervous about reading a screenplay because I remembered that you know any any book
02:07or novella is a challenge to translate into a film. The script was so well such an accomplished
02:16version of the book in the screenplay and then you know and I watched Clint's film Jockey and
02:22and it's it's very rare often that sometimes you get a nice script and then you're not so sure about
02:28the way the or the other elements to be kind you know or you you you want to work with a great
02:36filmmaker and then you're not connected with the script but this felt like everything really lined
02:41up and I felt very privileged that they were asking me to do it and I felt that by this stage
02:46of my life I do know myself well enough of what aspects of me felt appropriate for this and I felt
02:55like it was something that I could wear quite well so it was it was cool that it happened.
03:02After Joel came on then we were like it was like okay now let's find our Gladys and and that's such
03:09a a difficult character to to try and get right and Joel and Felicity had known each other and
03:16wanted to work together for a while and um and I've been a huge fan of hers forever and and so
03:22she just like it was just one of those where she just felt so perfect for it that you're like I
03:26hope she doesn't say no because I don't know who next. His sensitivity to the way he spoke about the
03:34material the way he approached things as a writer and as a filmmaker that I had complete trust in
03:41him and it was easy for me to share that information with her and actors often like feel
03:47safe with each other you know who am I going to be working with and is it going to be a good
03:52experience and you don't have a crystal ball but you can have an instinct for the someone so I
03:57definitely um you know I was blowing Clint's trumpet to her if that's the right way of putting it of
04:06saying how much faith I had in the process and and and as a collaborator because
04:12Clint and Greg as writers uh part of their power is is not to assume complete control over something
04:22is that filmmaking is such a collaborative situation anyway and if actors have thoughts
04:28about things it's important to um listen to them but not listen to all of them
04:36because we can have some pretty terrible ideas too what okay what is your affinity not affinity
04:43for talent for like anything with working with your hands manual labor any of that like would
04:49you have any skills to offer as a real life person you'll be in a real right there tomorrow
04:54you'd be great I have done bricklaying uh for loving I could build a wall I think I could still
05:00build a wall I look like I have a worker's hands on the outside but they're a little softer on the
05:05inside because of my day job um I like doing uh films I guess where I get to learn skills and
05:16do things that are that are physical because I think that um um as much as I obsess over the
05:22interior life of characters the the physical nature of work is so important some of my favorite
05:28actors are people who who bring the the character into their whole body rather than just their voice
05:34or their eyes um but I also have a whole history in my family of men that were workers you know
05:41before my father um his father was a was a uh train driver and and before that a whole lineage
05:50of farmers which my father was going to carry on except that he got sort of railroaded at um
05:56uh at university this sort of he was on his way to to go and enroll in uh what was called sheep
06:03husbandry and his friends were like Mick we're going off to become lawyers you know and there's
06:09lots of money in it he was like um okay and my life may now be not sitting here but being the
06:17son of a farmer you know inheriting a farm or something it's it's interesting how generations
06:23and that speaks to the film as well about how life lived could be one thing or another and
06:28and how one decision like that can like ripple across generations now
06:34and you know well I feel like I'm of a generation where I got to take charge
06:38of my own future you know I didn't have to inherit something or presume to inherit something
06:44um and and there's something really nice about this film that I responded to and that you know
06:49this idea of the significance and insignificance of all of our lives we will all be forgotten
06:55unless we're you know some criminal or a politician or a famous artist of some kind
07:00that's written into history but we all contribute to the world and and we're all insignificant
07:05and will be forgotten to a degree but we did contribute something or we brought new people
07:11into the world that you know continue the human race so I I feel there's a real potency and
07:18simplicity to the film does a movie of yours stick out as when you were talking about like
07:23learning skills and stuff for for jobs that was the hardest was one uh warrior for sure
07:29learning presuming at the you know I used to have a fighting background as a kid like just
07:33doing karate but warrior came around when I was in my mid-30s and I I had this sort of um
07:40cynical point of view that I was a bit too old to to learn all these new skills and I you know we
07:46we were proven forced to prove ourselves wrong and and I really admired having to go through a
07:52really intense work experience like that and prove you know for the future also is never to doubt
07:59what what you're capable of