Cinematography of Train Dreams, with Adolpho Veloso

It’s such a special project. I feel like everybody involved knew that in advance. And especially with Joel [Edgerton]. I can’t see anyone else playing this part, for all the possible reasons. His physicality. You believe he’s a logger. You believe he’s doing that hard work. But he is also really able to deliver everything without a lot of words, without big emotions. Everything is so subtle, so internal. It was kind of amazing to see that happening… I remember the first makeup test we did… he was like, ‘Do you mind if we change this to the other side so you shoot the other side of my face?’ He told us, ‘I just want you to see both sides, because I feel like this side makes me look more vulnerable and this side makes me feel more assured.’ He wasn't asking us to shoot any particular way, he was just so aware of himself as an actor, and also as a director himself, he was just giving us the tools so we could do whatever we wanted with those tools. But he made sure we knew that. And we obviously learned from it and we used that. So it's amazing to work with an actor that is so aware of those things.