Now I can finally write it down on paper: I am a great admirer of Rachel Brosnahan, for her masterful interpretation in and of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” by which I was completely shocked and enchanted, for the talent and audacity of her stories, and for all her acting choices, so precise and courageous. Just like the one of her new character Rachel in “Dead For A Dollar”, presented out of competition at the 79th Venice Film Festival.
Ten minutes before the interview with her, I felt catapulted into a positive energy spiral because I was about to meet her aura of kindness and determination. Two minutes after greeting her, that energy, which could have also matched some kind of anxiety, immediately transformed, simply making me feel good. With her precise and passionate way of talking about films, stories to tell, and new frontiers of cinema, we also discussed how important it is to look for small acts of rebellion in the everyday life and how being here in Venice to present a new movie is simply crazy cool.
How is it going in Venice in these days?
It’s been the coolest thing. I’ve never been to Venice, so being here for the first time, premiering a film… I’m not sure if anything can top this!
You character in the film “Dead for a Dollar” might feel different from traditional westerns, but it actually is a character that’s always been there and that now has the space to be. What was your first reaction after reading the script and the first questions you asked Walter Hill [the director] about Rachel?
When I read the script, I was immediately intrigued. It’s a beautiful piece of writing and then Walter is Walter, he’s a legend. So, there weren’t a lot of immediate questions for him, but he gave me a call on the phone, he wanted to talk to me a bit more about the role and what he had been thinking about when he wrote it and also what his intentions were for the film.
He talked about being a great lover of and having a lot of respect for the Western genre of which he’s a really important contributor, too, and said that he wanted to use this film to be a part of continuing its evolution, he wanted to add this film to the canon of great westerns and imagined that a big part of doing so was creating space within the genre for characters like Rachel, Elijah and Poe, who historically have not been included at all or left on the fringes, underdeveloped, underexplored.
That was really exciting.
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