Audio/ Video: 'Certain Women' and "JT Leroy' costar Laura Dern mentions Kristen

You can listen to the discussion with Laura Dern here or here.

Laura begins talking about 'Certain Women' and Kristen from 35.30mins.

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New/old portrait of Kristen for Yahoo! for 'Certain Women' promotion

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Find more of the portraits and interview here at our previous post.

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Kelly Riechardt talks 'Certain Women' and mentions Kristen with i-D Vice

I am interested in why you choose to work in rural locations and why specifically Montana, for this film.

These stories were written for Montana so that was the natural place to go. In Montana you're really locked in by the mountain ranges, it was the least tuned in to the politics of life that I've been in in a couple of decades. You could really tune out quite easily to what was happening outside of Montana. That's not so easy to do on where I live, for a lot of reasons.

That idea of places outside the political mainstream feels very timely in this particular moment…

Sure, but in a way the film hits upon a certain mood of people who feel they are not being heard.
It does. The Jared Harris character from the first story is very of this moment. He's a man in his mid 50s whose has been injured and has a real complaint but cannot grasp the idea that the system is not going to work in his favour. That's not something he has been accustomed to, and he can't get around it. Whereas the people he encounters, his female lawyer, anyone that wasn't in his lot in life, would know sooner that the system wouldn't work for them. Suddenly, while he does have a legitimate complaint he can't get over it. Like it's so unfair to him in particular, as opposed to this being the adult world for most people.

And that connects to how the women in the film don't have the same expectations…

Right, by the time the Native American rancher takes her knocks - she's far less expecting of the world - she's more self reliant than his character. The man is in this story with his lawyer, played by Laura Dern, and she's trying to give him legal advice. He wants something else from her; he's not hearing her on that level. He's wanting some comfort from her, that she's not interested in giving. There's a lot of miscommunications. And then there's these moments where people have a momentary glimpse into one another. There's a lot of missed moments.

Even Kristen Stewart's law graduate character understands the lack of agency in her life better than he.

Right, crappy car, driving a long time to pay off student loans…

This is your first time working with Kristen, but she feels entirely at home in a Kelly Reichardt film. I think it's to do with how internal she is. What do you think?

It's acting, it's all acting. It's just that she's good at it. It's - as Michelle [Williams] would say - it's reacting. She's a really good listener and she doesn't have to be doing anything. She's comfortable not showing an expression and just letting things be internal, whereas some actors as they might be in life are just more gestural and more expressive. Kristen doesn't feel like she has to be doing stuff.

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Kelly Riechardt talks about 'Certain Women' and mentions Kristen with View of the Arts

“They are really full characters who have everyday kind of problems” American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt says of the characters that lead her new film Certain Women. Played by Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart, and Lily Gladstone respectively, these women are our window into an intriguing yet isolated life in the American North West. They’re trying to make sense of their surroundings, and this isn’t always an easy feat. For Reichardt, taking the camera and passing through the everyday lives of a character is something of a speciality, and it is something she continues to explore in her latest production. View of the Arts were on hand to talk to her about the film.

Certain Women tells three distinct stories, and they’re based on a collection of short stories by Maile Meloy, what was it about the characters that made you want make this film?

Well, not that I can really remember because it was three years ago and who knows what that moment really was, but her writing is really great, and you get pretty sucked in. Some of them, like the middle story, you sort of ask yourself ‘what was that about?’ and it gnaws away at you for a couple of days. I felt her stories kind of lingering with me after I read them, and I went and got her second book of shorts and read that, then I went back to her first book and I thought that maybe I could fiddle around with them. They are really full characters who have everyday kind of problems, dealing with the small politics of life and how to navigate their job or their trip to work, all of these sorts of things. All of them were also pretty deeply set in their environment, so that’s why.

What is it about the American North West that’s interesting for you as a filmmaker?

I’ve never lived anywhere inland before. I’m from Florida, I live in New York and sometimes I live in Oregon, I’ve even lived in Los Angeles but I’ve never not lived near a coast so it’s fascinating to me. Montana is big and sprawling, but it’s locked in by these three giant mountain ranges so you feel really isolated which at first feels isolating but then it becomes kind of comforting in a way. It’s an interesting landscape to take on, it’s really beautiful. We were shooting at the foot of Yellowstone, but it’s big and cold and sort of hard to get your arms around, so it was a matter of circling in and finding a spot to hunker down and get to know the area intimately.

Do you feel the characters were stuck in their surroundings then?

Well some of them were stuck and some of them are coming in to get a piece of the area, in the middle story Michelle Williams and James Le Gros’ couple are probably from California and are bringing their California money to Montana to get an authentic house built, whatever that means. Then there’s the Kristen Stewart character who wants to get out of there, so there are people who want to buy in and people that want to find their way out, and people who are a little more isolated and stuck.

You mentioned Michelle Williams, and this is the third film that you two have worked together on. When you were adapting the story to a script did you have her in mind for the character she plays?

Yes, well first I thought that Michelle would be too young to be a mum of a teenager, I mean she is a mum but not of a 16-year-old. So I was a little worried about if she would feel too young, Michelle would kill me if I say she didn’t feel too young. We kind of kept squeezing the maths so that it did work, it just seemed ridiculous to make a film in Montana without Michelle because she’s from Montana and I hadn’t got to work with her in quite a while. I think it worked out quite nicely, it felt right.

What was it like working with the rest of the cast? Kristen Stewart has previously said she’s a big fan of yours.

Oh that’s nice, I’m a big fan of hers. Well Kristen and I met the day before we started shooting, well no she did come and take horseback riding lessons with Lily but I feel like suddenly we were on set together, that’s mostly how it is.  We were communicating when we were getting her clothes together with our costume designer which was fun. Kristen was great, everyone was so game.

