Director Josh Margolin and stars June Squibb, Fred Hechinger and Clark Gregg stop by The Hollywood Reporter's studio during the Sundance film festival to talk about their film 'Thelma.' Margolin dishes on the real-life story of his grandmother and the "surreal" feeling to film in her actual condo.
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00:00 When you said yes, did you know that you would be doing some stunts?
00:05 No, not when we first talked. As long as I could do it, I wanted to do it.
00:10 She was doing more and more as the shoot went on.
00:13 Because I think at first we were, you know...
00:15 Maybe we'll have a stunt woman do it. But I really wanted to do as much as I could.
00:19 She's not going to say this, but this is a legendary Broadway dancer
00:23 with a background of really being physically adept.
00:29 This movie, the idea came... I'm now explaining to you the idea.
00:33 No, but it's good to remind me.
00:35 It came from something that happened to your own grandmother.
00:39 Did you tell her you were doing this from the beginning?
00:41 I think it just kind of came up organically.
00:43 I think she was excited by the prospect of something about that incident being dramatized.
00:50 But I think she was also sort of wrapping her head around it.
00:54 I think she's still wrapping her head around it, honestly.
00:56 Just the fact that the movie exists, she's seen it.
00:59 And for her, there's a line where you say, "I'm Thelma Post," which is her name,
01:04 that I didn't change for the movie.
01:06 So I think that moment, she comes back to a lot.
01:09 It's very surreal to her.
01:11 I wrote it with June in mind, kind of from the get.
01:14 She reminds me of my grandma. I've been a long-time fan of her work.
01:18 And there was just something kindred about them in my mind.
01:21 They're both so resilient, but have a vulnerability to them.
01:24 There's just something about them that felt connected to me.
01:27 I got the script, and I loved it.
01:29 And I have somebody else that reads my scripts, and she called me up and said,
01:33 "You've got to do this, June."
01:35 So there was no question after receiving it that I would do it if he still wanted me to.
01:42 We all love action movies, but I also love reality.
01:46 And to me, nothing is scarier and more exciting than an action movie in real life.
01:52 And part of that is always fragility.
01:54 For any person to do anything, it's when you're worried,
01:59 "Can your body actually make it? Can this thing work?"
02:02 It's that human mess that I think makes an action sequence the most alive and exciting.
02:07 So when it came to the choreography of those moves and all that stuff, it was awesome.
02:13 But this was the main stunt woman.
02:15 This was the Tom Cruise.
02:17 You got to chase her a little bit.
02:18 Yeah, we did light chasing.
02:20 I was going to say light chasing by these folks.
02:22 You got to do some jogging down hallways.
02:25 Some semi-action jogging.
02:26 Was that thrilling for you?
02:27 It was thrilling.
02:29 Our first week of filming, we were actually at Josh's real grandmother's condo.
02:36 So the first week was in the real Thelma's house.
02:40 Spiritually, you feel this connection with the actual history and the love and the material
02:48 and the whole thing to be there.
02:50 It was just really special.
02:52 All the books in the world.
02:54 Yes.
02:55 All the books.
02:56 You could spend days just looking to find out what she really did read.
03:01 It was surreal to be there.
03:03 My whole life has been--I've spent time in that condo.
03:07 And then to be there recreating something based on my grandma, who's lived there my entire life,
03:15 and to be with all these people and making that, that was very surreal and very special.
03:20 [BLANK_AUDIO]