Last time out, Jean-Marc Vallée directed Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto to acting Oscars for “Dallas Buyers Club.”
Now the French Canadian filmmaker has Reese Witherspoon hiking 1,100 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail in “Wild” (Dec. 5). She also simulates some “Dallas Buyers Club”-style self-destructiveness for this adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir. But the shoot was mainly about being way, way out there.
“It was so fun, I’m not sure there were any challenges on that Pacific Crest Trail,” enthuses Vallée, who filmed primarily along the Oregon stretch. “Of course, the ultimate challenge was to try to make a film as emotional and powerful as Cheryl Strayed’s book. But shooting outside, we were like kids playing from sunrise to sunset.”
Tell that to the folks responsible for hiking equipment up to the trail every day (horses and donkeys helped them get to the tougher locations) or Witherspoon, who spends more than half of the movie trudging up and down crests with a backpack almost as big as she is.
“It was demanding for her, shooting in fall for a story that takes place in summer, so she was freezing,” Vallée says of Witherspoon, who also will appear in “The Good Lie” and “Inherent Vice” before year’s end.
“But she was such a trouper, doing the whole thing with no makeup and being raw and dirty. She really went out there, out of her comfort zone, and it was amazing.”
Asked how he’s able to get great work out of actors, Vallée answers that it’s all about finding the right people for the roles and then “capture their moment of grace, their best performances to serve the story.”
“And since the stories I’m choosing are realistic — the latest ones based on true stories — it has to look authentic. The way we capture it is very humble, very simple, handheld cameras with natural light,” he says. “It gives the audience an impression of reality, and the actors love it. They love to not have to show off or play the game of cinema with the big lights and the dollies and all that — and I don’t have to interfere too much.”