Laura Dern and Jared Harris came at the end when we were all exhausted, and when I met Laura she was so smart and on it so I felt I had to get my game together to rise up to meet her level. They both really came so prepared and down to the detail. It was like I was making three different films with three different sets of actors in a way, it was super challenging because as soon as you hit your groove you’re back at the beginning again.

Did you not shoot it chronologically then?

No, we shot the ranch first because I wanted snow for that setting and it was the cusp of Winter. Then we shot the middle story, so we filmed them in reverse order basically.

When it came to adapting these short stories, was it quite challenging to get them to all fit in?

Yes, actually. I wasn’t sure it would work for a while and it was just a nice experiment. When I had found the middle story, which had been a different story for a while, it was then that I felt it started to work. It had the right amount of plot without too much plot, and it made sense to me what these women were doing together and how the stories worked in an emotionally chronological way. So it all made sense to me when I got that story.

You’ve worked with Jon Raymond on your scripts quite a lot, what is it that you look for when it comes to adaptations?

Well with Jon I had read his novel and I really loved his work, so I got in touch with him and asked him if he had any short stories and he sent me Old Joy and that turned out to be a really great experience. So I wanted to do something again with him and he brought up the idea for Wendy and Lucy, I wasn’t sure and was on the fence about it but then he wrote the story and that’s when I got on board with it.

A lot of it had to do with wanting to work with him a lot and we had a good thing going, we would go places and check out different parts of the state and it was good in production to have someone to call and talk to about what was happening. I would call him on this movie too, but he was working on a novel which just came out called Free Bird and I wanted to work on something else. I was drawn to Maile’s stories, but with Jon Raymond he would throw an idea at me when I was finishing one film and we would just go from one film to the other, which was great as I always knew what I was doing next.

In 2016 there was quite a dramatic rise in films which have female leads, and of course you have four in yours. Why do you feel it’s important to keep doing this in cinema?

I was going to say that there are two sexes, but that’s not true as it turns out there’s a lot in between. Women are a huge part of the population and it’s nice to hear their story once in a while! It depends, I’m really drawn to whatever the story is and what the characters are.

What’s the option? All stories about men all the time? You might want to have some diversity here and there. That might lead to more women directing too. I would get on the bandwagon about it but we have bigger fish to fry right now, we have so many problems. It’s not the main one, but representation is pretty important.

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Video: Kelly Riechardt talks about Kristen in 'Certain Women' with Red Carpet News TV

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Kelly Riechardt talks about casting and working with Kristen in 'Certain Women' with Little White Lies

Kelly Reichardt works resolutely outside of the Hollywood system, making integrity-fuelled art, and so money and industry reach are not her currency. Meanwhile, despite an ongoing foray into fascinating indie projects, Kristen Stewart’s post-Twilight glow is like a lighthouse beckoning all comers. So how did the former sidestep the crowds around the latter in order to cast her as Elizabeth Travis in Certain Women?

“Some friends of mine made a film with Kristen, Still Alice, so they gave the script [for Certain Women] to her. Her response was, ‘If it happens, let me know, and I’ll come do this’, but right up until the day she arrived on set, we were like, ‘Is Kristen Stewart really going to show up?’ And then there she was. It was like, ‘Oh hey, here you are.’”

“I had worked with Dakota Fanning and with Jesse Eisenberg [on 2014’s Night Moves] and they are two of her closest friends, so they put in a good word. I had had really fun experiences with both Dakota and Jesse, so I think because of that Kristen was game for it. But she was completely unperturbed by the size of the part. She’s not the lead. She plays a supporting part in the movie, and she made so much of that character.

“She let Lily Gladstone’s character set the pace and be the focus. She was so generous – a really generous actor, I thought. She helped give it some shape, because Lily’s a really different kind of actor, really intuitive and Kristen, likewise, is an intuitive actor, but she’s also been doing it a long time and she’s a technical actress. I thought that it played well in terms of who the two characters are. She had a barbecue for the crew on the day off and was just totally easy and not at all demanding.

“I loved her in The Runaways, that’s really what I loved Kristen in most. It’s an imperfect movie but all the women in it are really… I loved the real Runaways so I really did not want a movie of The Runaways, but she’s really good in it!”

Read our full interview with director Kelly Reichardt.

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Lily Gladstone talks 'Certain Women' and mentions Kristen with The Guardian

And how has it been to have the support of an even wider community – all these rave reviews? “It has, at times, been a bit overwhelming,” she admits. And was she ever thrown off track by acting alongside such a constellation of stars? “I was daunted after seeing the cast list and before auditioning. But my mantra for the rancher became: don’t think about it – one of the lines in the story.” And besides, she and Kristen Stewart (with whom she is mainly acting) clicked: “Kristen has an incredibly sharp, artistic mind, catches every micro-expression, understands how to drive a scene, gave me everything I needed. And we bonded over our admiration of Kelly.” When pressed to say what makes Reichardt special, she adds: “She gives her actors freedom and her world space. And she is good to be with – the best thing you can say about a person. She has a wonderful, dry, not overreaching sense of humour.” She volunteers that she also formed a bond with Michelle Williams because they both come from Montana and were even, she reveals with satisfaction, born in the same hospital.

She then tells the story of how Reichardt first went out to Montana and drove around until she saw a ranch she liked and knocked on its door. Lynn, the ranch owner, was resistant to the idea of a film at first. She said she did not want to exploit the beauty of her landscape for Hollywood. “But Kelly spends five minutes with somebody’s dog and…” Gladstone laughs – does not need to finish her sentence. Lynn and Reichardt quickly became friends but Lynn remained “hesitant”, especially about “having some actress she didn’t know working with her horses”. Gladstone had been around horses before but had no rancher experience – everything she learned was from Lynn. She says: “Lynn and I became close. She has no children and was born in 1953 – the same year as my own parents.”

