Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon discussed their journeys on director Clint Bentley’s turn-of-the-20th-century saga Train Dreams during a Contenders London panel.
Train Dreams, from the Sing Sing duo of Bentley and Greg Kwedar, is adapted from Denis Johnson’s acclaimed 2002 short story (later published as a novella) of the same name. After debuting at Sundance, Netflix acquired the movie in a big-ticket deal and it will hit theaters November 7 before bowing on the streamer on November 21.
Edgerton plays Robert Grainier, a railroad worker and logger working in the early 20th century Pacific Northwest who “leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty” amid tragedy in a rapidly changing America (“It all going by so fast,” Jones’ Gladys tells her husband).
Director Bentley, also on stage in London, described how he cast Will Patton in the role of the narrator: “Greg [Kwedar, co-writer] and I made a trip up to Idaho where the film is set and on that journey I listened to the audiobook of the film narrated by Will Patton like five times. I felt like I was hearing all thee new things. By the end of it we were asking who should we get as the narrator and I wanted it to feel like you had stumbled into a bar in a log town and some guy at the bar starts telling you the story of Robert Grainier. Will was perfect for that and he was also real life friends with Dennis Johnson.”
Edgerton fell for the book on first reading it and had originally harboured hopes of directing it: “It had been gifted to me by somebody who knew I would like it. I inquired after the rights for it as a filmmaker. Like Clint, I realized there was an interesting movie in there. The development doesn’t immediately scream ‘adapt this’ and the structure is complicated. When I found out the rights were taken I put the whole idea out of my mind. And then about four years ago, Clint reached out to me. Oh, I thought, somebody knows that I’m obsessed with this book! But it just kind of happened. Maybe it meant that I was connected to the story.”
Jones said of her connection to the project: “The film pivots from really intimate moments, really domestic moments, and even silly moments that everyone recognizes from relationships to these huge themes, and that’s what I loved about it. When I read the script I was ultimately asking, what is the point of why we’re all here? Finding out what that point is is partly through when people die, and grief and knowing things aren’t going to last forever, and therefore, how does that affect how we behave in everyday life?”
Condon added that she connected with the film’s observance of the natural world: “That was the main reason I wanted to do the movie. Nature is almost like another character in the movie; there’s a spiritual side to nature that heals people. I have a farm in Washington and we shot it in Washington, Pacific, Northwest, so as we shot it the sun was going down, the birds were chirping, and it felt very spiritual. It was a very beautiful process.”
Bentley directed Train Dreams, and adapted the screenplay with Kwedar. The pair are coming off the Kwedar-directed Sing Sing, which picked up three Oscar nominations last year including for Kwedar and Bentley’s adapted screenplay.
The post Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones & Kerry Condon Reveal Their Journeys On Clint Bentley & Netflix’s ‘Train Dreams’ — Contenders London appeared first on Deadline.
