June created this atmosphere on set where it completely felt like a family, and we felt so free to do whatever we wanted to do without judgment. She trusted us. I felt completely free to explore. But the thing about her too is her performances don’t seem theatrical. Looking through the viewfinder at her face, and oftentimes I’m this close to her face on a wide lens and the nuances of her performance, it was like I would get shivers.
The tone was hard to get right. It’s really easy to tip into broad comedy or sometimes you would do something that would almost sound like you’re making fun of her versus being, I think the important thing was just being with her. Everything needs to be from her perspective, especially with the action and just riding that line basically of never being too big with it, but also feeling tense.
“It’s a movie about aging, not just about old age, in that each character in the film is going through kind of a transitional moment. I think this movie for me was a way to explore that and work through some of my anxieties about my grandma’s aging and my own aging and just being faced with these transitional moments in life.”
“I’ve never had such love from people seeing a film. Sundance was just amazing to me. I had never been there before. I’d had films there, but I had never personally been there. And so, that was an experience. Seeing the film that first night with this huge audience and their reaction was just amazing. When Thelma first opened, we saw quite a few that beginning we would go to screenings and they were packed in the afternoon. I was thrilled. I mean, everything about this has been very exciting.”