When people praise the film for its “lived-in” quality, Gladstone believes they are reflecting her experience: “I lived on that ranch for two weeks. I got into the lull of daily chores – you have nothing but silence and rhythm. A lot of the character I found there.” To look the part, she even helped herself to Lynn’s boots and overalls with their ripped linings. And Lynn’s doubts were – slowly – put to rest. The horses came first, the film had to fit around them: “Reichardt is such an animal lover and would not let the horses go 15 minutes off their feed schedule.” Gladstone got to know the lead horse, Remington, by riding it every day: “I’m not as assertive as some lifetime cowboys but I figured it out.” It is charming to watch her offering Stewart’s Beth a lift on horseback to the diner and back – especially in a film where so much conversation happens in cars.

But what I kept wondering, as I watched the film, was this: how aware was Gladstone of what her face was expressing at every turn? “When I was little,” she laughs, “my father used to tell me he could see when I was lying because I’d get a twinkle in my eye. But I rarely make a meticulous choice in placing a gesture. I’m more fuelled by what is in the gut. One of the most intriguing things I talked about with Kristen is: how self-aware do you allow your characters to be? Sometimes, your audiences have an insight into the character that the character doesn’t.” The most important decision was about the “level of crush” her character had on Beth. “I told Kristen: ‘I’m not going to let Jamie be all that self-aware’ because, after all, who is?”

Gladstone was herself coming to terms, during filming, with the end of a relationship. How much did the pain of that personal experience feed her performance? “It was a lesson in learning how to let go and walk away – not easy, but important wisdom. My relationship helped – although I’ve also often been in Beth’s position in my life.” And she briefly considers the difficulty of having a person besotted with you: “Beth’s hand is forced when Jamie shows up with that horse, there is nowhere she can go!”

Read Lily's full interview with the Guardian at the source.

Video: New/old interview for 'Certain Women' at Sundance 2016 with CanalPlus (France)

Source Via YT Korita05

UK 'Certain Women' Poster

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New 'Certain Women' Stills

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French 'Certain Women' Poster

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Lily Gladstone talks 'Certain Women' and mentions Kristen in an interview with PopCulture Daily

Do you feel like that’s something your character shares with Kristen?

I think so. I feel like Kristen’s character is driven by her schedule and her circumstance. And also, what seems like being the only female lawyer at her new law firm – from the way she’s being treated, like the new kid. In the original story that’s very much pointed to, that’s she’s the new girl in an office full of guys and is kind of misplaced by that.

I think how tired she is and how brushed aside she feels and the way she conveys it to the rancher. The rancher has nothing but compassion for that. She can’t really express it that much, but she gets it – not to fit along in a group and to be working so hard constantly.

Can you describe the relationship you had with Kristen on and off set?

Kristen’s really an open person and so am I. We kind of just got to the heart of getting to know each other over shared experiences. We talked about music and art. We just hung out and got to know each other as people, but we really didn’t have that much time together. When she left set, we were both so stoked that we had gotten to work together. She said it first, she was like, “It’s so cool to work with you.” The feeling was totally mutual. As a person, we had a really good time. She’s really chill and we had a lot of time to talk about and understand different things.

On screen, because the rancher spends so much time alone, Beth and every tiny little gesture she makes is just so new and so intriguing. It’s hard to see someone clearly or hear what they’re saying, but that’s one thing about the rancher, she doesn’t seem to hang on to so much. Bringing the horse is kind of a big thing. Ha!

For me, what I was finding, it changes when you’re watching it as the actor because we had different takes and interpretations on set, and then you see what Kelly edits together. But what it reminded me of was a lot of the relationships that I see in my own family, where one person is working really hard at a desk job that’s soul tiring and the other one is doing physical labor that’s exhausting but you’re not dealing with micro aggression from your employers. The way that a relationship or a friendship or a support system goes from that dynamic – it’s something I thought the rancher would be familiar with.

My mother is a teacher and works in early childhood development, but also with multi-cultural curriculum, which is sometimes difficult for her because some students don’t think it’s that important. She’s got the tiring and intellectual job and my dad has always worked in the shipyards. He’s so strong and funny and accepting of everything she vents about at the end of the day.

For me, I’ve never seen that solely as a male/female thing. It’s a pretty typical balance that works. I think there’s something about the rancher who just likes to sit and listen to somebody. It makes her feel valuable. I think there’s absolute admiration for Beth beyond the physical attraction that emerges – an intrigue that she has with this person. She feels valuable being able to show her where to eat and that she doesn’t have to worry about anything. I think that’s what drove the horse, she thought she needed to connect with something present. It was a sharing of herself too.

Read Lily's full interview about 'Certain Women' and more at the source.

Video: Lily Gladstone talks about 'Certain Women' and mentions Kristen

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Audio: Kristen's interview with Film Comment (Podcast)

Listen to the 10 minute podcast HERE at the source or direct link here.

Kristen's interview is first.

'Certain Women' is nominated for 'Best Feature' at the Gotham Awards

#GothamAwards Best Feature Nominee: CERTAIN WOMEN (@IFCFilms) pic.twitter.com/tlWekhQ3Vc

— IFP (@ifpfilm) October 20, 2016

Lily Gladstone is also nominated for 'Best Breakthrough Actor'. 

Congratulations to all!

The award ceremony will be on 28 November in New York.

Audio: Kristen's interview w/ Josh Horowitz on his 'Happy Sad Confused' Podcast

OR LISTEN or download the episode via iTunes here.

Thanks to Korita05 for the YT.

Kelly Riechardt talks to Nylon Magazine about 'Certain Women' and mentions Kristen

It’s opening day for your movie. How do you feel? 

I feel good. I’m sitting here folding my laundry. I mean, it’s nice because it’s not like a festival where there’s so much hubbub and getting dressed up. It’s just getting on the subway and going to do some Q&As, which will be nice. 

When do you say goodbye to a project? Is there a moment you fully let it go? 

