When I wrote my original Chasing the Gold piece about why June Squibb should be nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars, I did it for the love of the performance and the film. That piece has been an absolute blessing, as it has now led to two career highlights. First, I was given the chance to speak with the incomparable June Squibb about her work in Thelma. The second is what follows, which is my interview with the terrific writer/director of Thelma, Josh Margolin.
We discuss writing, filmmaking and what it is like to write using people you know and love as the basis for characters. It was a very fun conversation. Also, after all this, if you’re not yet convinced about the film’s excellence, check out InSession’s most prolific festival correspondent Alex Papaioannou‘s review of Thelma from back in January when he saw it at Sundance. Enjoy the interview!
Zach Youngs: What was the film that made you want to pursue filmmaking?
Josh Margolin: Oh, man. That’s a great question. It’s funny because it’s hard to remember an exact moment when it all clicked for me. In some ways, it’s hard to remember a time before I didn’t think I wanted to do this. I’ll say one moviegoing experience that really stuck with me— or that I still think about sometimes because it felt really seminal— was going to see Minority Report in theaters. The [film is a] mixture of ideas, visual mastery, and excitement. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. There’s something about it that just cracked something open for me.
ZY: Where do you start when you’re writing a script?
JM: I usually start from an idea or a nugget of a story that I can’t get out of my head. I keep thinking about it, dreaming about it, and getting excited about picturing it. Usually, I just start writing down things I want to see or sequences that are coming into my head and feeling vivid and interesting to me. Sometimes that’s happening simultaneously with the concept itself feeling crystalized. I can say with [Thelma], it was really about starting from this nugget of an idea based on something that happened in real life and getting excited about starting to explore the different ideas [this nugget] was bringing up in me through this particular lens, which for this movie was a lo-fi action thriller. I also wanted to explore the trials and tribulations of aging, anxiety, family, and all those things, as well as celebrating my grandma’s spirit, tenacity, and grit.
ZY: What was the real event that inspired Thelma?
JM: My grandma, Thelma, she got a call from someone pretending to be me saying I was in jail, in an accident with a woman, I needed to be bailed out, [and] she needed to send money. She’d gotten calls like this in the past, but for some reason, wrong day, wrong moment, she was caught off guard enough that she totally bought into it and panicked. [My family] couldn’t reach me, so they panicked. Luckily, in real life, they called my girlfriend, who was able to say, “He’s here. He’s asleep.” Everything was fine, and we were able to intervene before she sent the money, but it came down to the wire. Seeing [my grandma] get duped in this way as she was living alone for the first time in her 90s also started to signal this new era for her and pricked up some of my fears about this new era she was entering. I think the swirl of anxieties I was swimming in at the time, paired with that incident, is where Thelma was born.
ZY: Since Thelma is based on your grandma, are the other characters in the film also based on family members?
JM: A lot is drawn from real people, but I would say a lot is also exaggerated. Particularly with the parents. They probably have the narrowest portrayal because they sort of have to be the de facto antagonists of the movie, aside from perhaps the real antagonist. They are the forces of doubt heading in both Daniel [Fred Hechinger] and Thelma’s [June Squibb] direction. With all of those characters, Thelma and beyond, I tried to take as much DNA from real life as possible and then funnel it into what was serving the movie. I always wanted to write it so it felt true and resonant with the feelings of the people I know, but also, certain things needed to be crystalized or simplified or focused for the needs of the story.
ZY: When your family saw the movie, did they see themselves?
JM: I was nervous at first. [But] I think they got a kick out of it. Especially because my parents [saw] Clark [Gregg] and Parker [Posey] play versions of them in the movie. There was also enough distance of, “O.K., right. I’m not looking in a mirror as much as I’m looking at things I recognize in myself.” I was pleasantly surprised and relieved that everybody was very game and excited about it. I was definitely stressed out about it.
ZY: After you finished the script, what was the process like for getting the film made?
JM: It was a very homegrown process. I brought the script into a writer’s group that my producer Zoë [Worth] hosts along with Chris Kaye, my other producer. [The group is made up of] my partner in life and often in work Chloe Searcy, and a couple of our pals. That was kind of the first stop after I had a full draft of it. They were all really encouraging. I ended up teaming with Zoë and Chris to produce the movie because they had been looking to make an indie. In some ways it was super surreal to see it build piece by piece and then suddenly be in production in the Fall of 2022, which was a very short window compared to some gestation times for movies. I think some of the actors connecting to it in the early days and jumping on board really helped create the snowball that eventually picked up enough pieces to gain that momentum that put it on its feet. Obviously, you have to adapt to different things, and there are realities around that, but I think by being pretty bullish about it and having the benefit of being like, “Well, this may never happen,” – we were able to just keep charging ahead. Our first day was in my grandma’s actual condo, and that was a very surreal feeling to start this process in the real location where I spent my whole childhood with her, so it was very full circle in a way.
ZY: Were you very protective of that environment? How much did production end up changing?
JM: I had a great production designer, Brielle Hubert, who did an awesome job with the movie. So much of [the set] was there because my grandma had accumulated a lifetime of things. It’s hard to fake that, especially on a low-budget [movie]. So having the real space was something [Brielle] and my director of photography David [Bolen] were excited about. Brielle ended up shaping certain environments in subtle ways. There weren’t any huge redos. She would make sure everything felt correct to the character in the movie and that nothing was pulling us out of that reality. That place had such strong bones, so it didn’t change in any fundamental ways, and I felt that when they did want to make adjustments, it felt right.
ZY: Did you always want to direct Thelma yourself?
JM: I did always want to direct the film. That was another piece of why it felt great to go into it with pals who saw it similarly. I think I started off wanting to be a director of some kind and I pivoted a little more toward performance and then I kind of swung back. I did feel really strongly that I wrote [Thelma] because I wanted to make something. I wrote this because this felt like a story I really wanted to tell. I think at no point did it feel like one that I wanted to write and then pass off because it’s such a personal story for me and one that I felt that I had a lot of stake in. I felt very protective of the tone of the movie. I wanted to make sure it all felt of a piece.
ZY: How do you feel about awards buzz around the film?
JM: Honestly, it’s been hard to wrap my head around. It’s been very cool and very humbling. I’m just amazed that so many people have connected with it in the way that they have. I was talking to my producers and saying, “So far everything past getting this movie out has felt like gravy.” Everything past getting into Sundance has felt like gravy. It’s been amazing that people have continued to see it and it has made its way out into theaters. The fact that it’s even in any of these conversations just feels very surreal to me and very humbling. It was such a bootstraps indie that we were making in my grandma’s condo and now it’s in this conversation in any capacity that feels really wild to me.
ZY: What’s next for you? Has Marvel called you yet?
JM: [Laughs]! My plan A is trying to write another original movie that I hope can feel fun and personal but cinematic and theatrical in its own right. Transitioning from the release of the movie to going back into “writing brain” has been really fun.
ZY: It was really nice talking to you, Josh.
JM: Yeah, great talking to you, thanks for taking the time.
