{"id":122699,"date":"2025-11-05T06:43:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T06:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/122699\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T06:43:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T06:43:12","slug":"ive-always-enjoyed-playing-and-celebrating-quieter-characters-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/122699\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019ve always enjoyed playing and celebrating quieter characters\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cult built around the late author Denis Johnson<\/a> is rooted in a rare fusion of poetic beauty and raw, gritty depictions of damaged lives. Writing about hobos, addicts and the disenfranchised, Johnson gave lyrical voice to the United States<\/a>\u2019 drifters. His spare, phantasmagorical prose in works such as Angels and Jesus\u2019 Son made him the laureate of literary losers.<\/p>\n

But Johnson\u2019s stories can be surprisingly tricky to hammer into movies. His own screenplays for the director Steven Shainberg met with middling responses. Alison Maclean\u2019s adaptation of Jesus\u2019 Son was a prize winner at Venice, but Claire Denis\u2019s haphazard version of The Stars at Noon was roundly booed at Cannes.<\/p>\n

In the months since its Sundance debut, Clint Bentley\u2019s note-perfect film version of Train Dreams, a much-admired Johnson novella, has emerged as an awards-season dark horse. The feature, which has earned comparisons with Terrence Malick\u2019s Days of Heaven and Michael Cimino\u2019s Heaven\u2019s Gate, was snapped up by Netflix<\/a> after that Utah screening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to stay true to the spirit of the book but also allow the film to be its own piece of art,\u201d Bentley says. \u201cJohnson\u2019s writing finds transcendence in the mundane: a kind of spirituality in ordinary labour, loss and endurance. That\u2019s something I connected with deeply and wanted the film to reflect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bentley found the perfect collaborators in the Australian actor Joel Edgerton<\/a>, another Johnson fan, and his fellow film-maker Greg Kwedar, (with whom he also worked on Sing Sing).<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the philosophy and spirituality in his work,\u201d Edgerton says. \u201cThis natural religion that comes from the land and from hardship. It feels both historical and contemporary. The book explores man\u2019s relationship to nature, the soul and our place in the world. It doesn\u2019t hand you meaning, but it invites you to think about what a meaningful life is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Told over just 100 pages, Johnson\u2019s \u201cepic in miniature\u201d is about a reticent, nomadic logger and railroad worker in early 20th-century Idaho named Robert Grainier; his simple life reflects broader themes of time, change, loss, wilderness and encroaching urbanisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved the book partly for the same reason Clint reached out to me,\u201d Edgerton says. \u201cI\u2019ve always enjoyed playing and celebrating quieter characters. So many film roles, especially in more commercial cinema, are loud and dynamic, which is understandable and exciting. But there\u2019s something worth celebrating in the stoic people of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Grainer helps lay train tracks through previously untainted wilderness, he observes both progress and devastation. His marriage to Gladys (who is played by Felicity Jones<\/a>) brings fleeting joy and a daughter before a tragedy leaves him alone, semi-feral and tethered to the place the family once called home.<\/p>\n

\"FelicityFelicity Jones and Joel Edgerton in Train Dreams. Photograph: Netflix <\/p>\n

Warmly narrated by Will Patton, the decades-spanning film captures a vanishing American frontier. William H Macy appears as a grizzled explosives expert whose wisdom leaves a mark on the protagonist; Kerry Condon<\/a> plays a widowed wanderer Grainer meets later in life, prompting a long overdue contemplation of love and loss.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a career-best performance from Edgerton, who is seldom off the screen yet probably has fewer lines than in any other film on his CV.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a challenge at first,\u201d the actor says. \u201cRobert Grainer\u2019s inner life is vast, but he doesn\u2019t express it verbally. The narration of the film helps; it supports the story and allows the audience to follow his emotional journey without him saying much. But once we were on set I found it surprisingly comfortable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI trusted Clint. And our cinematographer, Adolpho [Veloso], has a gift for capturing a character\u2019s thoughts visually, so I knew we could communicate Robert\u2019s feelings without dialogue. If I said too much it would break the character.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he finally does express grief, after losing his family, his first words are, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t know what came over me.\u2019 That tells you everything. Later, when he meets Kerry Condon\u2019s character, she draws out feelings he didn\u2019t know he needed to express. It\u2019s the silence that makes those rare moments of speech incredibly potent.\u201d<\/p>\n

