{"id":263075,"date":"2026-01-29T04:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T04:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/263075\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T04:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T04:47:09","slug":"will-poulter-on-sundance-movie-union-county-adobe-anatomy-of-a-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/263075\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Poulter on Sundance Movie ‘Union County,’ Adobe Anatomy of a Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen Will Poulter<\/a>\u2019s agents sent him the script for \u201cUnion County<\/a>\u201d and writer-director Adam Meeks\u2019 accompanying 2020 short film, he was struck by the filmmaker\u2019s approach to telling a recovery story.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe thing that set it apart from other takes on the opioid crisis, Poulter told Variety, was \u201cthe fact that it didn\u2019t really start with a story and then a search for a place, but rather the story that was being told was a reflection of the real work that was being done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUnion County\u201d follows Poulter as Cody Parsons, a young man entering a court-ordered drug rehabilitation program in rural Ohio alongside his brother Jack (Noah Centineo). Meeks\u2019 extended family lives in the area, and six years ago, he began developing the story after his uncle introduced him to the drug court judge, who invited him to sit in on a meeting. But what makes the filmmaker\u2019s approach particularly unique is that the majority of his cast are nonprofessional actors; they\u2019re real-life participants in the program, bearing their truths on camera.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWith Adam being from the area, and them having spent so much time within the community, making it in collaboration with folks who are part of the recovery community, it just meant that it was coming from such a respectful and responsible place,\u201d Poulter explained, sitting beside the filmmaker for Variety\u2019s \u201cAnatomy of a Film: Union County\u201d conversation at Sundance. \u201cI felt very lucky to be the outsider coming in and being trusted with a part in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ultimate insider of this story is Annette Deao, who has worked as a therapist in the adult recovery court for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnnette is the heart and soul of this program and of recovery efforts in Ohio, and so the whole short film that became the feature was really born of our friendship,\u201d Meeks said.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the short, Deao played a counselor named \u201cDebbie.\u201d She had two scenes. \u201cAfter we shot the second scene, I went up to you, and I was like, \u2018I knew you\u2019d be good, but I didn\u2019t know you\u2019d be this good,\u2019\u201d Meeks recalled. \u201cAnd you said, \u2018Oh, I didn\u2019t tell you? I studied acting for four years before I ran this drug court program.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe crowd assembled at the Adobe House on Main Street laughed as Deao chimed in: \u201cIt was really the standing joke. My undergraduate [degree] was in theater and music, and then I went back to school to become a therapist, thinking I would become a music therapist at some point. But, you know, it led somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThrough his own laughter, Meeks added: \u201cNeedless to say, I wrote a much larger role for her in the feature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for how he developed \u201cUnion County\u2019s\u201d hybrid narrative, Meeks said that he\u2019d always been interested in \u201cways that we can break down these dividing lines between fiction and nonfiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe explained: \u201cIt was also important to fictionalize the core narrative, both as a way to get to a certain kind of intimacy of storytelling and a character portrait, but also to allow us as filmmakers to observe the difficult moments and the kind of treacherous nature and do it without imposing that on somebody who\u2019s going through recovery. It\u2019s an extremely difficult, long process that doesn\u2019t need a camera crew alongside it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the project evolved from the short film to the feature, the crew focused on building relationships with the people of Bellefontaine, Ohio (pronounced Bell Fountain).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBetween the short, and scout trips and research trips, we\u2019ve been hanging around your world for so long that by the time it came to making the film, there was just a lot of comfort and a lot of trust there,\u201d cinematographer Stefan Weinberger said. \u201cWe felt like we could blend in a bit with the scenery in the drug court, and people were just incredibly open and honest with their stories. That was such a beautiful privilege for us to be able to witness and to film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo play the role, Poulter had to drop his British accent and master a Midwest drawl. To do so, he worked with dialect coach Sonja Field and studied documentary footage the team had shot of the locals. Most helpful, though, was the time Poulter spent in Ohio getting to know the community at large.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe year prior [to filming], we went out and spent some time, and that I was important to fortify the trust and the relationships that you see on screen, and in terms of getting a sense of how folks speak,\u201d Poulter said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the friendliest places you could possibly imagine. That was quite shocking as a Londoner, people being nice to you in the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPoulter would stick to the Midwest accent between takes, and he got so good, Meeks said, that he\u2019d often forget the actor was British.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere were so many moments \u2014 and I, hopefully, only expressed them out loud a few times \u2014 where, at the end of a week or at the end of a day, I\u2019d be like, \u2018Why is Will talking in a British accent?\u2019\u201d Meeks said, laughing.<\/p>\n

\n\tEditor and producer Sean Weiner added: \u201cI remember on Fridays at the end of the shoot, we would hear, \u2018Wrap for the day,\u2019 and the crew would yell out like, \u2018Will\u2019s British again!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPoulter and Centineo also shed a considerable amount of weight to portray young men coming out of the throes of addiction. But fasting grows tiresome and lonely, and they\u2019d grown close to Deao. So, one day, the actors reached out to ask if they could come hang out.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe live in an about 200-year-old bank barn that\u2019s renovated into a house, so we have about 18 acres and some gardening and some animals,\u201d Deao said, recounting the conversation. \u201cMy husband said, \u2018Well, we have some mulch to lay\u2026\u2019 And they\u2019re like, \u2018We\u2019re in!\u2019 So, they come out to the farm, and they\u2019re throwing mulch for us; we\u2019re grilling on the barbecue, having a great time. But we invited the whole crew out \u2014 we have a lot of space \u2014 and we did a tie-dye party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBehind the scenes, the indie film production was a well-oiled machine, but it also felt like a family. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe broke bread together; we laughed together; we threw mulch together,\u201d Deao said, as her fellow panelists doubled over laughing at the memories. \u201cIt was beautiful. And I don\u2019t think that Noah had ever seen a cow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the full interview above to learn more about the cast and crew\u2019s special bond, commemorated by a flock of chickens living on Deao\u2019s farm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Will Poulter\u2019s agents sent him the script for \u201cUnion County\u201d and writer-director Adam Meeks\u2019 accompanying 2020 short…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[138085,146,85,46,397,136308,136309],"class_list":{"0":"post-263075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-adobe-panel-4-sundance","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-union-county","14":"tag-will-poulter"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}