Actor: Barry Pepper
Film: “To the Wonder”
How Badly Was His Role Affected: Excised completely
Bitterness Level: ?/10 lemons
What Happened & How He Reacted: We really have no clue at all how Barry Pepper took the news of being dropped from the film, but in interview with Collider from 2010, he certainly claimed to have loved the experience of shooting as Father Barry, a priest seen in a few set photos walking alongside Javier Bardem‘s Father Quintana, even if he never got a script. “I’m being absolutely honest with you in saying that I don’t know what the story is about. All I know is my involvement, which is a small chapter within the film, which to me was absolute joy to work with him on that level because it was so free and so unlike anything I’d ever experienced,” he explained. “Never been involved in a project where you’re not handed a concrete screenplay, but to me it was just like floating down a river. You know, you really just had to go with it, or else…You just really had to float because it was such a free process that if you fought it, you’d just start drowning.”
Actor: Jessica Chastain
Film: “To the Wonder”
How Badly Was Her Role Affected: Excised completely
Bitterness Level: 0/10 lemons
What Happened & How She Reacted: It would be pretty churlish of Jessica Chastain to complain too loudly about Malick’s treatment of her, since it was “The Tree of Life” that proved her career breakthrough. And Chastain is anything but churlish, so we’ve not heard a peep from her about her “To the Wonder” role’s disappearance after the fact. In any case, rather like Michael Sheen‘s experience, her involvement was very casual from the beginning, “What happened was I was working on ‘The Help‘ with Sissy Spacek,” Chastain said, when we spoke to her in December 2011 “and her husband is Jack Fisk who does all of [Malick’s] production design. And so they were over there in Oklahoma and we were in Mississippi, and I called him one time I was in my trailer… he just said ‘Hey, why don’t you come visit?’, because I love that whole crew, they’re like family to me. So I said okay, we planned this trip, I was going to come visit, and then, right before, I started getting calls from the producers that they were organising my airfare, and I was like ‘Well, why are you guys paying?’ And then two days before I got there, I got another call from a producer who was like ‘Would you mind playing a part in the film?’ and of course I would do anything on any of [Malick]’s films, I would work on the crew of his films, I love working with him.” But already then she had her doubts as to whether she’s made the final cut. “Because it happened like that I don’t think I’m going to end up in the movie. I really just think I was there, three days, acting with Ben Affleck, and I don’t know what the movie is about, I don’t know what my part is and you know, my guess is I’m probably not in the film.”
In fact, even those who remain the leads in the film have their niggles. Olga Kurylenko, while breathless and effusive in her admiration for Malick, lamented recently “My favorite scene is cut! And it’s not one, there were like 10 of them. I did a lot of confession scenes with Javier [Bardem]. That was dialogue! Terry didn’t mind me speaking then! I loved those scenes. And there were more fights with Ben, horrible, terrifying fight scenes.” And the changes have apparently altered her character’s portrayal significantly. “From what we shot, it was clear to me that Marina was meant to be quite hysterical; if he’d kept [all those shots] in, it would have been a very different view on this woman.”
And her co-star Ben Affleck, while undoubtedly remaining central to the film remarked: “The experience of it seemed half-crazy in that we didn’t really have dialogue, so I didn’t really know what was happening. Then I realized that he was accumulating colors that he would use to paint with later in the editing room… It was kind of a wash for me in terms of learning something as an actor, because Terry uses actors in a different way — he’ll [have the camera] on you and then tilt up and go up to a tree, so you think, ‘Who’s more important in this — me or the tree?’ But you don’t ask him, because you don’t want to know the answer.”
Malick is of course already in production on two future films, and next up after “To the Wonder” will be “Knight of Cups.” With Malick himself reportedly saying to Affleck that “Just more and more I’m more interested in silences,” will we be back here, furiously updating this post prior to that film’s release? Nah, we’re sure the svelte, low-rent, minimal cast, which includes Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Teresa Palmer, Joel Kinnaman, Imogen Poots, Antonio Banderas, Isabel Lucas, Wes Bentley, Joe Manganiello, Nick Offerman, Freida Pinto, Nicky Whelan, Shea Whigham, Michael Wincott, Thomas Lennon, Ryan O’Neal and Katia Winter have nothing to worry about.
Im about to shoot my first movie and have been fucking around for the past six days worried about a connecting scene for a complex plot explanation. Bollox to it let shoot the movie and see what happens when I arrive there. Malick and Herzog are right. Actors winging on about their fucking scenes in a Mallick movie.
3 years later Frank, we\’re still waiting, this was a sloppy article, bah humbug.