You kind of let it go a couple times. I let Certain Women go after it was done being made, which was in January, and then a month later, you’re going to Sundance with it, so you kind of get back into it. And then, I let it go after Sundance, until now. I’ve been working on something else all this time, and it’s like, “Oh my god, get your head back into Certain Women." I’m thinking by Thanksgiving this will all be totally done and I’ll have it behind me. 

I assume that you learn new things about filmmaking with each movie that you make. What did making Certain Women teach you? 

One thing you learn over and over again is to trust your own instincts. It’s an imperfect situation, but I find it easier to be mad at myself than to be mad at other people because I’ll eventually let myself off the hook. And so, one lesson—we’re always just shooting in such volatile, weird weather—is to not react to everything that’s going on around you. Everyone’s doing their job, and everyone thinks their area is the most important, and that’s what you want them to think. And you should listen, and you should respond to everyone, and I think keeping your eye on the performance and what’s going to work for your actors instead of what’s happening with the weather. And that gets easier as you get older and more experienced. I have as much experience as anyone else on my set, so I might as well listen to myself. 

Is it strange having someone as famous as Kristen Stewart on the set of your tiny independent movie? Is there something anachronistic about it or does it feel totally natural? 

No, our films are a great equalizer because we don’t have money to treat anybody as if there’s this different range or class of people. [During the Night Moves shoot] Dakota Fanning and Jesse Eisenberg lived in the same hotel as the person doing our craft service. Same with Kristen. We don’t really have the finances to have these different levels, so there’s very little division between the cast and the crew. It’s almost one fluid thing, and it’s pretty intimate. I can remember Dakota crying when she left us because we had another week or two of shooting when she left, and I remember she called me from some red carpet she was on and was just like, “I’m so sad I’m not there with you guys.” People get very attached to it, as Michelle has, because they become friends with the crew.
Kristen had all the crew over to her place on a day off. I think actors like that they’re not in some separate trailer having some separate experience, and my crew includes some really great people. 

Was there anything revelatory to you about Stewart’s performance? Did she teach you something about acting? 

Yeah, Kristen likes to kind of learn her lines as she goes, and I found that surprising and scary. So it just meant that that shitty hamburger she’s eating in the movie, she’s eating 13 of them. I was just like, “I don’t know how you’re going to do it.” Also, there’s not one lead in the movie, and she’s not even the lead in her section. It’s the rancher’s story. And I was really aware right away that she was totally comfortable with that. She always wanted Lily to do her scene first, and she wanted the camera to be on Lily first. I was amazed at how she let herself be inconsequential sometimes in a scene.Then, there were other things that I didn’t really realize until I was in the editing room, and they were just more technical things, that she has an easy way about her and you don’t necessarily think of it. 

What do you mean when you say technical skills?

She sort of knows when to throw a glance, and when she doesn’t even have dialogue, it’s almost like she might be anticipating where a cut might go, and she’s giving you a movement to cut on. So you realize, “Oh, she’s been doing this for a really long time,” and she’s just really aware of the space and where she is in the frame, as are actors that have done it for a long time. I did not realize that was happening on set, I was just kind of caught up in the performance, and when I got in the editing room, I realized she was giving me a few little presents. 

You’ve lived on the East Coast for most of your life, and yet you make all your films out West. Have you ever been tempted to make a film in New York, where you live?

I like getting away to make a movie. With this film, I’m making a conscious effort to give myself some interiors. I started out shooting exteriors because I couldn’t afford lights or a crew. And then I just became, over time, more comfortable shooting outside and knowing how to work a landscape more than an interior. And when we were making Night Moves, focusing on the dam and all this huge maneuvering that was going to happen outside, I knew how to do that. And then we got into a kitchen scene one day, which I hadn’t given as much thought to, and there was were four walls, and I was like, “What the fuck do you do with four walls?” I like going off and making films in private, where the hassles of everyday life aren’t there. And also, selfishly, you’re taking your crew away from all the things in their everyday life, so they’re completely focused on your movie.
You talk about shooting with these name actors, but when you’re in Montana, it doesn’t fuckin matter. I watched my friends make a film with Kristen Stewart in cities, and every time she walks out the door, there are teenagers waiting for her. I don’t want that shit around my movie set. 

Are you aware of your position in American cinema? Many people revere you and your work. Is that something you pay attention to? 

I just don’t really encounter that. So it’s not, like, in my life. 

Right, but right now, there’s a big story about you in The New York Times Magazine. Will you bother reading that? 

My friend read it for me and reported on it to me. I actually really like Alice Gregory’s writing, she’s really good. When it doesn’t matter anymore, I’ll go back and read it, but I’m not going to read it right now. You can’t have too much of this stuff in your life. It’s not good for you. Is there a part of the moviemaking process that you detest? The cold. The cold. Totally, the cold. It’s was so cold making [Certain Women], and at some point, I was like, “Oh my god, this is a younger person’s game, I can’t stand out here in negative degree weather for 18 hours anymore.” And I think the hardest thing is that because we work on small budgets in remote places, we just stretch ourselves so thin that you don’t have time to really settle into it the way you want to. Actors are more taken aback by the speed we’re doing things than by the lack of frills. The lack of time to do stuff, that’s the hardest thing. There’s no such thing as making a film without stress. I think if there was a little bit more support—I understand what the nature of these films are, and I understand why the budgets are low and the world I live in. But I do sometimes feel like you’re in a band in your 50s and you’re still touring around in a van, and you’re like, “Ugh, do we ever get the bus?”

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Lily Gladstone talks 'Certain Women' and Kristen with The FilmStage

The Film Stage: It’s a standard aspect of preparation to look up previous interviews with the subject. You don’t have many, and only found some sort of Squarespace site.

Lily Gladstone: Yeah. [Laughs] That was the website I started for myself about three years ago and marginally maintain. I have press on there from earlier this year, from Sundance, but the rest of this year is kind of realizing that Twitter is a more effective means of getting that stuff out.

