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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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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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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Kristen, Kelly Riechardt and cast interviews on the 'Certain Women' red carpet at NYFF (FilmLinc) - 4 October 2016

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Kelly Riechardt talks 'Certain Women' and mentions Kristen with The Playlist

First of all, congrats on this film, I do believe it is the best work of your career thus far.

Thank you, that’s very nice to hear.

First things first, how did you get this great cast?

I always wanted to work with these actors. Always wanted to work with Laura Dern. I just loved her in the Mike White HBO series “Enlightened,” I’m a big fan of that series and I kind of wish I could have directed an episode. So it was great that it worked out with Laura . Whereas with Kristen, she was attached for a very long time. She was in my friend’s movie “Still Alice” and it just went from there.

Kristen is a pretty big name for a Kelly Reichardt movie.

At first I was worried she’d be too big of a name for the story I was just trying to tell, but she played “small” beautifully and really let that story be Lily’s [Lily Gladstone].

Then there’s Michelle.

Michelle, well it’s Michelle. I didn’t work with her on my last project [“Night Moves“] so I was very much looking forward to working with and seeing her again. We don’t really hang outside the set, but when you make that many movies with someone it becomes organic and beautiful. I called her and said you want to do this and she said yes right away, but she didn’t really know I wanted to shoot the film imminently. She was getting ready to do the Kenneth Longergan film [“Manchester by the Sea“] at the time, but she somehow found a way to hop on board “Certain Women.”

What was it about the source material that made you decide decide this would be your next project?

I fell in love with Maile Meloy’s voice and the stories she told. They were so visual and beautifully descriptive. I’m very much drawn by stories that have a lot of exteriors and that have characters drawn-out by their environments. I didn’t really know which stories to choose from, they were all great. It was a process of finding a couple that gelled and worked together, there was a lot of trial and error with the intention of trying to find recurring themes and details to the stories that were going to be told. I also wanted to escape my comfort zone and move away from Oregon, I needed a new landscape, which is why Montana was such a great choice.

Had you been to Montana before? It plays an integral, almost painterly part in the film.

I go to Montana a few times a year, but I still had to do a lot of scouting and met a lot of people in the process. I became fascinated by how they live, their jobs, all those dynamics came into play. Then we found the ranch that part of the film would be set in, then Livingston came into the picture. Livingston is actually very rich in film history. It’s where Sam Peckinpah lived, Warren Oates called it home as well, Richard Brattigan, Tom McGuane. So there’s a lot of rich history over there.

How was the original cut?

You know I’m not really sure. It’s not really my style to think that way. It might have been three hours (laughs). I have a very small shooting ratio. I’m sure I cut a lot out, but it’s never an enormous difference because I don’t shoot that much film. I mean, If you cut your own film you do need outside eyes and that does influence you in the end, so I screened the film to people I trusted. Also we had (executive producer) Todd Haynes on-set so that really helped me, but really, when all was said and done, I made the movie that I set out to make.

This film is very much a “road” movie. Where does your fascination for the road and nature come from?

Well I’m from Florida and we were a family that very much went on the road. We’d go camping a lot all over the United States. Some nights we would even park our caravan on the road and sleep. It’s illegal now, but at the time it was not (laughs). Some of these trips lasted a few months. I also did a lot of carpooling when I was younger. Every summer, I’d do that for three months. I had a lot of musician friends that would tour so I’d hop on board and hang out with them. I still travel a lot on the road with my dog.

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Kristen talks about 'Certain Women' with Metro

Kristen Stewart knew she had to work with Kelly Reichardt. The "Wendy and Lucy" filmmaker’s previous movie, “Night Moves,” starred two of her friends, Dakota Fanning and Jesse Eisenberg. “Both of them were like, ‘Do anything with her!’” she recalls. And so we have “Certain Women,” which tells three stories of women: Laura Dern plays a lawyer who gets involved in a hostage situation; Michelle Williams pops up in the second act as a woman lightly struggling with her marriage. Stewart — now an art house queen, as we elaborated upon here — comes in during the third, playing a frazzled night school teacher who draws the mysterious attention of a lonely young women (Lily Gladstone). It’s a sad movie. And Stewart, 26, loves it that way.


We could just spend most of this interview geeking out over Kelly Reichardt together.
I f—king love her. I’m lucky enough to know her, and I can tell you that her movies really reflect her. You watch one and it’s very distinctly her. That’s kind of rare. And she’s not f—ing copying anyone. She’s able to create this whole environment that focuses on moments that happen in between the moments that people often focus on in movies. There’s something biting about her movies, too. I don’t think you laugh, but you think, ‘That’s funny. That’s really funny.’ That describes her s—t to me.


