After making waves at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, the critically acclaimed Carolina Caroline is finally set to arrive in theaters this weekend and, ahead of its release, we caught up with director Adam Carter Rehmeier and Primetime Emmy Award-winning actress Kyra Sedgwick (Born on the Fourth of July; Brooklyn Nine-Nine) to break down one of the film's most pivotal moments.
While Sedgwick walks us through her preparation for her big moment, Rehmeier adds a little context on how he let her run with the material. Plus, he talks about his directing philosophy and the unique challenge this project presented compared to his previous films.
The cast features Samara Weaving, Kyle Gallner, Jon Gries, and Kyra Sedgwick.
Adam Carter Rehmeier (Snack Shack; Dinner in America) helmed the feature, with a screenplay from William Thomas Dean IV.
Carolina Caroline is now playing in theaters!
Watch our full interview below and/or keep scrolling to read the full transcription. Plus, remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more exclusive content!
ROHAN: Kyra, you come into the movie late, but step in for this huge moment that shatters Caroline’s world. What was your approach to that powerful scene between you and Samara?
KYRA: Well, it was an extraordinary part on the page. It was really all written there. I mean, I think that you want to come in, you know, I saw her as the viper, like a snake, and I think, you know, you want to come in kind of quiet and, like, you know, kind of slinking around, and then, once she realizes that, you know, Samara is busting her on something that she never ever wants to unearth or talk about or look at. Everything that she does, and every drink that she takes is an effort to submerge that past, and then, suddenly there's this girl, and she's young, and she's beautiful, and she's trying to rub my nose in it, and then, I just have to destroy her, and I think it's about doing that in the most interesting way possible, hopefully. And it really was so well drawn on the page, and I could tell from the moment I got to set, and I knew from Adam's work, that everything was going to be really grounded and authentic, so I wanted to make sure she was grounded and had like a real history and a whole past life, and that was, you know, it was relatively easy to do once you do the work.
ROHAN: Adam, compared to your previous film Snack Shack, this is a considerable departure and this time, you’re tasked with balancing a myriad of different elements from comedy to road trip to romance, heavy crime, drama, and more. How did you map out these transitions as you’re building toward this emotionally charged conclusion and completing Caroline’s arc?
ADAM: I base everything on the design, like for the film, and serving the script. So, yeah, it's hard with Snack Shack and Dinner in America, because they're films where everyone's laughing the entire time of the movie, so you have these like little breaths, and you have like space that you want to create where people aren't laughing, and then, you want to hit different moments. This is a movie where people laugh three or four times in the movie, you know? So, that's a hard pill to swallow when you're used to making people laugh a lot, and so, it just comes down to the design. It's not that type of movie, so getting that out of my head, people aren't going to be laughing in this movie. This is the type of movie where you sit and you're quiet, you pay attention, and there's other little details and nuances to take in. But for me, everything was designed, and it's just serving the story at hand. So, this needed a whole different design than like a Snack Shack or Dinner in America, it doesn't play by the same rules, and so, I take that each time I do a project, whether you know it might be something more dramatic, this would be more dramatic leaning than my previous two, so I just take it under consideration, and it just ultimately becomes a different design between me and my production designer and DP and costumers.
ROHAN: Kyra, building off that, working with Adam, who I’ve heard gives a lot of freedom to his actors. So, when you’re tasked with adding 30+ years of backstory to your character within a 5-10 minute scene, what was your working relationship with Adam and with Samara as you’re doing this?
KYRA: Well, we talked a couple of times on the phone, and I would ask him questions, and I also looked at the movies that he suggested that were comps, and so, I don't know, I really felt like we think similarly, or at least, I very much respect the way he conducts himself in the process before we got on set, so I just felt like I knew that it would be a safe place, you know, and I think that's the most important thing. Honestly, there wasn't a lot of direction, it was just kind of like let's go again, and it was just, you know, the circumstances were perfect to deliver, you know, everyone's calm, everyone's sane, like it was a real bar, it smelled like stale beer, like they were real cigarettes, you know, this DP knows exactly what he's doing. I just had to, you know, just let go and just be carried.
ADAM: The environment that you set up for the actors, and I think that casting is like 90% of it. You work with professional people, you have a couple great discussions before you get there, they know that they gotta come prepared and know their lines. Kyra's been doing this forever, so she's a total pro. Samara is a pro, Kyle's a pro, everybody's a pro. So, you facilitate a really good work environment where people show up and just do the work. There's nothing more than that. There's nothing less than that. It's just that's the minimum, that's the baseline for like having a nice day and getting that just people come prepared, and they want to play, and they want to work. I don't heavily direct actors, I cast them, and it's based on their experience and what they're going to bring to the table. We had two or three really good discussions beforehand. I think I went to your trailer and saw you and spent maybe 10-15 minutes with you before, kind of looked at some of the clothing options that you were gravitating towards, and then, we just went and did it.
KYRA: Yeah, and Samara is amazing. I mean, she's a great listener, she was very generous. I did all my coverage first, you know, she's amazing.
Acclaimed director Adam Carter Rehmeier’s romantic crime thriller stars Samara Weaving (READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME) as Caroline Daniels, whose desire to leave her small Texas town brings her into the orbit of a charismatic con man (Kyle Gallner), and together they weave a path of crime and passion across the American Southeast. Also starring Kyra Sedgwick, the film features a wide-ranging country music soundtrack, with tracks from artists such as Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton, Loretta Lynn, and over a dozen others.