I have to wonder if you’ve developed ways of talking about acting, especially with those who aren’t themselves actors.

You know, I’m pretty, pretty… I absorb a lot from a first read of a piece. My process is fairly organic. The only thing I really kept from my training and really, really love to implement is always starting with the physicality of a character; that’s usually my “in” into it. I definitely do have a very clear read, especially after seeing the film twice. You get a much deeper sense, and you see choices, maybe, that you made, or little micro-expressions or thoughts. Even if it’s just a color of an emotion that you’re sitting in. People don’t always have totally articulated, clear thoughts about themselves, anyway. [Laughs] During the performance, I’m obviously not going through that. After watching the edit a couple of times and seeing the takes that Kelly chose, it surfaced some choices that were definitely in there when I was performing and looking for who this woman is. There’s always a sense. You have a deep intuition if something’s working or not, and seeing it when all of the pieces are put together, and seeing your choices live on screen.

I can see where my preparation and my process is really effective, because sometimes it’s not. Some characters are really, really evasive for a really long time, and because this was such a big deal for me walking into it, I told myself, initially, “Don’t over prepare.” That tends to be a mistake I made when I was a younger actor. First big role in a school play, for example. [Laughs] There’s being prepared and then there’s being so over prepared that you’re in your head chronically, and this wasn’t a piece at all that you could do living in your head. The camera notices it; Kelly notices it. That was maybe one choice that I made on the front end. I bought my character’s shoes — what I guessed to be her shoes. I sunk into her physicality for a few days before I was able to submit my first audition, which was lucky; you don’t always get that luxury. Everybody on this project is fine with people really diving into it, and Kelly really appreciated it.

So I built a physical life for the character before I started making any deep, internal choices, and the trick is, once you do, you have to forget them, because we don’t sit around and think about all of the things that define us and who we are every second of every day — especially not in a film like Kelly Reichardt’s. A lot of films do strive for that kind of constant catharsis and hyper self-awareness where the character shares their exact agenda. [Laughs] But Kelly’s… I wanted to allow my character what the original literature informs. Even on the onset, I didn’t want to read it. I knew that Maile’s stories had inspired the screenplay. I read Kelly’s treatment of Maile’s work before I read Maile’s work, and I chose not to read Maile’s work until I was told to. Kelly basically shoved it into my hands on set and told me to read it, which was great. I remember the first time I read it, I was so excited because a lot of the choices I made… just from Kelly’s treatment and, also, the things I knew about characters like the rancher that I know from being a Montanan, because a lot of us know the silent types. But there’s a very specific Montana feel to this project that I’m sure lends itself well to my performance and my understanding of the character.

But a lot of the choices that I made from Kelly’s adaptation were pretty spot-on and exposed in Maile’s work, but because it’s an internal story told from the rancher’s perspective, in Maile’s adaptation, it was a young boy named Chet rather than my character, which became a female for this film. It’s such an internal sort of narrative that there’s a lot of subtext within that story that you don’t hear on film, and it doesn’t make it to dialogue in the film — but it was there, and it supported a lot of the things that Kelly noticed and that resonated with her. So I wanted to try to match my end of the character with what worked with my training and process. I’m personally more of a fan of biomechanics. So there’s all of that boring stuff. [Laughs] But, ultimately, I decided that I wanted to try to match my process with this character with the way I perceived Kelly’s films and Maile’s writings, because, when I read Travis, B., I went and got her other works.

She’s such an immersive writer and so good at writing at something and letting the audience fill in the other shades themselves; she points you directly at the thing without spelling it out. So I tried to adopt that with the rancher. Maybe the first time I can say I was successful in that. I did develop an incredibly deep like, and one reason I feel successful is because Kelly’s such a wonderful director. I would make a more transparent choice, and she’d confirm the impulse but then push it down a little bit farther. She has a really remarkable way of helping you pick out little inauthenticities that you were aware of but you’re not even sure how to work out of your performance at all. I mean, she does it in the edit, but definitely in the frame and on set, too.

What might she say, regarding inauthenticity, to pinpoint?

[Laughs] You know, there was really only once, and it wasn’t even an inauthenticity. It would’ve felt inauthentic if that were the only take I’d given her and that was the only thing she had to cut to in the room, because that would’ve been out-of-pace with the rest of the story. The thing that helped me the most is that she kept it so much in scope for me. Like, there was one instance where I made a pretty strong choice, because it’s a pretty small film with a lot of minimal shots where big choices aren’t being made in the moment, but are kind of churning under the surface. So there was once where I made a strong choice, and she was sitting behind camera with me in the front of the truck. We did one take, and then she just reached out and touched my arm and said, “That’s really good, and that’s definitely what you’re feeling, but where we’re at in the story, it’s going to be too much too soon. You’ll get this moment, but you don’t get it quite yet.” “Oh! Okay! Great.” So that was basically it.


She’s also just funny and kind of a smart ass. [Laughs] Which she needs to be. We developed pretty quickly our director-actor language, and usually it just kind of would be in-the-air gestures — like tweaking knobs, taking a shade down a little bit or bringing it up — but most of the time she would be like, “All right, we got it. Let’s move on.” So, like any process, Kelly and I took a couple of day to settle into each other and find the language, but it was pretty effortless once we both saw that we were kind of coming from the same place with the character. She was happy with the footage that we were picking up as we were going. Basically, her style is very much… she’ll affirm it or just throw something completely different at you. I felt super-incredibly validated when there was one take where she asked for “this perspective” and I gave it to her and said, “No, that’s not it.” I got the first take, she got the second take, and she said, “All right. You were right, Lily.” She gave me the first take. That was fun.