They have this strange quality, where they're both naturalistic and droney. At times they're almost like a piece of spacey ambient music.
Most people don't make films that aren't really trying to make you feel something all the time. In her case, it creates a sense of meditation, which is f—king rare. I watch her movies and I'm not thinking about it until afterwards. And they're slow. They're f—king quiet. There are a lot of gaps that inspire you to spiral off into tangential thoughts. It so absorbs me.


Her new film is a film about women, but it’s not overtly a political statement, or it doesn’t let itself be defined only by that.
They’re each up against something, but not in a way that’s self-aggrandizing. It’s not like, [shakes fist] “I am going to overcome this adversity!” None of them find resolve. They all want something they can’t have. You’ve got Michelle’s character, who’s kind of f—king with the conventional dynamic of what a marriage is. And then you have Laura’s character acknowledging the illogical nature of bureaucracy, and the fact that men don’t listen to women. But she doesn’t really do anything about it. It doesn’t work out for her. It’s agonizing, but in a quiet way. It’s a grind. They’re all f—king exhausted. These women are so tired. I love that.


What about your character?
My chick just wants to feel f—king valid, and she isn’t going to [feel valid] while doing the things she’s doing. And you’ve got Lily’s character, who just wants a friend. She has a crush on someone and doesn’t even know what the hell that even is. She’s looking in all the wrong places. These people are f—king lonely. And it’s f—king painful. There’s a remoteness to all of them that seems learned, it seems protective. And it’s sad.


The interactions between the characters are so complex and speak to this idea that we’ll never really know anyone. But I’d like to argue that acknowledging that we’ll always get people wrong is kind of a relief.
We’re all so unaware of each other. It’s crazy. But [knowing that] does set you free a little bit. It’s weird. I’m constantly, with every friendship, every f—king family relationship, I’m like, “You need to know me!” Then you realize no one can know anyone. And it is relieving. There’s a relief to that. We never really know each other. On the other hand, that’s isolating and scary.


I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten more chill about not having a deep connection with every person I meet. And as a result I feel more confident and relaxed, strangely.
Seriously. You just need to relax a little bit. I’ve done that as I’ve gotten older, too. When I was younger I got super-freaked out if there wasn’t a clarity to every exchange. Now it’s like, ‘That’s fine, whatever, I don’t care.’


There’s a fun running gag in "Certain Women"'s diner scenes where your character keeps ordering food then only takes a couple bites before ditching it.
She just has no time for f—king anything. And she definitely doesn’t do anything that’s nice for herself. And it was such a bitch getting through those meals, because we shot every scene in the diner in one night. So I’m eating the cheeseburger and the grilled sandwich and a sundae and a soup. I thought I was going to die. By the end of the night I was sweating [laughs], like, ‘Oh my god, I’m going to puke.’ It’s everything I would have gotten, but all at the same time. It was gnarly.


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Lily Gladstone and Kelly Riechardt mention Kristen with The Knockturnal

Congratulations on the film. You deliver such a powerful and nuanced performance. Can you speak a little bit about how you got involved and what attracted you to it?

Lily Gladstone: Yes, nobody says no to Kelly Reichardt when she comes knocking. I was in the rancher situation a little bit when I got asked to audition. I was house sitting for a ranch. I’m shoveling snow and chopping wood and stuff like that and then went into town and checked my email and had this audition notice. It came through a lot of circles that I already had established in casting, specifically, I’m an ethnically specific actor. It doesn’t play as much in the film, but it’s definitely in there and it got my foot in the door, but Native American casting director, Rene Haynes, she’s known for that and she knows me well and Mark Bennett called her, she called me and then Kelly has told me since then that … When I read the script I just didn’t think of it as an audition, I said, “I’m going to start preparing for this role,” because I didn’t know anybody else who could play it. I just loved it so much immediately. Picked my jaw up off the floor that I was even auditioning for this piece and went and got a Carhart jacket, got my flannels, which is in the final scene, my audition clothes are basically what I’m wearing. Especially, that pink flannel. That was what I got cast in and that’s what is in that last scene. Yes. Kelly said I was the first tape that she saw after being really nervous she wasn’t going to find who she needed for the role easily anyways and producers pulled me out of the pile and showed it to her first and that was it.

Most of your scenes are with Kristen Stewart. Can you speak about collaborating with her?

LG: Yes, Kristen’s wonderful. Working with her, she’s one of the most generous, present people so it comes though in the scene work. I do this too and she definitely does, but she loves the work and she loves digesting everything in a scene so much and she will just do it over and over again for the love of it. Even when it’s not her coverage, she’s so invested and so there and working with her was just like every other experience I’ve had working with people who are just so talented and just genuinely good people. It was fun.

