Emma Thompson called her character in Brian Kirk’s film “Dead of Winter” a “real life heroine” during a conversation at Locarno Film Festival on Friday.
“We seem to be telling an awful lot of stories about the super rich or about the dark side of human nature, and this woman’s life, this ordinary humble life, is so beautiful and so rich,” Thompson said of the film. “She’s able to say: ‘I’m able to let it go to let someone else find herself.’ It’s a story of her love.”
In the action thriller, she plays a widowed woman who just wanted to go fishing in snowbound Minnesota. Instead, she finds herself in the middle of a kidnapping plot. Thompson also executive produced the film.
Written by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb, both from Minnesota, it pays homage to the “amazing women” who raised them, said Jacobson-Larson, with Leeb mentioning his own grandmother who “would always face adversity face on with humor” as inspiration.
“It feels like a hero you don’t see very often,” he said, with his star agreeing.
“The boys are right: 30 years ago, when I was starting out, I had this woman’s group. My first question to them was: ‘Who’s the female hero?’ I was still identifying with Marlon Brando and I wasn’t happy about it,” Thompson said.
“This woman is a real female heroine because she doesn’t say: ‘You should be afraid because I have certain skills.’ I mean, she can sew, she’s been formed by weather and lived in close proximity with nature. She knows that she can mess people up by freezing their stuff.”
She reached out to Leeb’s aunt Tracy in order to master the accent.
“The first time we did [a Zoom call] I did it in my normal voice and they were very confused,” she laughed.
“I spent hours and hours talking to everyone over there. But the making of this movie was mostly about gloves. We needed three pairs. She shoots in one pair, has a fight in another. There were gloves everywhere! The Minnesotans said we needed them because if you get cold hands, your life is over.”
Laurel Marsden, Judy Greer and Marc Menchaca were also cast in the film, as well as Thompson’s daughter Gaia Wise, who plays her younger self.
“We went on long walks before we started and talked about what [this couple’s] life would have been like. What they’d have eaten, what games they played and what their conversations were. Gaia plays her in the ‘full of love’ bit of her life – I was in the ‘my life is over, and I got to say goodbye’ piece. She’s grieving and something distracts her, and then she’s back to where she started. It’s such a beautiful circle,” Thompson said.
As for filming the movie’s violent scenes, she said: “There are no words. Why start this whole action stuff when you are 66 years old?! That’s just stupid.”
In order to prepare, she spent a whole month in Finland, where the film was partly shot. Thompson already praised the Finnish crew in an open letter to the industry following the shoot.
“I would encourage colleagues in my industry with all my heart to locate productions here – if you need dramatic landscape, it is here, if you need brave-hearted, highly sensitive and indomitable crew people, they are here, if you need comfort and a homely life, it is here,” she wrote.
Speaking on Finland, she continued: “It wasn’t just cold — it was cold. It grips you like metal. We took our clothes off, sat in a Finnish sauna and got into a frozen lake to get used to it! One thing that genuinely scared me was holding my breath under water. Judy and I did that training with a man called, get this, Kirk Crack.” Crack is a freediving expert. “We were so scared of that.”
The best way to warm up was to lie down naked in the snow, observed her director.
“I could do it right now – I’ve never been so hot. I’m having a second menopause,” she said, cooling herself with an electric fan at the fest.
But despite all the struggles, the film is ultimately “also about survival and rebirth,” noted Kirk. “There’s an incredible degree of hope here.” This is also because Thompson’s character helps a young girl, played by Marsden, find “the capacity and the desire to live.”
“What greater gift could be given to someone who’s despairing? It’s a very difficult time for young people and she’s a recognizable version of that,” Thompson said. “I think we’ve lost the notion of sacrifice in our life, not in a religious but in a purely human sense. But you can’t just have a good life [without sacrifice]. It doesn’t just come.”
“Dead of Winter” was produced by Greg Silverman, Jon Berg, Jonas Katzenstein and Maximilian Leo for Stampede Ventures and Augenschein Filmproduktion, while Leonine Studios and ZDF co-produce. It’s being sold by North.Five.Six. and Augenschein Sales.
‘Dead of Winter’
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