I think that’s what the greats do. You can’t be a totally commandeering creative unless you have to be. Some shots, you just have to give your director the shot that they want. But, as far as choices with character and everything, she was very, very respectful, and she expects that. She wants you to come in with a strong idea to try out, and then she’ll tweak it or just completely say no if she doesn’t like it. She’s a very smart director. She’s very driven. She knows what she wants, but, when she doesn’t, she is completely collaborative and just trusts the piece. There are a lot of things that we found through that collaboration.

There’s such a sense between you and Kristen Stewart’s character when you’re not around. The absence is felt, which makes the interactions so much more understandable — that experience of thinking about someone who you like and then seeing them, getting this fulfillment just from that. Did you make a point of staying separate while on set so as to create the feeling?

No. Kristen and I, when we shot together, we hung out together as much as we could. It’s really busy, and this was my first time being a lead in a film, so I wasn’t used to so many set hours. But when we had time to hang out, we did. We played pool. We just chilled and talked about art. It’s funny: she had a good friend with her from Ireland, and she was awesome and we just nerded-out about Beckett for a while. God, I’d love to see Kristen jump into that someday. I think she would have so much fun doing a piece like Beckett. It’s kind of her sensibility: she’s really hyperactive in her mind, and she stays in a scene remarkably well. Anyway, that’s how Kristen and I bonded — just hanging out when we could. But we were on set together for a couple of weeks. A lot of the time we spent together was in between takes, just kind of playing sugar-packet football and running lines and commiserating over all the stuff that you do when you’re getting to know somebody.

But going back to the whole idea of separation and everything. [Laughs] Those segments are so incredibly rich, like you said, because you feel somebody’s presence almost more in their absence, like you said, when you have feelings for them. It’s the air that allows the flames to stoke. So while we were filming all that stuff, I actually hadn’t even met Kristen yet. Just the way the schedule worked out, all the stuff we shot on the ranch was before she even got there, and the space in between that was just me. They shot that before Kristen even got to set. I was definitely pulling from pining for somebody I’d had a romance with just the summer before. [Laughs] That’s what started it. There were a lot of little things that we’re all familiar with, but I hadn’t really experienced being in that situation where you respect the boundary somebody else draws, even though it sucks — basically, being told “no.”

Also, getting to know somebody in their absence, almost. So I’d had a romance earlier in the year that I definitely hadn’t worked out of my system, that I was definitely still processing as we were filming, and it only really came up a couple of times because it was a very different romance and connection than the rancher and Beth have, so I didn’t want to fully draw from my own experience — but I definitely know what you mean, missing them in their absence. It wouldn’t have come through without Kelly’s edit. [Laughs] A lot of those moments, Kelly would say, “This is a day where you just saw Beth last night and it’s gone well, and you’re thinking about her.” So it changes the pace at which you move and do your work. But my favorite one that I think really shows it is when the rancher is washing the dishes particularly — it’s just that anticipation, and it’s Kelly’s words. She said, “Anything can happen!” [Laughs] Long story short, all that stuff was shot before I met Kristen, we hung out as much as we could, and she’s great.

Looking at some previous film work, I notice that you often play Native Americans. What’s interesting is that, here, there isn’t much indication of the character’s background.

Right! Right.

You just kind of are this person.

Thank God. [Laughs]

It’s funny you say that, because Native-American representation can be pretty limited. You seem to feel relief at not being cast on the basis of appearance and being pigeonholed.

Right. The role was just such an incredibly revolutionary role for a Native-American actor to get, period. I am mixed. I grew up on the Blackfeet reservation. That’s why I feel like I understood the character so well, in a lot of ways, especially when I read Maile’s work, which talks about family history and boarding schools and marginalization in the education system. That spoke to me so much, because the work that I have done with my career before, and in between getting roles, are social justice theater and a lot of advocacy — workshops with youth and such. But I’ve been in that position a lot, anyways. I work with a theater company called Living Voices on occasion, but it was pretty much what I did through all of my twenties: traveling through rural communities, talking about shared oppressions and historical trauma. The piece I did dealt with Native-American boarding schools and military veterans, and talked about PTSD from two different perspectives.

So I was in my own life. I’ve been in Beth’s position far more often where I’m coming into a small town where I’m a stranger, and, a lot of times, you’ll get the people who are on the margins or the periphery, the ones who sit quietly in the back that are very… what you’re doing speaks to them, but they’ve removed themselves and are shy about it. But I’ve had instances in my own life where audience members or people that are in the class will come up afterwards and just kind of linger and follow you to your car and want to just keep having conversation. [Laughs] Something in my performance or the show spoke to them so much and they just need to know a little more about it. It’s the same way that all of us get crushes on our teachers. [Laughs] It feels a lot like love, but it’s also learning something tremendous when it touches your own family’s origins with marginalization and sheds light on some of your own feelings of inadequacy. It gives you permission to maybe be angry about it, but also go, “Oh, maybe that’s why things happened the way they did. Maybe it wasn’t my fault.” That’s huge for people.

I’ve been on the other end of that a lot as a teacher and a performer, so when I got this script I was just really excited to play her. In Maile’s story, Chet’s ethnicity being mixed Crow and Scottish definitely plays with the dynamic of he and Beth in that story, and it definitely informed a lot of my choices — my dialect, the people in my own life that I’d based my character’s physicality on. But it wasn’t any kind of statement Kelly was trying to make. Having a role where a Native-American character just exists as a complex, nuanced person doesn’t happen that often. It’s kind of cool that that aspect isn’t… this isn’t a piece that’s just going to pique the curiosity of people who want to know more about Indian culture, and I’m really thankful for that. It’s going to speak to a lot of people on a lot of different levels, but there’s a beautiful representation in independent film that I haven’t really seen before in this way. A lot of audiences are going to watch this piece and completely miss that my character’s Native American — which is my reality. Most of my life, people don’t know that until I share it. Other Natives see it. [Laughs]

Kelly said it in talkbacks before at festivals: they were looking for the right actress for this role, and because the character’s Native American in Maile’s treatment, of course that was the first path in the screenplay, but Kelly wasn’t led to ethnicity. It had to be the right performer and the right person. So I would say that my previous “pigeonholing,” even though all of the projects that I’ve worked on have been really remarkable as well, they definitely play to audiences that have a piqued interest in Native American communities, and this one hasn’t caught on, really, with that whole vein. There hasn’t been that noise made about my role in this… yet. [Laughs] The movie’s not out yet. So I really like that. It’s not something that’s worked its way into any kind of marketing, which has been present for every other project where I’ve played an ethnically specific character.

