NEWS. . . BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
Summer is a hugely successful season, but audiences are in for something new with the arrival of 2024’s action hero: a 90-year-old grandmother who rides a scooter and has a revenge project in Thelma.
For her long-awaited (and long-awaited) first lead role, Oscar nominee June Squibb, 94, has been given a role comparable to Tom Cruise’s, as well as the opportunity to perform stunts and mega-movie cliché. walking away from an explosion in slow motion.
And it’s whatever prolific actress Squibb, who has worked with Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, Julianne Moore and Al Pacino, always brings out.
For Thelma, written and directed by Josh Margolin after his grandmother nearly scammed him out of $10,000 (£7,750), Squibb took on the challenge of performing his own stunt work.
“I come in with the attitude that I can do anything,” he tells me with a smile over Zoom, in a verbal exchange with Marpasslin and actor Fred Hechinger, who plays his on-screen grandson, Danny.
“It was a lot of fun to do a lot of things, like the scooter, riding with me [co-star] Richard [Roundtree] all the time. It was wonderful! And the other stunts were a laugh.
It turns out that Squibb wasn’t fazed at all by the challenge of fighting with a motorized scooter, and at top speed, nor by the, frankly, badass showdown at the film’s climax.
“For me I started as a dancer and that’s why the physique is part of what I’ve done in the theater, so it seemed good to me to do everything,” she says with a shrug.
It’s a privilege to be able to set aside time for an interview with someone, but it’s especially special to have the ability to speak with Squibb.
Squibb is a true veteran and has been acting since the 1950s, where she directed in a regional theater before making her Broadway debut in the original 1959 production of Gypsy, starring Ethel Merman.
She made her screen debut in Woody Allen’s 1990 film Alice, appearing in films such as Scent of a Woman, The Age of Innocence, Meet Joe Black and About Schmidt.
In fact, the star has been prolific for the more than 20 years, racking up credits on TV shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, Glee, The Big Bang Theory, Shameless, and Grey’s Anatomy, and earning her first Oscar nomination for Alexander Payne’s Nebraska. in 2014 and joined Disney’s roster of broadcasters.
In addition to the positive reception Thelma has had (lately she has a remarkable 99% score on the review collection site Rotten Tomatoes), Squibb also has a scene-stealing cameo in the winning film Inside Out 2 as Nostalgia.
So what’s it like to have your moment and be hailed as the action star of the summer?
“We’re all so dizzy about what happened with the movie that other people love it so much. And I think the action [hero tag] is a lot of fun because it’s an action movie and we’re very proud of it, and that’s what you have to see in the summer.
“So it’s all the better for us,” he observes, laughing when I point out that his competition comes from Marvel with Deadpool and Wolverine.
For Thelma, Squibb and Hechinger, who will soon be noticed in Gladiator II, are teamed up through a star-studded supporting cast that includes Shaft actor Richard Roundtree, Malcolm McDowell, Parker Posey and Clark Gregg.
In the film, Thelma and her grandson Danny have a close bond, and the rather lost twenty-somethings are tasked with keeping an eye on their independent grandmother through their worried parents as he struggles to figure out what to do with his life.
“I don’t feel young,” Danny complains at one point, to which Thelma replies, “Well, I don’t feel old. “
When a scammer calls, posing as Danny and saying he’s been arrested and wants money, she falls for it and sends thousands of dollars to a town mailbox.
However, hell hath no fury like a scorned pensioner, because when she is told that the FBI can’t do anything, Thelma embarks on her own “possible” project – animated through Tom Cruise – to recover the money, fight for transportation, become an accomplice. a gun on the road.
A wonderful line of communication is also established between Ben and Thelma from Roundtree through the phone apps connected to their hearing aids.
Hechinger shows that he complains harshly about his own grandmother, who encouraged him as a child and who inspired him with the love for cinema and that he came up with during the filming of Thelma.
“She needs to be invited to each and every one of the films we are going to see, but in some she says: ‘I like the movies, but I don’t like this one’.
