Summary
- Collider’s Steve Weintraub speaks with Wyatt Russell and Dennis Quaid ahead of their upcoming Western drama Broke.
- Russell discusses facing extreme physical challenges while filming ‘Broke,’ describing it as the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.
- The duo looks towards future projects, including War Machine, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, and an as-yet-untitled project with Steven Spielberg.
Wyatt Russell‘s involvement in the upcoming Thunderbolts* and Avengers: Doomsday is stirring plenty of excitement, but the LA-born actor is also drawing spades of anticipation for another upcoming project, Broke. Russell plays True Brandywine, a bareback bronc rider desperately clinging to his rodeo career, alongside a stellar supporting cast that includes the likes of Mary McDonnell, Auden Thornton, and the ever-brilliant Dennis Quaid.
In anticipation of the movie, and on the back of the release of an exciting new trailer, Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with Russell and Quaid to discuss all things Broke. This includes what it is like working with writer-director Carlyle Eubank on his directorial debut and the demands of producing such a physically taxing project, as well as teasing what’s to come from the actors’ other ventures, such as Quaid’s War Machine and Russell’s involvement in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 and an as-yet-untitled Steven Spielberg film.
Making ‘Broke’ Was One of the Most Difficult Challenges in Wyatt Russell’s Career
“What am I doing?”
COLLIDER: I’m going to start with the important questions. Dennis, where is your dog Peaches?
DENNIS QUAID: She’s downstairs, five floors right under me on the bed. I checked on her, and she’d actually made her way up, laying on my pillow. So, that’s where she is, in comfort.
Wyatt, the movie starts with you in the snow. Something has happened, you’re in deep shit. At any point during shooting, did you think you were in a sequel to The Thing?
WYATT RUSSELL: No, I did not think that. Although when I did look at myself in the mirror a couple of times, it’s impossible to say you don’t start to see the resemblance. That was the hardest day of filming I’ve ever had. I know they had some tough days in Alaska, but I don’t know if he ever buried himself in actual snow. It’s possible he did. I buried myself under a foot of snow for three minutes while the camera landed in the right spot, and then came out into -35-degree weather in Montana. It was hell. It was the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I’ll never do it again.
QUAID: I think I was out there for three hours sitting on the horse, and had appropriate clothing on as well. He was out there in a jean jacket and was trying to survive with the horse.
People don’t realize, this wasn’t some bullshit shoot. You’re actually out in the elements. There’s a scene where you’re in the car, and you have to get undressed. How brutal was that?
RUSSELL: The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. No doubt. I mean, I’ve had to do some difficult things physically, but this felt stupid. It felt like, “This is dumb. What am I doing? I have a kid.” I had a newborn child who was three months old at the time, and I’m going out here doing this? It was like, “What am I doing?” I was really asking myself that a lot because I thinking, “I’m going to get sick. This is not a joke.” They’re 10-hour days to 12-hour days.
QUAID: You’re like, “Oh, this is so authentic. Wow, I can’t wait.” Then you’re like, “Whoa!”
RUSSELL: We didn’t have any money to do anything. I was wearing a few pairs of socks, and I had thermals on. You put the hot ones on, but I don’t have a big jacket. He’s supposed to be caught in a spring snowstorm, so I can’t fake it. I’ll never do it again. [Laughs]
I can’t believe what you put yourself through. I really enjoyed this movie. Movies like this are really hard to get made nowadays. What’s it like to get to make something like this, which Hollywood used to make all the time? It’s so impossible to make a film like this.
RUSSELL: That is why I wanted to do it. That’s why I wanted to produce the movie, and that’s why I wanted to make the movie. I thought it was something that I hadn’t seen, and normally you see movies in this realm that are based on a bull rider who’s got his shirt off, he’s hot, he’s cut up, he’s got the girl, and there’s a big event at the end of the movie in Vegas that he either wins or loses and he either gets the girl or whatever. It’s great, and there’s shininess and there’s a sheen, and there’s a place for it. I appreciate it. But I just wanted to make a film for people who don’t get films made about them very much.
This is a large swath of the country that works and makes food and raises cattle and does a lot of things, and I just wanted to show the reality that there is an underbelly. It’s not all just this wonderful, Yellowstone-beautiful sunsets, and everybody’s hot. It sucks. There are times when it’s horrible. You’re winning 300 bucks. The rodeo is tough. 99% of the guys never make it. They hold on too long, start taking pain pills, and your life ends up in the shitter. That’s not an uncommon story, and so we tried to put a little happy spin on it. I wanted to tell that story, and I’m proud of it.
