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Netflix\u2019s<\/a> Train Dreams<\/em> brings Denis Johnson\u2019s novella to life, exploring the quiet, memory-filled world of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker in early 20th-century America. Directed by Clint Bentley and co-written by Bentley and Greg Kwedar, the film follows Robert as he lives through a rapidly changing American landscape. Joel Edgerton leads a cast that includes Felicity Jones, Nathaniel Arcand, Clifton Collins Jr., John Diehl, Paul Schneider, Kerry Condon and William H. Macy, with narration by Will Patton.<\/p>\n Bentley said the project has been years in the making, and came together in parallel with his and Kwedar\u2019s other work. \u201cIt\u2019s a good question, I think because Greg directed Sing Sing<\/a><\/em>. I directed Jockey<\/em> before doing this one, and we had actually written this film before we shot Sing Sing<\/em>,\u201d he explained in a recent interview with Blavity\u2019s Shadow and Act, along with cinematographer Adolfo Veloso and Edgerton. \u201cAnd then I started shooting this while Greg was still in the edit on Sing Sing<\/em>. And so it\u2019s funny, I don\u2019t know that I can say, other than to say there\u2019s maybe something that we\u2019re trying to explore or talk about that\u2019s bubbling up, that goes across those two films or those three films.\u201d<\/p>\n The film leans heavily on mood, silence and memory, creating space for viewers to reflect and feel their way through Robert\u2019s story. \u201cI like to give the audience space, and I like that when I watch a film,\u201d Bentley said. \u201cBut in these films, giving the audience space to go in their own experience, and I find that when you do that a lot of times, then the audience starts to go inside themselves and make something new from the film and find things within themselves that you can\u2019t necessarily point them to.\u201d<\/p>\n That inward gaze is deeply felt in how the film is shot. Veloso said they approached the visuals like piecing together someone\u2019s memories. \u201cThat\u2019s always tricky, I feel, especially with period pieces, to make it feel grounded and to make the audience connect to those characters,\u201d Veloso said. \u201cSo that was a discussion we had a lot, like how do we make this feel connectable? And the main thing we discussed is that we wanted the movie to feel like you were watching someone\u2019s memories.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cWe have this metaphor, which was basically almost like a found box full of pictures of someone\u2019s life. And you\u2019re going through those pictures trying to understand what life that person lived, somehow. And those pictures are out of order, those pictures are sometimes more posed, some pictures are more spontaneous. We wanted to have both the proximity to make you feel like you\u2019re almost like another character there with them, living that thing together, but sometimes also step back and have that from a different point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n For Edgerton, playing Robert Grainier meant drawing from personal truths. Much of the role required stillness\u2014nonverbal moments that revealed everything through emotion and memory rather than dialogue.<\/p>\n \u201cIt becomes a different kind of experience, certainly. Like, it focuses things for me,\u201d Edgerton said. \u201cI have so many kind of crossovers with this character in my own life. I have all the experiences of Robert except for some of the really heavier stuff, thank God. But I felt like it was so much of this is me. I have family, I have two young kids, I\u2019m in love. I do a job that takes me away from them sometimes, and it makes me fret. And my biggest fear is I always worry about my kids.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued, \u201cI just realized that all these thoughts are in my head anyway. And knowing that a camera can read your soul more than any other character, I think if I could just sort of have the right thoughts in my mind and bare my soul, then it would be okay. And there\u2019s a bit of playing dress-up, and the physical side, but the most important and potent stuff for me is what goes through Robert\u2019s mind because he\u2019s thinking a lot and not expressing himself. He\u2019s feeling a lot and not letting it out.\u201d<\/p>\n The film\u2019s fire imagery stands out as both literal and metaphorical. \u201cFire is used in all of its power from both ends of the spectrum in this film,\u201d Edgerton said. \u201cFire is light and food and warmth\u2026 and then of course there\u2019s the devastating aspects of fire. That fire can tear us down, tear our worlds down. And we see both of that in this film.\u201d<\/p>\n He recalled shooting a scene in a forest that had burned months before. \u201cJust focusing [on] how dangerous that is to move through. And I was moving through that,\u201d he said. \u201cThen on the flip side, Adolpho, the incredible cinematographer, is shooting all of those scenes without extra lights in the cabin and by the firelight with William H. Macy to the point where we can\u2019t even see the camera. I am just sitting there with William by the fire doing the dialogue, feeling like we\u2019re just together after a long day\u2019s work, and somewhere off in the darkness, the camera is capturing this.\u201d<\/p>\n Bentley said that same layered, emotional depth extended to how he approached casting, even for smaller roles. \u201cWhen you look back on your life and you think back to, I went to that wedding and I met that person and had a great weekend with that person and we didn\u2019t really keep in contact, but I\u2019ll remember that person forever,\u201d he said. \u201cWanting them all to feel like that, like they did have a big impact.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued, \u201cWhat you do as a filmmaker in the casting process is you just go to these amazing actors like Bill Macy or Kerry Condon and you say, \u2018Hey, here\u2019s this character. It could be beautiful, it could be great, it\u2019s not much screen time, but it\u2019ll be a big impact. Will you do it?\u2019 And usually they pass and you move on and find somebody else. But in this case, we got very, very lucky with everybody\u2014John Diehl also, and Paul Schneider\u2014and very lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n Train Dreams<\/em> is now streaming on Netflix.<\/p>\n The post Joel Edgerton On Harrowing Fire Scenes In \u2018Train Dreams\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Blavity<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Netflix\u2019s Train Dreams brings Denis Johnson\u2019s novella to life, exploring the quiet, memory-filled world of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker in early 20th-century America. Directed by Clint Bentley and co-written by Bentley and Greg Kwedar, the film follows Robert as he lives through a rapidly changing American landscape. Joel Edgerton leads a cast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2174499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[370296,21799,418315,345517,418314,341063,418313,367137,345515,345519],"class_list":["post-2174498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bentley","tag-film","tag-greg-kwedar","tag-joel-edgerton","tag-john-diehl","tag-kerry-condon","tag-paul-schneider","tag-robert-grainier","tag-train-dreams","tag-william-h-macy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Joel-Edgerton-On-Harrowing-Fire-Scenes-In-\u2018Train-Dreams.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2174498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2174500,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174498\/revisions\/2174500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2174499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2174498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2174498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2174498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bringing Robert Grainier to life \u2014 quietly, powerfully<\/h2>\n
Joel Edgerton on shooting the film\u2019s fire scenes<\/h2>\n