- 15 hours ago
Connect with Deadline online!
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
https://www.youtube.com/Deadline
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
https://www.youtube.com/Deadline
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00If you could direct and any remake, what would it be?
00:02I don't want to remake anything.
00:04I kind of feel scared of remaking things and I feel like we should make new stories.
00:10Hi, I'm Joel Edgerton and I'm going to take 10 with Deadline.
00:21The naughty boy in me is like, I'm going to have to clean that up.
00:26I didn't think you'd be on this, sir.
00:28Well, I just couldn't stop walking, that's all I got of here.
00:35What are you thinking about?
00:37I was thinking that we ought to get married.
00:42You wanted to make Train Dreams 10 years ago, then you got the call to star in it and produce Do You Believe in Fate?
00:49Yes, now I have to correct this because I realised the timing of it was, I think it was 2018 that I was gifted the book.
00:57As soon as I had read the novella, Dennis Johnson's novella of Train Dreams, I inquired after the rights of it and found out immediately that they were taken.
01:06So I put it out of my mind and then years later, cut to three years ago, Clint Bentley reached out to me about being in the film.
01:15And I'm quite a cynical person when it comes to anything outside the universe, like esoteric and weird.
01:22But I also have started to become more open to those things and I did start to think if there was something more out there that was serendipitous.
01:33But maybe there's something more basic about it, maybe what I connected with in the novel was that I saw myself in the character and that someone else also saw that, you know, meaning Clint.
01:44So I don't know that it's that hocus-pocus-y.
01:47But I'm glad that he did. And weirdly, the other thing I'll say about it is the connection I had with the novella in 2018 was different to the connection I had when Clint came around to me because I had since become a father.
02:00And when you see the film or if you have seen the film, you'll know what I'm talking about, then there's a kind of reason to be a bit frightened of the novella if you're a parent.
02:14Train Dreams connects with me in a number of ways. I try, if I'm going to work on something, to find a reason to connect with the themes of something or the character, obviously.
02:23And sometimes you're searching for things that you feel a little bit elusive to you.
02:28There's a couple of things that were really elusive that make sense, even though they feel a bit trite to me.
02:33And the one that feels trite is Robert is a character who is constantly leaving his family for months on end to go on these contracts to go logging and help build the railroads.
02:45And he's at odds with the disconnection with his family. And he's trying in his own way to look to the future about how can I keep us all together?
02:55And the money's better over there, but it means it's at the cost of being away from my child and my wife.
03:02And I connect with that as an actor. I'm not cutting down trees and, you know, I'm living a more cushy life.
03:08And, you know, I'm not struggling maybe. But there is a connection in that I go away from my wife and my kids now.
03:17And the older they get, the question of whether I go and do a job somewhere away from them is a thing.
03:24The other deep connection is I think there's a section of Train Dreams that deals with loss and grief that that is my greatest fear now that I do have kids, which is if you have kids, you've thought about losing them.
03:35And definitely I've thought about that. And those feelings are inside of me.
03:39So in some ways going to work on Train Dreams to play Robert.
03:42On one hand, I felt like this is an easy task because I don't need to pretend these thoughts and feelings, but a challenge or a difficult thing, because do you want to face those feelings or try and depict them on screen?
03:53So there are a couple of reasons why I connect with the novella. Your character Robert Grenier is a man of few words. I'm not, obviously, as I've proven already.
04:03What effect did Barely Speaking have on you?
04:06I think it's a really interesting challenge to be on screen with few words. I believe that communication, there's words, there's the tone of your voice, there's silent communication, there's all forms of expressing what you feel and think.
04:21And Robert is a very honest character. And the only thing is, it's like the honesty of what he's feeling in a moment should show on his face. He's not a very verbose character.
04:29And I think I've enjoyed doing that in the past. I've played a character in a movie Loving for Jeff Nichols, which was a similar thing.
04:38And that hopefully there's a sort of a power in people who speak very little, because, you know, when they do speak, there's an urgency or a purpose for when they do.
04:49Can you share a favourite behind the scenes memory?
04:54Look, it was a pretty fantastic shoot from start to finish with a really good crew.
04:59I really enjoyed being out in wilderness to shoot or kind of, you know, away from cities.
05:04I guess one thing worth sharing is that, is it WC Fields attributed to the quote of like, never work with animals or children, or some version of that.
05:15Yeah, I agree and I disagree. But the reason I disagree is you just have to find a way to do it that suits them, rather than try and impose your will on a child or an animal.
05:27Because we're in the business of patiently setting up a shot and then repeating performance or repeating the moment.
