Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I originally didn't have Richard Jenkins on my schedule when I agreed to do Bone Tomahawk interviews, but the movie gods smiled upon me and after I wrapped up my chat with director S. Craig Zahler, the publicist asked me if I wanted to talk to Jenkins as well.
I hope I looked professional when I blurted out “Ohmygodyespleaseawesome,” but she didn't look scared, so I think I pulled it off. Before I knew it Jenkins was sitting across from me and with no real preparation other than digging the movie and being a huge fan of Jenkins' work we had the below talk.
He struck me as a very soft-spoken, humble guy who is really proud of this film. As he should be. It's a good flick and he's particularly good in it. Below we talk a little about the quick 21 day shoot, his reaction to seeing the makeup for the cannibals for the first time and his inspiration for his character. Enjoy!
Quint: I'm really happy to have a chance to talk to you. You're one of my favorite performers and I don't get the chance to talk to you about your work very often. On Let Me In I pretty much talked to everybody else except for you.
Richard Jenkins: Matt Reeves is doing great.
Quint: Yeah, his work on Apes was incredible.
Richard Jenkins: I said to him, “No matter if you're making a movie about vampire or apes, it's always human.”
Quint: Yeah, it's weird how he's able to tell more human stories with a cast of primates than most people do with a cast of people.
Richard Jenkins: It's heartbreaking, too.
Quint: So, I really loved this movie. It snuck up on me a little bit. I maybe expected more gore or horror, but when I sat down and watched it I was like, “Holy shit, this is The Searchers!”
Richard Jenkins: It's a beautiful western. My wife watched it with me and halfway through it she said, “I'm so nervous. Any time now something's going to happen!” Look, I'm glad you liked it because I adore it. I think it's a really special one. I think it's a beautiful script, brilliantly written. Every character is a person. It's a human drama.
Quint: So, all that was on the page and that's what you responded to?
Richard Jenkins: Five pages in I said I'd do this... that is if I don't die in the next 10 pages. (laughs)
Quint: The vibe I got from your performance is that you were going for a real-life non-stereotypical version of the kind of character Walter Brennan always played.
Richard Jenkins: The cook.
Quint: Yeah, the wacky sidekick character that he always played a bit cartoony.
Richard Jenkins: Dennis Weaver is what I was going for. I loved Dennis Weaver in Gunsmoke when I was growing up. I loved Chester. This guy, I just got him. I loved the fact that he's thinking about reading a book in the bath or thinking about the flea circus towards the end. I understand that. “Before I die, someone tell me there is a God and these fleas were real.”
Quint: There's a lot of stuff layered into the script, set ups that are payed off sometimes right away and sometimes 30 minutes later.
Richard Jenkins: Nothing in this movie is lost. Everything comes around. If somebody brings something up there's a reason for it, a pay off. Sometimes that doesn't happen and you go, “Why am I talking about this?” but not in this movie. Every one of those four guys is so fascinating.
I saw it at my house with my wife and we watched it again the next night. I just love it. I know I'm not writing reviews...
Quint: Yeah, that'd be a little bit of a conflict of interest.
Richard Jenkins: It would be, but man, I hope people appreciate this film.
Quint: I think the only danger is if people think they're getting a flat out horror movie they might tune out. But what I love about this movie is that if all you want is the gore and you're patient enough you get rewarded for sticking it out. It gets really brutal.
Richard Jenkins: But none of it is supernatural. It all can happen! That's what I loved about it. It wasn't like zombies or spirits walking through walls. It's a lost tribe. Who are they? What are these people?
I remember we were shooting one night and we finished and Kurt and I were about to see the makeup for the first time. First of all, there's no CGI in this movie. None. You know the arrow that hits my arm? It was on a fishing line.
Quint: Old school. Just like they did it in The Adventures of Robin Hood.
Richard Jenkins: It looks like it's coming at me 100 miles an hour. So, Craig didn't want to do any CGI. Kurt and I were talking to him and we said we'd love to see (the makeup) and he said, “Let's go back and take a look.” We went back, they weren't ready so we waited around and then the first one came out with his makeup on. Kurt and I looked at each other and said, “This movie could work.” We were worried because we didn't know what these things would look like.
Quint: Yeah, you can't have a mysterious threat looming over a character-driven movie and then not have that threat work.
Richard Jenkins: And when you see them they have to look different. They can't look just guys. I couldn't see them because they blended into the mountains! They were the same color as the dust!
Quint: Did you guys have to work much on the dynamic between the four leads?
Richard Jenkins: We rehearsed for about 3 days, just sat around and read and talked and talked and read. The thing is when you do a movie you always wish you could reshoot the first week because you get to know people and how they work, but not so much here. We were ready to go, pretty much. I think we were all champing at the bit to do it.
He kind of shot in sequence, not really, but mostly. We shot all the town stuff first. The first scene was my scene with Kurt. We shot that first together.
Quint: The corn chowder scene?
Richard Jenkins: Yeah, the soup scene. At first he thinks it's bad-smelling tea, then he thinks it tastes like corn before he's told it's corn soup.
Quint: I just got finished talking with Craig and he said you guys shot this thing in 21 days. Now, you've worked on small movies and big movies. You're used to moving fast and going slow. What's the difference for you, as an actor, between being so under the gun and having a more luxurious shoot?
Richard Jenkins: What's funny is that if they give you 6 months, it takes 6 months. If they give you 21 days, it takes 21 days. It's like your term paper, right? The last night you're (doing all the work). If they give you a week to do your term paper or a semester it doesn't matter. If they give you a week, it'll take you a week, if they give you a semester it'll take a semester. That's kind of what movies are.
We could have used a few more days, but we got it done. At the end we were really moving.
Quint: Do you think that ever impacts the movie in a subtle way? Like, do you think any of that energy translates to the film?
Richard Jenkins: You don't have time to second guess yourself. You just do it. Later on, when you're home, you say, “I should have done it this way,” but no. I didn't have any “I wish I could do this again” moments. It didn't feel rushed.
He always wanted this thing to live, to breathe. Some people may think it's slow, but I don't think so.
Quint: Slow is only bad if they don't pay it off. If you ask the audience to wait for something and don't give them anything, that's when people get upset.
Richard Jenkins: And there's a great pay-off here!
Hope you guys enjoyed this one!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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