Writer/Director Sarah Gyllenstierna and Actors Magnus Krepper & Jens Hulten talks to Fest Track about changes, characterization and irony in regards to their film: “Hunters On A White Field” playing the International Narrative Competition at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival in New York, New York.
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00:00This is Tim Walshbrook from FesTrackConcertTV.
00:29I'm here in New York City for the Tribeca Film Festival.
00:32This movie is very dynamic in the idea
00:35that talks to both the primal and the intellect in many ways.
00:40Sarah, can you first talk about, you know,
00:42the sort of superstructure of the story, where it came from and why this was
00:48a movie you wanted to make at this point?
00:50And I can go in with Magnus and Jens
00:52about their characters within that structure.
00:55Yeah, I mean, I think you really nailed it.
00:58What was really what attracted me to this story?
01:02Because, you know, it's based on a book.
01:05I read the book.
01:06The plot is obviously very, very strong, very clear.
01:10And so the plot felt immediately appealing,
01:15mainly because, you know, being in the context of a hunting trip,
01:19you're thrown into precisely these, you know, big questions that you
01:23are interested in that are suspenseful, life and death,
01:28the primal versus the, quote unquote, civilized.
01:31And then it was really the idea of these three men
01:36forming this sort of group and how group behavior and these social interactions
01:41affect their mentality during the hunting, which is also kind of heightening
01:49their emotions in terms of, you know, having to take a life,
01:53spare a life and how they handle that.
01:56Also, the idea of competition and who is getting the most, et cetera.
02:02So I really thought, I mean,
02:04it was like a gift to read this book and feel like this is something that I can
02:09really, I mean, but also I knew that actors, I thought that actors would feel like,
02:14OK, we can sink our teeth for lack of a better term into this.
02:19I mean, there's so many different levels.
02:20Before I go over to the guys,
02:23can you talk because, you know, the aspect of who is Alpha,
02:26who is Beta, who's the head wolf, who's the, you know, the prey,
02:30the predator, all this changes.
02:32Can you talk about with these three men
02:35building that and because Henrik and Gregor are very different than Alex,
02:40but they also are very different from each other.
02:43Can you talk about the character build of that?
02:45But how that translated into both Magnus and Jens in terms and obviously
02:51the actor who plays Alex,
02:53how that had to work just right for it to work on screen?
02:58Yeah, I mean, that was the that was the biggest
03:01challenge in terms of the most work I had to do with the script.
03:04The plot I more or less took almost exactly from the book,
03:09but the characters were very differently written in the book.
03:12They're equals. They're the same age.
03:14They don't have these hierarchical differences and they don't really have
03:18strong personality differences even in the book.
03:20And so that's where the author gave me permission to to change that.
03:25And that was there was a lot of work kind
03:28of calibrating, figuring out how to make them feel different.
03:34What were their different
03:36characters without I didn't want to get into telling a lot of backstory,
03:41having them bring in a lot from their outside lives.
03:44I wanted it to really feel like we're in this bubble with them.
03:48We're going to have some dialogue scenes,
03:50but I don't want them to sit and start talking too much about their lives outside
03:54of this, let's like reveal their characters in the context of the hunt
03:58and in the context of even dialogue about hunting.
04:01How do they reveal themselves differently?
04:03And I think then it came down to finding great actors who would also be able
04:09to really delineate this without ever feeling I mean, they just without them
04:14having this.
04:17I mean, they obviously had some backstory.
04:19They knew some backstory to their
04:20characters that we don't talk about in the film, but they reveal so much in their
04:25behaviors and in how they are with each other.
04:29That's fantastic.
04:44And it's been many years since you've taken a hunting exam,
04:49but the theory is something completely different from reality.
04:56Magnus and Jens, if you could talk about that,
04:58because that itself is because there's so much different from these two men,
05:03you know, and Alex, but there's all these subtleties.
05:07The humor of Henri is awesome because of the way that even that thing about
05:12the blow up doll is meant to throw it off just a little bit to make you think,
05:17OK, why what is their actual motivation?
05:19But then Gregor, by extension, he's you know,
05:23he wants to keep everything in like a path.
05:26But you can see him start to stray,
05:28especially towards the end, and he becomes almost has a different focus.
05:33Can you talk about what you two each wanted to find in them when you first read
05:38them? What did you see and then how did that change as you performed?
05:43I'm not sure how much of it was done in order, but sometimes that will alter it as
05:47well if you could each talk about that, Magnus first, if you want to.
05:53No, but we
05:56we discussed
05:59quite a lot about
06:01the masculinity,
06:03because when you get.
06:06When when you're going to tell the story like this with three men in a hunting
06:11cottage, there's actually a lot of traps
06:16because you don't want to fall into the cliche of the of the man picture.
