In Train Dreams, Clint Bentley’s expressive adaptation of Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella (co-written by his Sing Sing director and co-scribe Greg Kwedar), Felicity Jones and Kerry Condon don’t share the screen even for a second. However, playing Gladys and Claire, respectively, the actresses bring to life two major characters in the life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) with tremendous warmth—a quality that runs through the dewy Pacific Northwest environs of Bentley’s film.
When Gladys meets the quiet Robert, an early-20th-century railroad laborer, their connection is instant and undeniable: They soon marry and have a daughter at their modest farm. Claire only enters the picture after Gladys tragically exits it, sharing Robert’s grief like a long-lost friend.
“We didn’t have any interaction prior to the shoot, which I think was by design, partly for Joel’s character emotionally,” Jones tells Vogue. “I filmed all our scenes at the beginning of the shoot. It was like its own enclosed film. I remember Clint saying, ‘The idea and the feeling is that she is gone, and that part is over.’”
In fact, the full cast, which also includes William H. Macy, Clifton Collins Jr., and Paul Schneider, only got to meet when they attended the film’s Toronto Film Festival premiere. “Apart from Joel, the rest of us were all getting to know each other as we were doing press,” Jones continues. En masse, they made an impressive group: “Everyone who’s in it is an actor that you’ve at some point gone, ‘They’re excellent,’” Jones adds. Here, both actors share with Vogue their experience working on the film.
Vogue: What was most surprising and exciting for you when you saw the film for the first time, and your work in relation to one another?
Kerry Condon: I’ve told Felicity this so many times, but that first scene in The Brutalist is so good, when she’s sitting at the table and it’s all kind of a two-shot. So I remember that I had just seen that and knew Felicity was going to be great in the movie. It was kind of a given and I was just glad to be in a movie with good people.
Felicity Jones: I felt similarly. Clint’s got good taste. He’s very hands-off and trusting of his cast. He lets you get on with it and steers when he needs to. I’ve been describing him as a swan: quite serene on the surface, seemingly unflappable and nothing’s a problem. And then underneath, there’s all sorts of things going on, but he doesn’t trouble you with that. A natural leader.
KC: He was very grateful that I did the movie, and I thought that was so, so sweet. There was the kind of energy most great directors you work with have, like, Thank you for doing my movie. I always think that’s a really nice quality in somebody.
While your characters don’t share scenes, they jointly represent some of the themes that I responded to the most in this movie: resilience, love, friendship, grief… What was it like for you to read the screenplay? What did you respond to most in it?
FJ: It was incredibly soulful to read something that was so intelligently written. It had this big philosophical sweep, told over many decades, but then was really grounded and rooted in the everyday relationships that this man encounters throughout his life. And then it was about finding my way into Gladys—it really helped to speak to Clint and Joel. And Clint was very open to collaboration, to really making Gladys as full a character as she could possibly be.
KC: I loved the script from beginning to end. The pacing of it was perfect and nature was such a big part of it, and that was a big draw for me. I really wanted to be in it because of how nature was represented. [The film was shot primarily in Spokane, Washington.] And then, of course, everybody attached was a big draw.
Your characters represent different challenges for an actor: Gladys departs the movie almost halfway through, with still a lot to give, with things unsaid, and Claire enters at a point when the audience has already witnessed a lot of history.
KC: I didn’t think about making an impression. I just tried to be truthful to the person that was written, and a lot of it was on the page. The challenge for me was more about being very calm and relaxed, so Joel’s character would be at ease enough to reveal something about himself. This is somebody who’s barely said anything throughout the whole movie, a man of few words. She had to have the energy of somebody who was nurturing, so he felt safe and could open up. That was at the forefront of my mind.
FJ: It’s interesting how Gladys and Claire shadow each other. I thought it was interesting how both of them have this similar hair color. Somehow, what has started with Gladys is being continued with Claire. And it’s obviously not a romantic thing between Robert and Claire, but there’s a connection between them which I found interesting to watch. You are always trying to find the little knots and idiosyncrasies of the person that you’re playing, especially with these parts where you have to show a life beyond what you’re seeing on the screen. You just get little windows into these women, and so you just have to find as much authenticity in the character as possible.
What was it like to have Joel Edgerton as a scene partner, and to build a love story and a friendship story with him, respectively?
FJ: It would’ve been really naff if he spends about 10 minutes being really upset about Gladys, and then he quickly moves on to Claire. [Laughs.] But yes, acting with Joel was a big draw for all of us. He’s a really classy actor, always does good stuff and is always excellent. The thing that matters the most to him is the quality of the work. You have to feel trust to do something interesting, and to feel like you can take a risk. And I think that was just immediately there with the atmosphere that Clint and Joel created. There was such confidence and then you can be more experimental. And sometimes a scene doesn’t work, so you have to be quite agile and think quickly. You have to come together to try and solve what’s not working. In filming this, that all happened quite effortlessly. Nothing was particularly labored in the process.
Claire and Robert have such beautiful scenes reflecting their friendship. Kerry, to go back to what you were saying about opening up a man of few words, that scene at the fire tower is gorgeous.