05:35And I don't think children understand that and why impose your will on them.
05:39So, you know, the script is about trying to get a moment of joy out of a child or a farewell as we were trying to do.
05:45And it's written one way. And if the child doesn't want to play ball or doesn't want to stand where the camera's pointing, then you've got to find another way.
05:52And so Clint and Adolfo, who's the wonderful cinematographer, just found a way to kind of go, OK, well, the essence of what we want is a farewell.
06:00But let's see how it can play out whichever way the child is willing to participate.
06:08So we just found a way and didn't stick to the script. And similarly with an animal.
06:14So we spent a lot of time following chickens around.
06:17And then it was my job just to kind of plug in to whatever the child or the animal wanted to do.
06:23And that was fun and tricky and funny. And you feel like a fool.
06:28What can we learn from the way Robert lived his life?
06:31Look, the movie is about a time when people were more patient.
06:35I think life is very like tick tock and things move fast, especially with the content.
06:40And I think at the time they thought the world was moving too fast, the industrial revolution.
06:45Little did they know that that was slow compared to what was coming with us.
06:49And I think it's nice to sit in the cinema and watch a man who lives a pretty ordinary, patient life.
06:55And the movie is about someone who's ordinary, but through that ordinary life you get to see that all of us, I think, are extraordinary.
07:02Train Dreams reminds us of how beautiful the States is.
07:07What is your favourite place in the US?
07:12That's a good question.
07:18I'm going to say New York City.
07:20Even though I said I like being in the wilderness, which I do, but if I were to pick a city, New York City.
07:25Your character Robert seems to see ghosts sometimes. Have you ever had an experience like that?
07:30I had one experience where I thought I'd experience some kind of ghost.
07:33I was in a house at a shoot in Virginia and I woke up in the middle of the night and I felt like something was sitting on my chest.
07:42And I kind of like, I woke up and then as I was kind of sitting in silence, I felt this like tug on my ankle and that was it.
07:51But I was like, alright, now I believe in ghosts.
07:55You play a logger in the film. Your co-star William H. Macy is quite the carpenter now.
08:01How are your own woodworking skills? Terrible.
08:05I wish I could say otherwise, but no.
08:08I try and make things for my son with sticky tape and various things.
08:11He thinks they're amazing and I take videos of them because they're the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen.
08:17What are some other random skills you've picked up throughout your career?
08:21Brick Lane for loving, a little bit of martial arts for warrior.
08:26Every job you learn something interesting and new and you become like a kind of a curious sort of view of things.
08:35I wouldn't say you become an expert, but you get to look into other people's lives and learn how to do one or two things.
08:43And it's kind of cool.
08:44Train Dreams is deeply moving.
08:46What are some films that made me emotional?
08:51E.T., a movie by Gavin Hood called Sotsie.
08:55I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right.
08:57Set in South Africa.
08:58Broke me in two.
09:00Into the Wild by Sean Penn.
09:02Broke me apart.
09:03And I'm talking, these are movies that didn't just make me have like a single tear,
09:07but like made me ugly, kind of ugly cry if you might call it that.
09:13If you could direct any remake, what would it be?
09:16I don't want to remake anything.
09:18I kind of feel scared of remaking things and I feel like we should make new stories.
09:23What is something uniquely Australian you miss when you're away?
09:27Australia.
09:30The beach.
09:32Vegemite.
09:33Favourite Australian slang word?
09:36I love the word fair dinkum.
09:39I mean it's two words really, fair dinkum.
09:41And it's followed often by a fucking oath.
09:43Which basically means like for real.
09:46It's like, yeah, for real.
09:47You know.
09:48Vegemite.
09:49Fucking oath.
09:50I don't say it, but it's very uniquely, seemingly, uniquely Australian.
09:56You once did a Darth Vader impression on my podcast.
10:00Have you got any others?
10:01I'd love to see it.
10:02Can you replay it?
10:03And then I won't have to do anything now.
10:04I was at the Four Seasons Hotel going to see some friends.
10:07And I walked past the table and Elizabeth Taylor was having an evening nightcap with James Earl Jones.
10:13Shall we have another one?
10:16Don't force joke me.
10:21I have been Joel.
10:23And thank you for watching and listening.
Recommended
16:52
|
Up next
12:44
10:38
15:13
0:29
10:11
0:41
0:36
15:47
28:03
16:53
1:00
14:26
28:20
21:52
13:20
11:09
13:13
26:38
2:15
46:42
1:05:17
Be the first to comment