QUAID: But these guys, they come from families where their dad did it or their uncles did it, their grandfathers, and stuff. You play football in high school, but you never make it to college. Rodeo is kind of the same way. You try it out, see how far you can get. 99.9% don’t make it past that local stage.
RUSSELL: There’s poetry in the pain of these people. That’s a large aspect of this movie as well. There’s poetry in bareback bronc riding. I wanted to, along with Carlyle [Eubank] and everybody involved, be able to put some of that poetry, or at least a poetic voice that I’ve always enjoyed, onto film.
There’s a gunshot scene in the movie, and you can take it two ways. What are your thoughts on this, and whether it can be read two different ways?
RUSSELL: I don’t want to answer the question because it does give it away.
QUAID: I don’t want to go there either. I think we created enough drama with the question. [Laughs]
RUSSELL: I do think there are two ways that you can go with it. I don’t want to give that part of it away because it is the crux of the film, but I hear ya.
It’s something I would love to dive more into because I have so much to say about that, but hopefully people are going to talk after they’ve seen it.
QUAID: Yeah. We can talk at the 20th anniversary of this film. We’ll have it.
Carlyle Eubank Was an Expert Writer-Director on ‘Broke’
“Down to the tiniest last detail, Carlyle had it in spades.”
This is the first time Carlyle [Eubank] has written and directed something. As actors, do you have different types of questions when meeting with someone who is making their first film compared to a more seasoned director?
QUAID: Carlyle wrote such an authentic script. I mean, the very first page where he’s describing the tack room and the whole thing about shoeing a horse, it’s so specific. It’s so authentic that I just wanted to live up to that authenticity. That’s what drew me to doing this.
RUSSELL: Normally, I’d say yeah. Because the stories are somewhat convoluted, and they’re about a Chinese syndicate that ends up killing somebody in Estonia that’s linked to the California mob, and you’re like, “Wait, okay, so how do you do this?”
QUAID: I’m shooting that movie right now. Thanks for ruining it. Spoiler alert. [Laughs]
RUSSELL: But when I read it, I was the same as Dennis. I was like, “Do you do this? Is this something you do? Because this is too authentic for you not to have done it,” and he was like, “Yeah.” So that’s what I want. I want to be able to look at my director and be like, “Am I doing this right? Because I’m not the one who is an expert on it, you are.” I know how to do some things relatively well, but I don’t know the ins and outs. Down to the tiniest last detail, Carlyle had it in spades.
Steven Spielberg is a “Dream” to Work With for Wyatt Russell
“He’s an incredible person and makes incredible movies for a reason.”
I want to ask you each an individual question, if you don’t mind. Dennis, I am very excited for War Machine, which is an upcoming film that you have. If you could tell people about it, and Wyatt, I am so curious what you can tease about Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, and getting to work with Steven Spielberg on his next big summer movie for next summer?
QUAID: It was two weeks, for my part in War Machine, down in Australia. It’s going to be really good. Alan Ritchson is fantastic, and the story is so much fun. It’s different. It’s really different, where the personality of this machine, the relentlessness of it, you will not be disappointed.
RUSSELL: Season 2 of Monarch was really interesting to be able to get to do because we had to expand on certain themes and stuff that we found in the first season to really work. I haven’t been briefed on what I can tease and what I can’t. I can say that the mystery deepens. There are more monsters that arrive that are really fun to explore in the story. We wanted to level it up, I guess you could say, and in the Monarch way, ratchet up the stakes of the relationships as well. I can tease that the relationships really get ratcheted up.
Working with Steven Spielberg is what everybody says it is. It’s a dream. He’s a dream. I’ve worked with a lot of great people. I’ve been very lucky. He is so involved in every single aspect of the day. He is so open to everyone’s thoughts, plans, and ideas. He can shift and turn things into a signature moment because that’s what it needed in that 30 seconds, and he just does it. Obviously, it’s all in his brain. There’s nothing superhuman. He’s a human being who just is an open person and sees film and sees moments of humanity in ways that he knows how to put into his unique vision, and his unique vision is what we’re captivated by. He knows how to translate that to other people. He knows how to push you, the actor, to your absolute technical brink, and knows that you’re going to pull through on the seventh time, even though it’s difficult to do all the layers of what we’re being asked to do. He has an incredible ability, like most leaders do, to bring the best out in people. He’s an incredible person and makes incredible movies for a reason.
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Nothing is known about the movie. Are you allowed to say anything or not?
RUSSELL: Nah, I’m under absolute lock and key. I was written a letter about it.
QUAID: There are a couple of people with weapons pointed at us right now.
You can catch Broke on Digital release now.
