Around this time last year I had the good fortune to attend the world premiere of Big Stone Gap, an adaptation of Adriana Trigiani's popular book set in her home town right here in Virginia. The film debuted at the Virginia Film Festival and was literally overflowing with locals itching to see their town on the big screen, and perhaps even see themselves since Trigiani filled it with the town's colorful residents and locations. I was the only critic who saw the film and reviewed it, a fact which Trigiani was tickled by when I spoke to her.
The film has kernels of truth to it, such as the bit with Elizabeth Taylor visiting the tiny coal-mining town and having chicken....only to choke on a bone. That stuff is true, and other aspects of Trigiani's childhood growing up in Big Stone Gap are reflected in the residents. Ashley Judd, Patrick Wilson, Whoopi Goldberg, Jenna Elfman, and more star in the homespun comedy about small-town living, family ties, and home-cooked food.
Check out my interview with Trigiani about Big Stone Gap below. You can also find my review here.
I was there at the world premiere of Big Stone Gap (I'm still the only posted review!) at last year's VA Film Festival, and it was a wild night! Were you blown away by the crowd response to the film?
It's always an out of body experience to finally share something that you have been working on for so long with the audience for whom you did the work in the first place. I had waves of gratitude all night long- and many feelings- memories of Charlottesville, gratitude to the folks who had come so far, and relief that at long last Big Stone Gap the movie was where it should be, on a screen.
Does shooting the film in Big Stone Gap and including a number of locals put more pressure on? Or does it make things easier having a sort of built-in support system?
Well, for the local actors, there was pressure. But I told them they could do it, and they went with it. Nobody choked- nobody said, I can't do this- they rallied. There's a deep well of will and persistence in the people I grew up with- I guess, in a small sense, I have it too- a kind of determination. We think we can do anything. So, it wasn't that big a stretch for my friend Rickey Wiles, who is a batcher at the Pepsi Cola plant to go toe to toe with Patrick Wilson and Ashley Judd in a scene on film. He just paid attention, learned his lines and followed directions. Really ,it was about being a team player- and that's something we all grew up understanding how to do.
One of the things I enjoyed about the film and put in my review, was that it truly felt homespun and honest, which a lot of small-town films can't really pull off. Talk to me a little bit about your process for making the film as authentic as possible?
Homespun and honest are beautiful phrases- old fashioned words that belie a place and time- but for me, the movie is very adult- it's about complex problems of abandonment and feeling unworthy. So, you may be laughing at the small town fun and revelry, but as you know, there is a deep river running under the action of this movie that is addressed as the arc of the narrative unfolds. I'm sure there will be folks who miss this- because the moment they hear a banjo, their mind goes to a front porch in a holler and we've lost them. But the truth is, this movie is about the fundamental truths of life- about the great yearning we have to be separate from one another, not to need one another too much, but also the deep need to connect, and the idea that we can't love someone fully and surrender to that love until we understand what we come from.
Ave Maria has been wandering through her life, in service to others because she didn't know who she was- she was determined to be good because she was determined to keep her mother's shame hidden. You see, we all do this. We compensate for what we don't have, or where we come from, or where we were educated or not, or what we do for a living or not- and here's a movie that says, hey, there's glory in the life of the working person- there's not only glory, there is purpose. There is dignity. I come from people that worked in factories. Shoemakers. Farmers. Miners of slate and iron ore. Seamstresses. People that survived by the labor of their own hands. And when my parents were able to go to college, it was a miracle- and it was appreciated- it was an honor to be educated-it was about the creation of a better life. In Big Stone Gap, it was the teachers and librarians who were the rock stars- therefore, they are played by movie stars in this movie..
Grace and abundance and faith are the cornerstones of small town life because there was a time in America when people were there for one another. You got married because you were committed to someone- and that gave you a life- and it meant everything- family, connection and yes, even great sex. A lifetime of love. Now to me, that ain't hokey, it ain't homespun, and it ain't sweet, it's survival. It's also the best and highest use of the human heart- to love one another.
Beyond that, to do something with your life that has meaning is a risk worth taking. What else are you going to do with the long years of the life you have been given, if not to make something? Ave Maria learns this lesson and you see it happen during the movie- she decides to own her own life. It's the guts and courage of the ordinary person under extraordinary pressure that makes this movie work. And that right there is written into the role of Ave Maria Mulligan with singular care and deep conviction- and that's the reason to see this movie.
Ashley Judd's character Ava Maria is something of an outsider in a very close-knit town. How much of her experiences are based on your own growing up in Big Stone Gap?
If you live long enough, you find out that pretty much everybody is an outsider of some sort. I had a laundry list of things that made me "other"- but those ended up to be the very things that made me a little interesting, got me a good job here and there, made me an artist and duped my good husband into falling in love with me, so at the end of the day, I'm gonna take my oddball self and run with her.
What was it that you saw in Judd that made her such a perfect fit?
Ashley Judd has been through heartache and pain. She sees suffering and it affects her, but instead of turning away, she goes to it, she's made a mission out of it. Healing is something she is committed to- in particular, she has a passion for young women around the world, the disenfranchised, the uneducated and the poor. She is also a steward of the land. She cares about the earth- in particular the mountains- as they are the landscape of her family history. I'm not telling you tales out of school- she lives her convictions, and in fact, has written about her beliefs in books. Ashley Judd was the perfect fit for Ave Maria because she is a great actor. She comes prepared- she is thorough, she has ideas, she is fascile and quick. She works hard and clean and efficiently. She revels in good dialogue and loves getting her hands in the dirt with her fellow actors. She is also calm and cool on the set- focused, like a surgeon might be on the day she's removing a brain. I'm not kidding. There's a clinical sense of the process- but then, when we begin the scene, the technique falls away, and her authentic self appears, and with it, her soul. Ashley has had a complex, fascinating, rich, full life- and every second of it is brought to her work. That's why you can't take your eyes off of her on screen- that, and she's perhaps got the most glistening black diamond eyes since Judy Garland.
You gathered a tremendous cast from top to bottom in roles both big and small. Talk to me about how you were able to get so many to be a part of the film? And what was it like having Virginia boy Patrick Wilson on set every day?
The only way to get great actors to be in a movie is to write a great script with great roles- Ashley Judd, Patrick Wilson, John Benjamin Hickey, Whoopi Goldberg, Judith Ivey, Angelina Fiordellisi, Jane Krakowski, Anthony LaPaglia, Jenna Elfman, Jasmine Guy, Chris Sarandon, Mary Pat Gleason, Joe Inscoe, Dagmara Domincyzk, Matt Stocke,- you can't get these folks unless there's a part that lures them in- that makes them want to work on a movie- especially with the risk they have to take with a first time director. Reynaldo Villalobos shot the movie with such scope and beauty- it's stunning- that matters when actors make their decisions.
Patrick Wilson is a great guy period. Great actor- prepared, fun to be around, but clear and hardworking and focused. I never tired of watching him, as each take he bore into the scene more deeply. Some actors try things at different levels- Patrick begins and then, you realize a couple of takes in, that he has drilled into the scene- and you have these shades that you will return to later when you're in editing. He made my life as a first time director easy from the moment he walked on to the set to the moment the final frame was cut in editing. He is a joy- he is the steel beam around which you build your skyscraper- he's that strong, that sturdy and that good.
Any plans to adapt the entire trilogy?
If the people like Big Stone Gap, we'll see!
