Robyn Candyce
In a future, that’s not so far away, rain barely falls. Water is sought after as a rare commodity, and the land (which was once plentiful with crops) has become barren, and is no longer farmable. Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon) – a farmer who is struggling to take care of his children, Jerome (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Mary (Elle Fanning), as well as crippled wife, Katherine (Aimee Mullins) –believes his soil is still good. He’s convinced that if he can find a way to get water to the land it will thrive again. Unfortunately, for him, his daughter’s boyfriend Flem (Nicholas Hoult) is fully aware of the land’s potential, and he has his own plans for it.
Written and Directed by Jake Paltrow (“The Good Night,” 2007), his most recent film, “The Young Ones,” is supported by an all-star cast. Recently, a press conference was held for the sci-fi action western. Jake Paltrow, Elle Fanning, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Nicholas Hoult were present. Moviehole was also there. Below are some of the conference highlights.
I saw this as a Gary Cooper western for the 21st century, [is it]?
Jake: I think the movie is very much a western. While I was writing it, I was thinking about some [of the westerns] less traveled. Maybe not the John Ford ones, but still looking at a classical sort of a thing…I always like that “spaghetti” westerns were in with the contemporary politics of the time…I think like our movie does that too, to a certain point. There is a political background that forms all this drama that we’re exploring. I was writing about a drought, and the stories I was reading about were in Chile and Yemen. This one town in particular in Yemen; all these people were staying behind, and they were trucking water. There was this personal story about why all these people had stayed behind, and it was for various keepsakes and cultural reasons. It took a while to get this movie made, and in that time these problems had come to America – first in Texas and then in California last year.
Is this your first grown up role – with you being married and having a baby?
Elle: I’ve never been pregnant before. So, I guess you can classify it as the most grown up, even though I think Mary is in some ways very childlike. I think she has an innocence to her, even though she’s married and pregnant. There’s this kind of essence. I was drawn to that.
How did it feel watching it afterwards, after they did all the cut ups of the movie? Maybe they changed part of the story, it evolved? [Did] it end up differently then where it began?
Kodi: It felt really great to see this movie…to see it all finally come together – that vision that you had in your head so long. For me it felt, very naturally felt, like that vision that I saw when I read it. It’s something that I think; it’s a movie that it’s easy to watch and enjoy, but it can go down so many alleys of depth.
Nicholas…what was it like [for your characters] to be married to each other, having a baby and that whole idea, at your age?
Nicholas: I think the interesting thing about it is the age difference between us. That world is so weird. My character really does love her and care for her. He just has odd ways of showing it at times.
Jake: It’s supposed to be this inappropriate relationship – and it is, to a certain point – but it’s almost something that’s going on behind the movie. I always intended for this love to be felt quite deeply. Obviously, he’s a compromised character. I think the way we showed the intimacy between them is ultimately quite genuine. I find it very romantic, in a very odd way; he’s done such terrible things in the film, but it’s one of the things I love most about him.
How did you shake off [your] role emotionally?
Elle: I kind of knew about this script, I read it while I was really young; we met a long time ago. I was so excited, and I felt like I lived with it for a long time. I was always thinking about her. So, I would make little folders on my desktop and put up pictures that were inspirations for Mary. You know, it was nice to have a character and know it for so long, so you can develop it. I feel like it’s all just imagination. It’s like you’re playing. You get connected, but you’re not so deeply connected that you can’t get out of it. You drive home, and you wipe the dirt off. You [become] yourself again, and you go back. When you’re back in the environment, all the emotions, they come back. I feel like Mary, that character, is still living on that set.
Jake, Aimee Mullins was amazing as Kathrine Holm. What was it about Aimee that made you want to cast her?
Jake: She’s a very good friend of mine and a great [actress]. We had been talking for a while about her coming down and doing it. We didn’t know if it was going to be possible to bring her, she had so many obligations in her life. She came down [to the film site] for two days and then flew back. So, we filmed all her stuff in two days.
The contraption that she’s wearing in the movie; how much does something like that cost to produce, and was it very difficult to get it on and off her every day?
Jake: Well I can tell you it cost very little, so the only part of that costume that’s real; I don’t want to tell you because it sounds so silly. It’s really only just a couple of things, but large parts of it are digital effects. Everything above her; that sort of spine that comes up and goes into her back, most of the tubes that are coming down her back – we just have the tubes that are on her actual costume – those are practical, and some other things. Everything else is visual effects. That’s the approach in general. To do things where the heart of the element [is real] like this table, and then we would remove half the leg and it would walk away.
What was your preparation for this movie like?
Nicholas: Jake gave me S.E. Hinton novels to read [specifically], “The Outsiders.” It was kind of a look at those kids, and how they intertwine, and work and talk to each other. Because that is the strange dynamic, these kids acting older and not being able to understand what’s going on. So, I read that and that was a big help.
Jake: And there were some movies too.
Nicholas: Yeah, I didn’t watch those, I’m sorry.
The fight choreography was very realistic. Was there hand to hand combat? Did they ever touch each other?
Jake: That is something I’m always very concerned about. I’m afraid of the idea of people fighting on film. I don’t necessarily want to do it all in one shot. I wanted it to feel quite sloppy and like people who aren’t trained to fight. We didn’t have rehearsal time, so we choreographed that [on the day that we were filming].
There was a lot of story boarding too. Things that I wanted to see – awkward moments – the slapping of the hand, things that would seem like someone’s survival instincts, not like someone was trained in karate.
What attracted you to these roles?
Nicholas: For me, I hadn’t read a role – like this – for my age group, essentially. My [other] roles are kind of dull, and they are quite simple and straight forward. I read this [one] scene and I thought, “this is going to be fun to play”. There’s a lot going on beneath the surface. I like the dynamic…and the brewing underneath.
Kodi: When I read this, I thought that the environment was something that in-and-of-itself was a character to me. It was so intriguing because we had followed the momentum of the political world, and how we treated the world. We now, [in the script], kind of put ourselves in the future of [a] kind of nothingness. Everything is dwindling. That was kind of relevant to me through all the characters. I liked that each youthful character was dealing with something extremely mature.
Elle: When I read the script I think I was 13, but I had never read anything like it before. I enjoyed that you have to figure out what’s going on as the audience. Things aren’t always explained so much and there is no flashback; you have to kind of pick up from where this family is from, and it just goes forward.
Mary…why is she so mad at her father? They have kind of this hostile relationship, and we talked about how I would never look [my father] in the eye. So, as you go along you have to kind of figure this out, and I enjoyed that – [you don’t] just have something that’s like “here it is” – your mind has to work in order to watch it. It’s not just laid out for you.
“Young Ones” will have a limited release on October 17, 2014.