In small ways, directing has definitely \u2013 and happily \u2013 made a difference to acting<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Joel Edgerton<\/p>\n

Another source of regret for the haunted hero is the death of a Chinese colleague in a horrifying incident. Throughout Train Dreams, various accidents and the proximity of explosives recall an era of isolated, precarious and decidedly ununionised labour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was one of the things that felt so timeless about the project \u2013 and, sadly, cyclical,\u201d Bentley says. \u201cThe protections workers fought for over the 20th century have been eroded. Labour today is once again seasonal, nomadic and insecure.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could take a modern worker and put them next to a labourer from the early 1900s \u2013 or even a serf from the 1300s \u2013 and they\u2019d probably have the same complaints. It\u2019s tragic how little we learn. That extends to racism and violence, too \u2013 the same patterns, just with different faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

By any Hollywood measure, Edgerton\u2019s career is hard to characterise. The actor, writer and director has been a Jedi farmer in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, the navy Seals leader who raids Osama bin Laden\u2019s Pakistani compound in Zero Dark Thirty, an imposing Tom Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann\u2019s The Great Gatsby, and the voice of a canine police officer on the Australian kids\u2019 show Bluey. Edgerton has also made a significant splash in such plucky hit indie crossovers as Warrior, Midnight Special, Loving and The Green Knight.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmaller films are all about rhythm, pace and momentum,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to be ready to move quickly. Larger films move slowly. The set-ups take longer, there are more takes and the machine is bigger. I actually love smaller films, because you\u2019re constantly moving, constantly talking about what\u2019s next. That\u2019s the kind of film-making I grew up with in Australia, where you never have much money. We\u2019re MacGyvering our way through a shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in New South Wales and raised in a devout Catholic family, Edgerton often characterises himself as a \u201cNed Flanders kid\u201d from a small, conservative town. Drama school in Sydney broadened his worldview. He started his career in soap operas before following his brother Nash, already working in Hollywood as Ewan McGregor\u2019s stunt double, to the United States.<\/p>\n

He made his directorial debut with The Gift, a psychological thriller from 2015 about a married couple whose lives are disrupted by the arrival of an unwanted guest \u2013 an increasingly creepy presence blurred somewhere between hero and villain.<\/p>\n

His second feature, Boy Erased, from 2018, was a moving coming-of-age drama based on Garrard Conley\u2019s memoir, portraying a young gay man forced into a conversion-therapy programme. Edgerton also co-wrote the screenplays for The Rover and The King, both directed by David Mich\u00f4d, and has produced films such as The Plague, which premiered in Cannes last May.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a huge help having Joel\u2019s mind on set,\u201d Bentley says. \u201cYou inevitably hit moments as a director where you\u2019re stuck, and Joel could quietly offer an idea that lifted a scene without stepping outside his role.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Edgerton is not, he promises, a back seat director: \u201cIn small ways, directing has definitely \u2013 and happily \u2013 made a difference to acting,\u201d he says. \u201cIt gives me a greater appreciation for the whole machine. Hopefully, it makes me more punctual and less annoying.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first film I acted in after directing The Gift was Loving, and I was quietly obsessed with the lenses the cinematographer was using. But it\u2019s actually liberating to return to acting with fewer responsibilities. Just focusing on one piece of the puzzle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking with Clint, I could bring that understanding into small moments: being more helpful, anticipating what the production might need. It\u2019s always a pleasure to learn from another director\u2019s process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Train Dreams opens in cinemas on Friday, November 7th, and streams on Netflix from Friday, November 21st<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cult built around the late author Denis Johnson is rooted in a rare fusion of poetic beauty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[72941,93,45830,61,60,45832,45946,115],"class_list":["post-122699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-denis-johnson","tag-entertainment","tag-felicity-jones","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-joel-edgerton","tag-kerry-condon","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}