KC: In the script, it was written as: Claire feels like an old friend. And I immediately was like, Joel and I worked together a long time ago, in 2003, on a movie in Australia [Ned Kelly], which was a big deal for me at the time—going abroad on a movie. That was a big moment in my life, but I would only see him sporadically over the years. So I was very lucky that when I read [Train Dreams], I thought, I’m perfect for this because I feel at ease with him. I’ve known him for so long, but there was still a distance. It still felt like he was kind of a stranger to her too. And in that scene, when they were on the balcony, what we were looking out onto was just trees for miles and the sun was going down. It felt very spiritual, like we weren’t alone. It felt close to death, in a nice way. It was a nice moment for me both as an actress and as a person. And that it was captured is kind of beautiful. And that’s the movie; it captured these special moments in nature.
FJ: Yeah, the location and the environment does so much of the work for you, in a way. You’ve got to just show up and say your lines. [Laughs.] The beauty of that backdrop does so much of the talking.
I really romanticize that part of the country—there’s something haunting about it. Kerry, I think you have a farm in that region?
KC: Yes, the Pacific Northwest is so beautiful and that was another thing. When they were like, “They’re shooting it there in the Pacific Northwest,” I was like, “That’s crazy. I have a farm near there.” Those big, massive trees…and the air feels really clean. I haven’t been all over America to say it’s the nicest part of the country, but it’s one of my favorites.
Just like the backdrop doing some of the narrative work, I feel the same way about the production design and costumes here. They’re so lived-in and not at all artificial-period-y.
FJ: We were also trying to think about the ways in which Gladys would’ve made things for herself and for her daughter, with limited resources. So we didn’t want her in a different costume every time you see her—it’s repeating pieces. And the set was so beautiful. I was taking pictures of it and getting ideas for my own house. We wanted lots of books to be around because she’s obviously alone for long periods of time. And it’s just trying to build a life around that person. It’s all about trying to make sure the shoes are really scruffy and you don’t want clothes with no creases. You want things like old blouses that have been washed and washed, so they’re faded. It’s all in the details.
KC: I’m really, really picky about all that stuff. You know, sometimes if you’re doing a period film and you come on the set, and you’re like, “Okay, they just went on eBay and bought everything from the period. This family is supposed to have no money and the bedroom looks amazing and there’s a disconnect.” But this was perfect and totally on the ball.
FJ: Doing the costume fittings is really helpful to me. You get to practice the character a little bit and try things out. And so that process really feeds into what you were eventually doing in the film.
Felicity, I love that Gladys and Robert have a marriage on equal terms. They contribute different things but they are equals and respectful of one another. Looking at your career, that seems to be a common thread: your partnered characters remain in the foreground.
FJ: Whoever you’re playing, they have to be their own person. Whether you’re onscreen the whole time or are intermittently onscreen, you’ve got to create a whole life. With Gladys, it was really important to find that. And actually a lot of her life is pretty tedious and unrelenting. She’s at home with a small child for long periods and it’s tough. The conditions in terms of the environment are tough, and there’s a real struggle for survival. So it was important that she wasn’t just living this sort of perfect, idyllic country life. You’re just trying to find all the idiosyncrasies of someone, even if you only get a moment in a look to show that.
And Kerry, I want to bring up the other film that you were in this year, F1, which I loved. It’s so satisfying to watch a female character doing what others might falsely consider a man’s job, and be absolutely great at it. I had a great time with that film, and your performance.
KC: That was nothing but fun. It was crazy. We were totally encouraged to have fun all the time. Even when we weren’t filming, we were encouraged to be messing around. And then when I watched it, I was like, “Oh my God, [Joseph Kosinski] captured fun.” I think that’s why he was encouraging us to be all goofy. There are women who have those roles, and in fairness it’s a big ask of a woman. You’re traveling 10 months of the year, so you’re going to be away from your family if you have one. And that’s perhaps why there’s not a lot of women in that particular role. It’s not necessarily a discrimination, but it’s kind of a tough racket. You have to make a lot of sacrifices and it becomes your whole life. But the ladies I did speak to were so generous and talked to me about how when they were in college in engineering, it was mostly men. So it was no different when they got to F1. It was just a continuation. But yeah, that experience was nothing but great.
Felicity, I understand that Robert and Gladys’s daughter in the film was actually played by two kids, who are twins in real life.
FJ: They were twins. Very, very sweet. [Working with kids] teaches you such flexibility. I remember a scene when we’re all supposed to be sitting on the bed and kind of stroking the child. Obviously, on that day she doesn’t want to be sitting on the bed. She is like, no way. She wanted to play and there was a little push-along cart thing. And so we changed it so that we were on the floor. You just have to adapt and you can’t be too fixed on something. That’s not going to work with small children.
This film, to me, is about changing times—a way of life evolving into a new way of life. And technology, while making some things better, making other things a lot worse. Those themes are relevant now in urgent ways. What did they mean to you?
KC: It made me reflect on my dad, that generation. I think Robert’s character reminded me a lot about my grandad and my dad. They just didn’t talk about their feelings a lot, and trauma wasn’t even a word they used. It made me sad for those men, and then it makes me think, like, at night when they were going to sleep, the things that must have come to their minds. I just have a real compassion for older people. That they [now] might feel a little bit slow and alienated, it’s heartbreaking.
FJ: When the chainsaw appears in the film, you know that Robert’s job has become redundant. New technology has come in, and in watching the film you realize that change has always happened throughout history. New technology comes in and humans adapt and find a way of working with it. And there’s something about it that is almost reassuring: change happens and we adapt and we carry on.
Train Dreams is now streaming on Netflix.