The scene where your character drives four hours to talk to Kristen’s character is a heartbreaking scene to watch. Can you speak about playing that out?

LG: I got two takes. There were several times during filming where I was bringing a lot to a scene but Kelly would stop me and say, “You do get that moment but you don’t get it yet.” She’d pull me back from choices I would be making earlier in the time line. Then before we shot it she just said, “All right, this is it, this is where you let it go but don’t do it too much.” That’s the only direction we got. We got it in two takes, she used the first one. It was there. I mean, we’d shot everything right before it in the time line. It was there.

Can you speak about what attracted you to these three women?

Kelly Reichardt: Maile Meloy’s story is really what pulled me in. All the women are complex and they’re really set in their environments. A lot of the scenes took place outside and had small life processes, and those are things that I’m drawn to, and so those things were appealing.

I thought Laura Dern was so fun to watch. Can you speak about directing her?

KR: Yeah. Laura’s really fun to watch. She’s really a good comedic actress and then can take it to another place really quickly. She’s super super precise and you can tell she’s been on film sets all her life because she’s really aware of how the camera’s working and how the frame’s working and even how the cut’s going to work, I think. She’s a filmmaker, really, and so it was super exciting working with her.

I thought it was quite a stunning performance from Lily as well. Can you speak about discovering her a little bit? Obviously she’s been around, done some work before, but bringing her to this project.

KR: Yeah. She has been in other films, but she felt like a gift from the film gods. She sent us a tape and she had done the scene herself. It was just a huge relief. I found her around the same time I found the location, and the actual rancher of the location we used reminded me in some ways of Lily, and so it all kind of really worked together.

Lastly, Kristen, can you tell me how it was collaborating with her and what you admire about her?

KR: She’s so game. When I met her, she’s a leg shaking, fast talking, really wound up person, and then the camera turns on and she gets super mellow and slow, and she lays back and really responds to things. She’s a really good listener when she’s in a scene and she’s completely willing to let a scene be someone else’s. I thought she was an incredibly generous actor and really super nuanced. She blew me away sometimes.

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Video: Kristen's interview (and cast) with Behind the Velvet Rope at the 'Certain Women' NYFF premiere

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Kristen's interview with WWD at NYFF for 'Certain Women'

Monday night at the New York Film Festival, it was all about women. On the heels of a weekend filled with pundits debating and dissecting women’s lives in the public eye — from Kim Kardashian’s robbery at gunpoint in Paris to the possible unveiling of the identity of cult Italian novelist Elena Ferrante — the timing of the premiere of Kelly Reichardt’s “Certain Women,” a story star Kristen Stewart called a “very female story to tell,” marked a poignant coincidence.

The film features Michelle Williams, a frequent collaborator of Reichardt’s, along with Stewart, Laura Dern and newcomer Lily Gladstone, in a narrative that gives three glimpses of female life in the American West.

“Kelly’s movies are really, really quiet, and really, really loud,” Stewart said. “I think she makes movies about things that other people wouldn’t highlight, and to me that’s really f—ing bold. She focuses on the moments that happen between the moments that most people would put in movies. And as an actor, it’s really vulnerable to have little expectation, and it’s really vulnerable to be expected to just be and not deliver something, and not show something but just accidentally reveal something. She’s really good at that. And also, American indie movies are all kind of messy, and I love that, I f—ing love that, but hers aren’t — hers are so composed. I don’t know, I love her movies. I would’ve done anything with her.”

Reichardt herself, a director known for her work in Oregon, headed slightly east to bring to life the stories of writer Maile Meloy, who grew up in Montana.“[I think she] wrote a lot of those stories with Montana in mind,” the director said, “so the stories started out specific to that place. Just finding Maile’s story made me want to go out West. We had sort of shot Oregon to death, so we were looking for a new adventure — Montana was that very new, very cold, cold adventure.”

It was also a new adventure for Stewart, who visited the state for the first time thanks to the film. “I drove from L.A., because my character does a lot of driving in the movie, and it’s so beautiful,” she said, “and the people are kind of really exceptional. Somebody said something in an interview earlier, that these women are hearty, and that’s a really good way of putting it. They’re hearty — it’s not like a strength or gusto, it’s f—ing hearty. There’s a lot of be done, and all three women are fairly remote and there’s this protective nature, and I want to get in there.”

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Variety Portraits at Sundance for 'Certain Women' in UHQ

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WireImage Portrait from Sundance for 'Certain Women'

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Getty Image Portraits at Sundance 2016 for 'Certain Women'

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