So it’s exciting; it’s new. It’s kind of what you hoped for when you’re an actor and your culture is not really represented in mainstream film and media. I’m really thankful that Kelly cast me and kept true to that part of the story, because I get really annoyed when there’s westerns and they don’t have complex Native-American characters that just exist in the world, and Kelly’s done that. From what I can see, it’s the first time things have happened. And she’s done that with a native character in a lead role; she wasn’t championing or anything. Kelly’s just quietly revolutionary, whether she likes it or not.


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Kelly Riechardt talks 'Certain Women' and mentions Kristen with Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair: The way you sometimes abandon dialogue and just allow your camera to linger on performers’ faces for much longer than a lot of directors would—the way you trust in the power of that—reminds me of silent film.

Kelly Reichardt: There might be no words, but I take issue with the idea of silent film. Because there is a sound design. So it’s really about less dialogue, not less sound. I do think a lot about the moments between the words. Sometimes you do the scenes without the dialogue, just to see what’s there—what’s necessary—and then do the scenes with dialogue.

Tell me about shooting the scene where Laura Dern and Jared Harris are driving back from the consultation with the second lawyer, who also tells Harris’s character that he has no case. Most of the ostensible “action” in the scene is about Harris’s reactions—first his threats, then his breakdown. But I love the way the camera keeps returning to Dern’s face as she’s driving, then stays with her. You see her frustration with him, her empathy for him, and her fears and anxieties about her own problems, almost all at once.

It’s funny, because how I had imagined the scene would go [was very different]. That’s always the surprise in filmmaking: that you live with this idea of how something sounds in your head, and then real people come and do their thing and have their dynamic. I had imagined the dynamic in that scene kind of being the opposite of what it turned out being. It’s hard even to think about now, because I’m so used to the scene as it exists, but I had imagined Jared being more hostile and Laura being more annoyed at him. So it just took a different turn. The trick in the moment is to not be hung up on what you imagined and to be able to roll with what the new thing is, if it’s moving. Changing gears like that can be difficult. You plan everything and then there’s what’s going to happen—the movie you end up making.

I was also struck by the scene with Michelle Williams where she and her family are driving home after the sad, complicated scene with Rene Auberjonois’s character. They’re all in the car. The daughter has her earbuds in. Williams and James Le Gros, the husband, seem annoyed with each other. He’s driving and she’s looking out the window, with the Montana landscape going by, reflected in the glass. She sees something outside the car. We don’t know what it is. But she stares at it, almost looking at the camera itself. It’s an odd but powerful moment. To me, it reinforced her apartness but also her connection to something outside her family.

Michelle really just had an idea of this character, and she was so brave in not being at all concerned about the likability of the character, which I really appreciated. And again there’s really a dynamic that occurs [among the actors]. And the way the rig was set up, Michelle really was trapped in the car. She could not just step out for a second. I think that that helped play with her feeling trapped. It’s funny how the production can play into the feeling of what’s happening in a scene. Michelle also knew she could just sort of take her time with the shot. We got on a long stretch of road, so the scene could play itself out. There was time for her to take in what had just happened with Albert [Auberjonois’s character]. There’s the moment where she and James are on each other’s side as husband and wife, when they’re sort of angling for what they want from Albert, and then there’s the division of the family—how you can be trapped in a car, each in your own space.

That moment where she looks off—was that scripted, or something you directed in the moment?

That was just Michelle. The actors just know what the situation is, and they know what the dialogue is, and it’s theirs to just play out. It’s something that’s unfolding for everyone. It’s not like it’s some exact science. And then you get in the editing room, and there are more ways to go. I’m still fascinated by how time plays. Like how much a moment of performance can change depending on how much time is on either side of a response or reaction, if it has time to go down and go away. Just the building of tension like that. That’s true of every shot. That’s what’s fascinating about editing.

That leads me to the scene with Lily Gladstone, where you stay on that medium shot of her driving in her truck for two and a half minutes—I timed it!—following the scene in the parking lot where Kristen Stewart’s character has kind of blown her off. And her face as she drives, the way we see her both feeling and repressing her pain, and it just keeps going . . .

That shot went on even longer than that! I was on the floor of the cab, yelling at Lily not to cry. “Don’t cry! Don’t cry!” We were not on a car rig. She was driving this truck that stalled out all the time, and she had to do things to keep it running.

Was that by design? Some kind of method trick you played on her?

No, it was just an old, shitty truck. But it worked in the same way that having animals in a film does. Like Lily feeding the horses in this film. Or the dog in Wendy and Lucy, or the oxen in Meek’s Cutoff. I think the mechanics of animals and cars really does force actors to respond to what’s around them. It makes acting go away. In this scene Lily was driving through real traffic. There were red lights, she had to make turns, and this heavy thing had just happened [to her character]. And for Lily [in real life] the movie was a big deal, and doing the final scene with Kristen was a big deal to her. She was going to go home the next day to Missoula, and the experience was going to be over for her. I mean, Lily is Lily. I have no responsibility over the magic of Lily.

You put a camera a foot away from her face and she doesn’t even seem to notice it. She’s just so game. She loved the whole thing. She was in a great mood every day. It would be negative-six degrees, we’d be crying, and she’d be, “What do we do now?”

The scene between her and Kristen Stewart in the parking lot is another great example of a lot going on between two actors with only minimal dialogue. Kristen’s character doesn’t mean to be mean, I don’t think, but the way she’s befuddled by Lily’s character, the way she can’t seem to help brushing her off, is devastating—both for the audience and for Lily’s character.

