We were joined on the Popternative show by Academy Award nominee June Squibb (Nebraska) and Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus) to discuss their new film, Thelma, premiering in theaters June 21. The action-comedy is the feature directorial debut of Josh Margolin and is Squibb’s first leading role featuring the final performance of Richard Roundtree (Shaft).
Squibb, who did most of her own stunts in the film, plays Thelma Post, a feisty 93-year-old grandmother who gets conned by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson (Fred Hechinger) and sets out on a treacherous quest across Los Angeles, accompanied by an aging friend (Roundtree) and his motorized scooter, to reclaim what was taken from her. Parker Posey (Beau is Afraid), Clark Gregg (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) also star.
Inspired by a real-life experience of Margolin’s own grandmother, Thelma puts a clever spin on movies like Mission: Impossible, shining the spotlight on an elderly grandmother as the unlikely action hero. We asked June about what made her want to do most of her own stunts:
“Before we started shooting, I wanted to do all the scooter stuff I could, and I ended up doing almost all of that. And some of the other things, the bed rolls, I just thought I could do it, and that happend as the shooting went on, and Josh [Margolin] says they began to have more faith in me as the shooting went on,” she says.
Fred discusses reading the script for the first time and his eary conversations with director Margolin: “The script was so precise, and our first conservation about it, and how we wanted to do it and where his priority stood in terms of filmmaking, were very much exactly what the movie is.”
Watch the full interview below.
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