06:22So we talked very much about
06:25the hierarchy and the the poetry in between these men.
06:30And and it's very.
06:34How do you say?
06:36Sub.
06:37Small, small,
06:39small, small details and and like Sarah said,
06:48we discussed also we had I mean, we have a quite a big backstory
06:54with the characters, but
06:57I think we allowed us not to show that too much instead of trusting it
07:02that you have it in your back sack.
07:05And.
07:08And we talked very much about to to not
07:12fall into the traps of the cliche of masculinity, but I mean, it's the same way.
07:18It's.
07:23I mean, it's difficult not to it's also
07:27kind of a story that there is a cliche of a man and their way to to to behave with
07:34each other and so on, so I don't want to shoot.
07:39It's going to happen.
07:41It's going to turn up.
07:43It's going to come on.
07:45And it's going to happen.
07:48It's going to happen.
07:50It's going to happen.
07:52It's going to happen.
07:54It's going to happen.
07:57The threat to the unit.
08:00Yeah, come on.
08:03Was there a small detail that jumped out at you?
08:06I mean, because I love the thing, like at one point when you put the frog in your
08:10mouth, yeah, you know, there's that's a very, very specific detail.
08:14But it says so much about him in that moment.
08:16Yeah.
08:17Were there a lot of things like that that came across with him?
08:21Because even when you're sitting in the bed and, you know, Alex is tending to you,
08:26there's like a there's a gentleness, which is interesting in that scenario.
08:31Yeah, there is.
08:33And I think that that's for me, if I speak from my perspective,
08:40that was very important for me to to show that that kind of.
08:47One of the one of the one of the one,
08:52was there other details that jumped out at you?
08:54Like maybe once that I I mean, I'm just a viewer.
08:57You know, you're the actor playing it,
08:59where there are certain details you grasped onto about Gregor.
09:04Gregor?
09:04Yeah.
09:09Well, I think it's the moment when it changed.
09:12I mean, as you said from the beginning, his very self-confidence.
09:17I mean, he has a high status and.
09:21But when these guys
09:25decides to that we are supposed to hunt each other,
09:29it suddenly it changes in him and he becomes the lower status among three guys.
09:38And
09:41that's also something we talked about.
09:43There's a kind of philosophic
09:46angle of it that I guess, Gregor, he doesn't have anything to go back to,
09:51actually. I mean, he made all the success he needs.
09:54He has a lot of money and everything.
09:58So it's very small, small, small details and changes,
10:03which I'm very glad that that that you see and that you.
10:11Makes me very happy that that the audience
10:14see these kind of small, small changes in their relationship.
10:21You know, the team.
10:24And it's the same.
10:28It's good that you can see.
10:52As far as I mean, can you talk about that,
10:54because that's a different it's a different tone with him,
10:57yet it still plays within that, you know, whether it be let's go out
11:01and shoot the first night, but we're putting up certain things on the on the fence.
11:06These are small details, but it speaks to his personality.
11:09That's very unique from from from Gregor's for Magnus.
11:13Can you talk about that a little bit?
11:15Yeah. Henry,
11:17as far as I'm look at the character, he's all over the place mentally.
11:22He doesn't really know who he is.
11:25I mean, he's like he's like a 12, 12 year old that had eaten too much sugar.
11:35So, you know, I mean, he's he's very unpredictable as well.
11:39He's like a loose cannon.
11:40Anything can happen from life to, you know,
11:43you don't know where you have this guy.
11:46But.
11:47Deep, deep, deep down under is like, you know.
11:52An unseen child, as I look at him,
11:57you know, the little guy who never had his place in the world.
12:01And this is his only this is where he really enjoys it when he
12:06when he's in the middle of the night, he's like, oh, I'm going to shoot him.
12:10He's only this is where he really enjoys
12:12it when he because he looks up to Gregor in a way because he's the
12:18successful man with the money, with a career and everything.
12:22And this guy, Henrik, he had it all, but he lost it because the way he is.
12:28He say things in the wrong time and moment and, you know,
12:33consequences has to pay, you know, so he is where he is.
12:38And this is his playground, this house where his brother owns the house.
12:44But of course,
12:47Henrik didn't.
12:51He couldn't handle that situation as well
12:53because of the new wife for his brother, she doesn't like him.
12:58So she told, of course, her brother, Eva, who we never see,
13:02you have to get rid of this house, can't stand your brother.
13:05And he's like he hates her.
13:08But, you know, that's he really is just a way of
13:12going out and point fingers to everything that's not going his way.
13:16And he can't understand why he's never get it
13:20in the right way.
13:21You know, it's always someone else's fault.