It turns out that Livingston [the town in Montana where much of the film was shot] is the windiest city in America. When we did that scene in the parking lot, it was insanely windy. Kristen could not keep her dress from blowing up over her head. And I knew it was going to be hard for sound. But wind is great! I said, “Let’s go for it. We can make the sound work, and the wind will add something to the scene.” They started doing the scene, and Kristen just turned to me, and said, “Lily is really good today.” And I think they each took each other to [a different level]. Kristen, in life, her leg shakes. She’s a fast talker. To see how a scene starts and her metabolism suddenly seems different—I don’t know how you perform that. The question [in pre-production] was always, “Is Kristen too big for this role? And will that be distracting?” And I was blown away by her. I just thought she was so generous to Lily [in that scene]. She had no problem being the quiet receiver of something, and making herself smaller in a way. She gives really a lot in that moment in the smallest away. She’s so still. You’d worry whether someone has that in them, especially someone who’s been in a lot of big productions. That scene, while we were shooting it, I was like, this is beautiful. Even with all the craziness of the wind. We were blocking them on every side—nothing could even stand up, it was so windy. But everybody felt [that moment]. I looked at the sound guy. He was like, Whoa. It was just very beautiful while it was happening.

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Kelly Riechardt talks about 'Certain Women' and mentions Kristen with Zimbio

Zimbio: Thank you so much for speaking with me. I enjoyed Certain Women a lot. You always have such a honed sense of time and place in your movies.

Kelly Reichardt: Thanks.

...And also the performances you were able to get from these talentless, no-name actresses...

Thank you.

And any movie with a corgi... you got me.

(Laughs) There you go. You're all set then. That corgi came with the ranch.

Oh did it? Cool, a package deal.

Yeah.

I wanted to start off by asking you about the script. This was the first non-Jonathan Raymond story you've done in a while...

Awhile, yeah.

Yeah, so I just wondered if it was daunting adapting Maile Meloy's characters?

It was daunting, actually. Yeah, I guess working with Jon just because we're very close there's a constant back and forth to it, and this was just me alone in a room. But Maile was super generous in letting me decide which stories...I swapped out a story at a point and she just kind of rolled with it. It was just sort of that thing of letting things be bad for awhile while you make your way through and land on something that works.

Gotcha. Did you film in Montana?

Yeah in Livingston and areas around Livingston, an area called Clyde Park.

So the story dictated the location?

Yeah it did. It pretty much did. I was scouting around Boise for awhile and it was the stories that kept me going back to Montana. And Montana gave us a grant that made it pretty appealing to work there (laughs). So that helped.

Oh, that's great. So, the title of the movie I read as a generality, but the film is more specific. Did you mean for the title to be ironic?

The title I stole from one of my colleagues, Peggy Ahwesh at Bard. She has a film from the '90s that's the same title. I didn't mean it ironically, but, like you said, more in a general sense.

Like all your films, this one doesn't use a lot of music except for the beginning and the end. You use a lot of natural background sounds. Is your style an answer to the sensory bombardment of, you know, superhero movies and mainstream stuff?

I don't know if it's an answer to any of it. I'm not sure anyone's in question of it. But it's an option to all of that I guess. It's just more what works for me. I like using the sound of a location. Livingston is a super windy place so the wind was making all kinds of different sounds according to where you were. Sometimes musical almost. And then it's surrounded by a train depot so it's nice to work with the trains and have the sounds of the town and all. So that's been the approach I've taken for a couple of films. Trying to use those sounds in place of a score. And then there is some of a score from Jeff Grace. 

Could you talk about that scene when Lily Gladstone drives off the road. Why use music right then?

Allowing myself a little movie moment right then (laughs). We kept putting it in and taking it out. I just felt like, let's give over to a moment of emotion. I just kind went with it. It could've worked without it I think also, it was just different with it.

It is a powerful moment, the image of the car gliding by itself.

I know, it was actually, in the script and in my original design, it's gliding across the ice. In my image of the all white film, I hoped there would be so much snow, but there was, like, their least amount of snowfall in years... It just became this other thing which worked out nicely.

How about working with this ensemble, I guess it's not really an ensemble, but it's probably your most high profile cast, along with Night Moves. Did you find working with three separate stories challenging as far as directing the actors?

Well just that you're working on these individual stories and you want it work as a whole. You're just trying to get a handle on the tone that Laura's story will have and how that'll play on the rancher's story, so in that way it was challenging. And also, we were always at the beginning part of a movie, you know? You're always like, here we are back at wardrobe picking costumes with new actors coming in. You're constantly at the beginning point of something. That was challenging. How many people do you have to have for an ensemble?

(Laughs) Yeah I don't really know...

(Laughs) I guess it was a kind of an ensemble. I had Michelle in the middle and I had worked with her and (James) Le Gros before so that was a bit of a reprieve before going into the next section which had more logistical complexities to it. But yeah, I've been a fan of Rene Auberjonois for forever. He's fantastic. And Jared Harris, so that was great. And of course I've been a fan of Laura Dern's for a long time. With Kristen I did worry a little bit about her being too large for the role but she was able to really let it be her story. I just kept being impressed with her. But yeah, it just kept changing. There was nothing to ever settle into. 

Last time we spoke, we talked about subverting audience expectations and how that led to suspense in that film. And you do the same thing here, you subvert expectations, so I was wondering what you were going for.

Well, I'm trying to think of where you mean.

With the hostage situation and with Lily and Kristen also.

Oh, I see. I don't know, with Night Moves it was easy to see what the expectation would be. In this I never really knew where this fit in so I guess I didn't have it in mind so much. It seemed very much its own. 

It was more about just telling the stories?

Yeah, and I think figuring out the tone of the film was the most difficult thing.

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