Lily Collins and Oscar Nominee Jesse Plemons Talk New Netflix Movie ‘Windfall’
The ‘Mirror Mirror’ actress and ‘The Power of the Dog’ actor discuss their new thriller, which also stars Jason Segel.
(L-R) Lily Collins, Jesse Plemons and Jason Segel in 'Windfall.' Photo: Netflix © 2022.
Premiering on Netflix beginning March 18th is the new thriller ‘Windfall’ from director Charlie McDowell (‘The One I Love’).
The movie stars Jason Segel (‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’) as a squatter who is forced to hold hostage the rich couple (Lily Collins and Jesse Plemons) that owns the house he is staying in, when they come home unexpectedly.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Lily Collins and Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons about their work on ‘Windfall.’
You can read the full transcript of our interview with Lily Collins and Jesse Plemons below, or watch a video of our interview with Collins, Plemons, Jason Segel, and director Charlie McDowell about ‘Windfall’ in the player above.
Moviefone: To begin with Jesse, could you tell us about your character and your approach to playing him?
Jesse Plemons: From the moment I signed on, when we started reworking the character as a younger man, who was originally written in his 50s, I watched a lot of footage on these types of people. Then, Charlie and I did make our own decisions about his life, what led him to be here and all that. As it went on, it became more interesting to just focus on the character’s journey unraveling in this set up and give enough information where the audience has some idea of it.
So, we were constantly getting very specific and deciding things for ourselves. Then as it went on, I started looking at him as an ancient symbol of greed, which has been around obviously since the beginning of time. I answered a lot of those questions, but it just didn't seem as interesting as the dynamic between the characters.
MF: Finally Lily, as an actress, is it important to you to fully map out your character’s backstory before you begin shooting?
Lily Collins: Yeah. If something's not on the page, it's really important for me to do a deep dive into where she's coming from. Because you can only ever start a movie from where you start a movie, but you have to know where they've been and where they've come from to dictate how they're moving forward within every scene. Especially with this one, where there's so much bubbling under the surface.
There's a lot that each of these characters remembers throughout the story because they're forced to face themselves in this one location, with all these unexpected twists and turns. Without knowing the choices that my character made to get herself into this position, there's nothing to then either appreciate or resent for her.
She needs these memories, even if it's just something that I know and nobody else knows in order to help dictate how she accepts or rejects the situations. So, it's always important to create that. That's also part of the fun part of prep, right? You not only get to figure out who this person is emotionally and internally, but also then how that manifests in their wardrobe, in their hair choices, in their accent choices, in the way in which they treat other humans.
That was something really wonderful in this experience. We all got to do that separately, but also together in prep because it was such a small cast. Then, everyone's choices helped inform I think all of ours as well, because it was a real team project.
(L-R) Lily Collins, Jesse Plemons and Jason Segel in 'Windfall.' Photo: Netflix © 2022.
