Juliette Lewis has a great reason why her horseback riding experiences are so spectacular in her new thriller, “The Thicket.”
“I’m a third-place finisher in the barrel race,” Lewis says on this week’s episode of “Only for Selection.” “I used to be an equestrian. I grew up riding horses before I was 12. So the first thing we did in Calgary (where the movie was filmed in the dead of winter) was ride a horse. They wanted to check us out, the way you rode. I got a great score with my horse riding.”
In the Elliott Lester-directed film (in theaters Sept. 6), based largely on Joe R. Lansdale’s book of the same name, Lewis plays Lower Throat Bill, a hardened, violent outlaw at the turn of the 20th century who kidnaps a young woman (Esmé Creed-Miles). The woman’s brother (Levon Hawke) hires a bounty hunter (Peter Dinklage) to rescue his sister.
Lower Throat Invoice, written in the unique e-book as a person, is cruel, Lewis says, and “devoid of humanity, where you can’t really feel someone else’s pain and you really savor their pain. That, I don’t relate to.”
However, she adds: “I can think of how someone might get there.”
Lower Throat Invoice is such an awesome identity. I’m glad they didn’t try to change it to Lower Throat Mary.
They were like, “How do you justify Invoice?” Her unique name is Wilhelmina. I don’t understand how Wilhelmina gets into Invoice, but she does.
Why would you need to justify this?
We don’t. She doesn’t. That’s what I really like. I used to get all these parts after, “How do I make this real, a real person?”, from the mangled voice as a result of her surviving a near decapitation and so you definitely hear her legend before you meet her. She’s her savagery and everyone thinks she’s a person.
How did you discover this voice?
I used to be in my kitchen and I learned a certain line from this script that talks about your deep voice or something, and I just tried it. In a lot of roles, I use more of a base in my voice or a better, softer tone. I’m comfortable that I can go that low. I didn’t know I could until I tried. It was hard to scream in that range. So many things that were arduous, but you’re kind of just walking the walk of trying to make something really real and rich.
Do you leave the set and go to Starbucks and use that voice to order a cappuccino?
No, I didn’t (laughter). And paradoxically, if people quote lines from movies I’ve been in or, “Hey, talk like your character,” they disappear. I’m like, “What?” I don’t even know how to do that. It’s funny.
Which of these characters is the one that everyone always says, “Give me that line?”
It covers everything from “Christmas Trip,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” and Mallory, actually, from “Yellowjackets.” That’s always a compliment when they remember things I said.
The mood is your personal character in “The Thicket.”
It was so freezing and so uncomfortable to be in the whole shoot. That was really helpful, though, for the position I was in. She’s not a comfortable person. Normally they breathe in CGI or the horse’s breath, but we didn’t have to do any of that. We learned about this thick face cream that’s important to use because your pores and skin are freezing and it’s going to turn into cracked leather. They were always like, “Don’t be scared, you’ll get used to it.” Because it was 20 below zero, I’ve never physically experienced that in my life. I was a huge fan of “The Revenant.” I really loved that movie. But when I first heard we were going to the snow, I wasn’t jumping for it because I’m a Californian woman. It was a problem.
You only shot in 22 days, so you couldn’t waste any time. No matter how cold or painful it gets, you have to shoot.
That’s fitting. I’m at an age now where I can look back fondly on the great old days of the 90s when we would shoot the issues in four months. “Cape Concern” took four months. “Pure Born Killers” took four and a half months. Now you’re lucky to get eight weeks. But it’s certainly a testament to how great the individuals in each division are. And the director of this film, Elliott Lester, was so passionate and kept the enthusiasm and team spirit going from morning to night.
Peter Dinklage in ‘The Thicket’
Samuel Goldwyn Films /Courtesy Everett Assortment
Were you a member of “Remake of Thrones” before working with Peter?
I haven’t seen a single episode. I don’t think he knows about that. Sorry.
I really like your honesty.
I don’t think he’ll mind. I used to be just a Peter Dinklage fan. I’ve seen his work. There are people who you go, “Oh, that one. That one. Wow, that one takes me somewhere.” And there’s such a deep resonance. You can’t possibly describe it when you see someone so completely present in something they’re doing and so much of their own thing, but so much depth. It’s a highlight of my career and it reminds me of when I worked with Robert De Niro on “Cape Fear.” There’s a kind of transcendence that happens where you touch on such a fact between these two people and we’re barely speaking. There are all these things that are there when these characters meet.
Now that you’ve enjoyed working with Peter, will you watch “Remake of Thrones?”
(Laughter) Don’t put this as a quote, like, “I think I’ll go watch ‘Recreation of Thrones’ now. Peter is pretty cool.” No.
It is a selected style.
It’s a select style. I’m weird. I like music or documentaries. I know, I’m one of those people. However, I got into a few screenings. I bought “Child Reindeer” and then it broke my heart. It was so hard.
I have to talk to you about “Yellowjackets.” People were really upset that you weren’t coming back. Did you know you were going to be killed?
I knew it very well. I think I’m good for a 2-season series. It’s a unique type of work. So what do I want to say? I can’t wait to see season 3. I think the writers’ work is so phenomenal. They had so many stories that were always being realized, and that’s what they’re doing. For me, there’s a lot about our series that’s exciting, but in my creative DNA, I like making movies. It’s something that I totally get with a single director, a finite amount of time, and figuring out the beginning, the middle, and the end. And I really enjoy those boundaries.
If you signed up for “Yellowjackets,” you say to them, “Hey, two seasons, that’s enough for me. Can’t I do more than two?”
No, I didn’t say that. We just worked things out… I said very different things privately, but I completed “Yellowjackets” and then went straight into “The Thicket,” which is not a walk in the park, but it was all good for the movie.
Is there a task you really wanted to accomplish that day that was taken out of your way?
I always wanted to play a jazz singer. You know what I wanted to do? Well, it’s a moot point because it’s hard to get the rights, but it was Anita O’Day. She wasn’t probably the most dazzling jazz singer. She did bebop and she kind of did scat and she, like all the singers of that era, lived a wild and colorful life.
Have you tried to obtain the rights?
I did it for a minute. After that, there was a remake I wanted to do of a Fellini film, one of my favorites, “Nights of Cabiria.” Giulietta Masina, she’s virtually Chaplin-esque in it. It’s touching, funny and eccentric. I really love that film. I don’t understand how you get the rights to it, but that was a dream of mine for a second.
This Q&A has been edited and condensed. You can listen to the full interview above or check out “Only for Selection” where you get your favorite podcasts.