I don't find Malick's films particularly engaging, and I don't think they are masterpieces. However, they are not trash either. It is a unique vision from a unique person, and while I do not admire it, I understand it. Since he has been in the industry for many many decades now, and has a reputation for cutting roles and irking his crew… anyone grumbling about his ways is being a little petulant.
If there is a nastier person in the film industry, I have yet to meet him or her. Saving it all for my book!
We really need a way to communicate with the many trees, plants and wildlife not deemed worthy enough to make it into a final Malick cut. How do they feel? Are their leaves not good enough? Though I think it's particularly funny that anyone thinks his or her part got cut for narrative reasons. That would presuppose a Malick film having a narrative in the first place. Why all these actors think it's so prestigious to work with this man who Haskell Wexler describes as "weird" boggles my mind. Outside his cult, with each new film Malick looks more and more like he's cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. He needs to make nature documentaries and leave features to storytellers.
Im just puzzled by the amount of actors that queue up to work with him, Bale, Portman, Gosling, Mara, etc. Just wasting their time making a Malick movie, time that could be better spent making better films with better filmmakers. I hope my favorites Joaquin Phoenix, Hoffman and Amy Adams never do a Malick film.
Regardless of Malick's talent or lack thereof as a filmmaker, regardless of whether actors know going in their roles could be cut, out of professional courtesy if nothing else he should let them know. If the producer could email one of the actors to let them know, I don't see why Malick gets a pass on doing the same thing.
That said, all actors considering working with him should take note of Affleck's 'me or the tree' comment as that seems to truly sum up Malick's attitude towards his cast.
I wish someone would re-cut The Thin Red Line. I liked it, but an Adrian Brody/Mickey Rouke version with Bill Pullman and Lukas Haas sounds even better.
This seems like a large waste of money.
Nick Offerman is in Knight of Cups? Ron Swanson is in a Terrence Malick film? That's made my year.
Also, great piece, Jess.
Janit Baldwin is most likely the first actor to get cut completely from a Malick film. She played Sissy Spacek's best friend in 'Badlands' but is nowhere to be seen in the finished film.
Malick is a hack and he's obviously not a very upfront or honest person. Just because he's an artist doesn't mean he can just drag people along for 6 months and put them through hell and just cut them. There's something called being a stand-up person. People like Pt Anderson and Richard Linklater are very upfront and honest with their actors from most accounts. It seems that Malick didn't even tell many of these actors that they could be cut and not just cut but cut completely. Doing that to Adrian Brody is just a crappy thing to do.
Seriously, Tree of Life was sooo ridiculous. Such pretentious bull it's unbelievable. The exalting the beauty of nature has been done soooooo many times. It's not original! Look at every bad poem out there. "The sun, the moon, the beautiful waves blah blah" we get it. I look out at nature every day here in VT. The guy isn't interested in people. He treats actors like Hitchcock treated actors, like cattle and that's BS.
Great article. But you forgot a big one: Richard Gere in Days of Heaven. "We shot a much more richly verbal movie, with much more high emotions, much more dramatic. And when I came to loop the movie and I saw that it wasn't that, I clearly was not too happy about that because all of us could have saved a lot of brain cells in the process."
Glad to see a filmmaker who sticks to his guns. He creates his vision and no one elses and that's why he still remains one of the most unique directors around.
Lukas Haas was in the final cut, though his part was trimmed immensely. He has no lines, only reaction shots mostly and a short scene of him dying in someones arms.
Cue Paul Mahler Jr. to come and add his pretentious farts to this article in 3.. 2…1…
But Rourke being cut WAS politics — there's a Nolte documentary out there which includes an anecdote. . . Nolte and Medavoy are lunching with Malick pre-TRL and Rourke walks past. Malick says he wants Rourke in the cast, that he loves Rourke. Medavoy says no way, it won't fly. Compromise: Malick gets Rourke, but then gets bored with the actor's past beefs with execs becoming a factor in the cutting and deciding which elder actors and which newcomers get ultimate focus.
I like this writers style. I feel like Penn and Plumer's assessment of Malick's process/style is spot on. I've never read the Tree of Life script but I'd imagine if there was more narrative (as Penn says there was) it couldn't have done anything but help the movie. I mean I love Badlands as much as the next guy but it's kind of crazy that he keeps cutting actors and making really polarizing films (most people seem to either adore his work or find it pretentious to the point of silliness) yet people still line up to work with him. I wonder if that will still be the case in five years if all of his movies keep following in the footsteps of TOL/To the Wonder?
I have zero sympathy for anyone post-The Thin Red Line. It's obvious by now that Malick creates his films in the editing room, that's his style. If you sign up for one of his projects, you should know there is a non-trivial chance you'll be cut or reduced and complaining about it after the fact is just moronic. If you want a film that stays closer to the script, then don't sign up for a Malick project.