“I wanted to do anything that she liked and that I could watch with her too. “
I still can’t exploit Hechinger for any information I might get from him in Gladiator II, where he plays Emperor Caracalla alongside his brother and co-leader Geta (Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn).
Turns out it’s very little, but he admits that he’s “another guy, for sure” from the adorable, slightly passive Danny.
While I think it’s unlikely that Caracalla would be so kind-minded toward his grandmother, Hechinger quips, “You know, I think I can ruin everything. Unfortunately, Caracalla’s grandmother does appear in Gladiator II.
“They are very, very different characters,” he adds. “But I think that’s the wonderful joy of playing compared to other people. That’s the point. When you play as someone, you have to play it so completely that the next time you can play opposite an opposing user and do it completely.
I ask Hechinger and Margolin what they’ve learned from working with someone as experienced (and charming) as Squibb on Thelma.
“It’s funny, I find it hard to put into words because it’s this kind of practical ingenuity and magic,” Hechinger says. “Just participating and being in the presence of that is very deeply inspiring. I gained a lot of wisdom about acting and also about life from making this film.
“It’s hard to put it into words,” Margolin admits, adding that “I felt like I had learned a lot, but I incorporated it all into my brain in a very sophisticated way. “
However, Squibb is a “consummate professional” in his eyes, who has dazzled him with her preparation.
“She studied everything so meticulously and controlled it to settle down in a uniform, calm, and specific way, and she was lovely herself, and then she also took aim when we were running in such a way that I can see her putting her energies in. in what she wanted. power and not put your power in what she didn’t want.
Margolin notes that it’s about “perfecting a craft” over years of experience and a long career like Squibb’s.
“You have to find that balance between field and focus, but also authenticity and ease. And it makes it feel easy, which is a very impressive feat and one I think about often,” he shares.
For Squibb, every role and environment remains a learning experience for her as well.
“I feel like when I take on a job, I hope to come out of it a better actress, maybe even a better user, and God knows I did with this! “, he said, laughing.
She calls Thelma’s script “one of the most productive I’ve ever worked on,” which, coming from someone she’s acted in for more than 70 years, is a real compliment, while describing the film as “a pleasure to make. “
Squibb said there’s also been a shift in terms of more roles for older actors in recent years.
“I think it’s kind of part of our total culture; I think there’s a greater interest in getting older, and I think that’s moving into film,” he says, before noting that he just finished “another film [playing] 90-year-olds. ‘
It is Scarlett Johansson’s first feature film, Eleanor the Great, about a 90-year-old Florida woman who befriends a 19-year-old student in New York. This will be her second leading role.
Also check out 91-year-old Ellen Burstyn, who is very reserved and busy after last year’s The Exorcist: Believer and with projects on the horizon.
“So, I mean, it’s here, it’s happening,” Squibb adds of the “pretty wonderful” fact that those kinds of parts are being written now.
For Margolin, the filmmaker explains that it was a revealing film because it was complicated “in some aspects” but also “it is the simplest discourse I have ever faced”.
“It made it temporarily possible to understand whether people agreed, they really agreed, and if people disagreed, they temporarily disagreed,” Array shows.
“I think because there are a lot of movies made with actors in the lead who are in their 80s and 90s, and especially those with some kind of action, it cuts through the BS pretty temporarily, to put it simply. “
Squibb admits that he never thought about whether he would continue to run at his age; however, it is the quality of what is presented to her that makes her say yes.
“Actually, it’s the scripts that I get if I need to do it. “
“People keep saying, ‘Well, how long are you going to do this?I have no concept, I have no concept. I guess as long as a script comes along that looks attractive and I can do it on my knees. “I’ll say yes!” he laughs.
Before we part, I think, along with Squibb, who else in Hollywood will continue to paint at 90 like she does in the future.
As he appears in Thelma, I recommend Tom Cruise with the same motivation as her.
‘It’s true! I think I would check it anyway.
Thelma is in theaters starting Friday, July 19.
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