00:27This is Tim Wassberg from Fest Track on Surf TV.
00:29I'm here in Toronto, Ontario for the Toronto Film Festival.
00:33You always have a really good eye for character and genre.
00:37Always have.
00:39But it's also making it your own.
00:41Having talked to Vinny and Jop about your approach, what did you do on this one?
00:46Because there's a certain spiritual aspect to it, but there's also sort of the plot-driven aspect that you have
00:53to integrate with.
00:54Can you talk about that a little bit?
00:55Yeah, when I came on board, we started working with Terriol and sort of I wanted to move her away
01:07from this sort of chatty.
01:09She was a bit like she was quite like talkative and like sort of more of a normal FBI agent,
01:15like someone who was quite like, you know.
01:18And I wanted her to become more a little bit sort of more asocial and someone like I wanted to
01:29turn up the volume of her own wounds and sort of have her be someone who's hypersensitive and works with
01:35her body more than her brain sort of.
01:38So we started this very creative and inspiring process of like how much can we remove?
01:45Like how little can she say and still communicate and make herself like understandable?
01:50And I loved working with them.
01:53It was so inspiring and it was so much fun.
01:55And then I feel like we kind of made her really brought her into sort of a space of someone
02:04who's way more primal, who works with hands, with smell, like, you know, just like her whole body is the
02:11instrument.
02:11So when she walks into a crime scene or Leo's Woody's room, you know, it's just like she's like reading
02:18and taking in information everywhere in her body.
02:21And then it sort of gets processed and stored and it comes out and she's just and being that hypersensitive
02:27also makes you it's hard to be out in life because everything moves in.
02:32So I love I love her.
02:35She was quite she's someone that you can you can feel that she has a lot of baggage.
02:40You feel she gone through shit and like you don't know what and we didn't want to sort of have
02:45it to to outspoken.
02:48But it's someone who who I mean, she she can definitely relate to a lot of the the pain that
02:54this young, you know, Woody is carrying.
03:10Alpha three, bedroom one, clear.
03:16Alpha two, bedroom two, clear.
03:20Bravo two, contact email at rear entry.
03:23Ma'am, FBI, turn around.
03:25Down on the ground.
03:27Down on the ground.
03:28Straight out.
03:28Do it now.
03:29OK.
03:31Do you like to have or because we've talked about this before, how much backstory do you want?
03:36How much do you want to instinctively key in?
03:38Because you have that one therapist scene, but it just as you said, it just touches just a little bit.
03:43Yeah.
03:44It's like, you know, I don't I feel like the audience, I always feel like we should not underestimate the
03:49audience.
03:49They read and they're so smart.
03:52So I think most things, most scripts, I want to take things out and just make it like a little
03:57bit more sort of hidden and have like some Easter eggs that you can pick up on.
04:02Oh, that probably connects with that.
04:04Oh, you know.
04:04So we do feel like, you know, she was she was stationed in Texas before something happened there.
04:12We we have a whole sort of backstory.
04:15And she comes from a line of detectives and cops and and you're kind of born into this profession, but
04:22also and she's good at it.
04:24But it also brings her into all this like you see the dark side of humanity, obviously, because you see,
04:30you know, you have to be there and you have to take it all in.
04:34And so I think I love to the balance of how much does that do we need to show, tell
04:42and actually have present in the movie and how much can actually be sort of just memories that the audience
04:50will feel or shadows or sort of ghosts.
04:54That balance is very fun.
04:56And then and you never know what they're going to do in the edit room, you know, so it's like
05:00sometimes there's stuff in there like, oh, oh, I love that you took that out.
05:04And sometimes it's like, oh, no, wait, what?
05:06Like that part is not in.
05:07But she's I it was interesting to bring her to life because, you know, it was my idea to take
05:14down a lot of lines and sort of strip it and see how little I could actually say.
05:18But then on the day, I was like, is this really working?
05:21I feel like I should take more.
05:23And then, yeah, I mean, it was like, no, no, no, no, no.
05:25Like, trust it.
05:26Trust it.
05:27Like, so, you know, well, it goes to that primal thing you were talking like almost responding to the environment,
05:33you know, and any environment will will help you in a certain way.
05:36But this I think there was that one shot where there's the tractor where he tried to shoot himself.
05:42I can say that, I think.
05:44Like, and yet you go over there and you smell it and it's just very, very tactile.
05:49Yeah.
05:50Was that part of it?
05:51Is that all?
05:52Is that part of this where it was trying to find those details to pull out?
05:56Yes.
05:57And also someone when she walks into Woody's room that she sort of he needs to be alone.
06:05And then it's almost like she gets senses or like she she gets almost flashes of things that could have
06:12happened or or or or feelings that he had, like he carried in there.
06:18And I think, you know, she's very she's almost like a dog or like an animal.
06:23Like she she feels and she like and I think also the way she eats, I wanted to sort of
06:31I wanted to bring her into like someone who's quite primal and eats with her hands.
06:37And she's not like a smell smell of like really strong like this fish.
06:42She likes it because it's real and it makes her sort of it grounds her.
06:46But when but when things are like moved away or like she's someone that can smell a lie and I
06:53think that's why she also kind of reduces and kind of goes into almost a television where she doesn't want
07:01to have the noise of everyone else.
07:04And like, you know, this sort of she needs to to protect her instruments and her toolbox, which is her
07:11intuition.
07:40But you also play her outside the box because she has such an empathy.
07:44She has a job to do. But even like when you guys go into like that fish company or they're
07:50going towards the end, that whole metaphor of the ice separating, you know, but there's always an empathy to her,
07:57even though she's doing her job.
07:59And you that seems like a very conscientious decision.
08:03Yeah. I mean, she's a contradiction because she is devoted to this job and she is like the job.
08:08And if there's a certain like rules that not maybe necessarily the rules that that she learned in school or
08:15like when she was going through the program, but like she has her own sort of navigation.
08:19And she she believes I mean, I think she's someone that has a huge empathy and understanding and she's looking
08:31at things from more angles and she the loyalty she has is only to the truth.
08:37But you don't need to let everyone know what the truth is.
08:41Do you have to know the truth of the character in order to play them?
08:45Do you have to understand that inherently or is that not a requirement?
08:50I don't always know before we start, you know, I kind of the older I get, the more I'm just
08:55like allowing uncertainty and being like, OK, let's see where this leads us.
09:01And we start here and then, you know, hopefully we'll reach a place towards the end where it all makes
09:07sense.
09:07But like, yes, but you do you do need to have like sort of the core elements of the character
09:15and the truth of her drive and her history and who she is today that that I need to have
09:22before we start shooting.
09:23Like with any of these with specifically this character, I mean, she has a primal, but the way you interact
09:28with Woody's mother, but understanding his plight, you know, because that's the whole thing as this is a genre film,
09:35but there's so much going on below the surface of what's happening with the indigenous people.
09:40And talking to Woody from where he's from, you know, that's really interesting, you know, and Vinny, too.
09:45So, yes, yes. And me, you know, being European and coming into this, like I didn't know much.
09:52I started reading and watching documentaries and interviews, and it was quite shocking to to start to look into.
09:59I knew a bit of like, you know, sort of the American, the Native Americans and that, but like the
10:05in like indigenous people up in Canada, it was quite a it's not something we learn in school.
10:12It's not something we talk about in Europe. So the kind of the importance of this film just kind of
10:17grew even stronger when I started to to realize and also how few films that are made within this community
10:25and how like there's no there's not much of, you know, information or stories or or filmmakers or crew or
10:31actors from this community.
