When signing on to a Kelly Reichardt film, actors should know what they’re in for.
One of the most acclaimed filmmakers working in independent cinema today, Reichardt’s minimalist, slow-burning explorations of working-class America’s past and present have required actors to come prepared for a full-fledged journey, ready to get some dirt on their hands. When cast, you can expect to be part of a community-driven set experience rather than “being separated from everything in a trailer just waiting to come out.” You’ll also be facing a given locale’s climate and terrain head-on—whether that’s the arid deserts of the Oregon Trail (2010’s “Meek’s Cutoff”), the frigid Great Plains of Montana (2016’s “Certain Women”), or the deep woods of the Pacific Northwest (this year’s heralded A24 release “First Cow”).
“I’ve had very few instances where someone got into it and it wasn’t their thing and they shouldn’t have been in it,” Reichardt says of the demands of her rough-and-tumble indies. “You’re up for it if you want an experience; not everyone wants an experience. [But] if you want to be coughing on dust in 102-degree weather, but also in a van seeing the most beautiful sunset of your life…”
Kelly Reichardt’s 2 Requirements for Actors in Close-Up “First Cow” was comparatively “quite pleasant,” which is befitting of this little indie’s charm, its embrace of unlikely fraternity, and the simple, quiet feel-goodness of it all. “It’s 40 degrees and rainy—you can dress for that,” Reichardt quips of the filming experience. “Not that it wasn’t ever challenging, but it was a pretty good ride, I have to say.”
Set in 1820 and based on Jonathan Raymond’s 2004 novel “The Half-Life,” “First Cow” is the story of friends Otis “Cookie” Figowitz, a traveling chef, and King-Lu, a Chinese immigrant, as they go into business together, stealing milk from their settlement’s first and only cow to make biscuits before bringing them to market.
Reichardt says that in casting Cookie and King-Lu, played by John Magaro and Orion Lee, she was looking for actors who fit the roles’ natural traits. Magaro, for instance, “has a Cookie quality to him” in that “he’s really grounded, he likes to cook, he’s very good at being still, he’s a good listener, he works things out in his mind…” And the list goes on. Then, the full “experience” began. Reichardt wanted to ensure that her players were up to the period-specific tasks of “First Cow,” so she sent Magaro and Lee “off with a survivalist into the woods for a few days to learn how to do some basic living off the land,” she says. “That’s how they got to know each other. And so we did that in lieu of rehearsals.”
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She adds that her lived-in filmmaking often means that “people have a feeling of not easily falling back into the rhythm of life after the shoot’s over. It’s always hard to end them, because people get really attached to each other and to the whole experience.” And that’s just as true of the filmmaker herself.
Reichardt has lived with “First Cow” for years at this point. Conversations about adapting the novel began some 15 years ago, she filmed in 2018, and the film premiered at Telluride in 2019. The movie debuted first on limited screens in March, then on VOD in July due to the pandemic. She’s now in the midst of a winter awards campaign. But she admits that she, too, gets swept up in each new process; it’s always hard to say goodbye. Her drive to and from New York City, where she teaches, often serves as a time to reflect.
“I find [that] going from being around so many people to being completely alone in a car with a dog, I’m definitely crying through the first three states, and then I get it together,” she says. “There’s a decompression that happens. Usually, I’m going right into the editing room, so it’s on [to] the next wave of things.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 31 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.
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