1 of 5 | Joel Edgerton stars in and produced “Train Dreams.” File Photo by Rune Hellestad/UPI | License Photo
Joel Edgerton drew on many of his prior films for his latest movie, Train Dreams, on Netflix Friday. The adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novella follows Edgerton’s Robert Grainer, a tree feller, from the 1930s into the ’60s.
As time passes, Robert marries Gladys (Felicity Jones), becomes father to a daughter, and experiences changes in the forestry industry and the country at large. In a recent video interview with UPI, Edgerton, 51, compared Train Dreams to previous roles.
For example, in Loving, Edgerton played Richard Loving, the husband in a landmark 1967 legal case about interracial marriage. Loving was a quiet man like Robert.
“Even though he’s a logger, if you put his occupation aside, his experiences are so universal,” Edgerton said of Robert. “He falls in love. He dreams of building a life. He has a family. He wrestles with his work life and trying to harmonize that with staying closer to the family.”
‘Loving,’ ‘Warrior,’ ‘Gatsby’, ‘Kinky Boots’ and ‘Train Dreams’
Follow any character for 30 years and they are bound to experience some hardships and tragedies. Robert is no exception. Edgerton believed viewers can relate to the human issues regardless of the specifics.
“I think all of us have experienced a grief of some kind,” he said. “I think audiences can be really keen to Robert’s state of mind without the character having to explain constantly how he’s feeling or what his response to these things are.”
Next, Edgerton related Train Dreams to his MMA drama Warrior. Most viewers won’t train for MMA like Edgerton and Tom Hardy did to play brothers in Warrior, just as they are not loggers, yet both films can still resonate.
“I do believe that the reason why Warrior really strikes a chord with people is that yes, it’s about two brothers who become two of the greatest fighters in this high class tournament,” Edgerton said. “But at its core, it’s about family rebuilding itself.”
Edgerton called Train Dreams “the celebration of an ordinary life.” He remembers admiring Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker in fantastical movies, but even in big movies Edgerton feels audiences respond to humanity.
“As humans, we like to see ourselves reflected on screen,” he said. “So I think it’s wonderful to have a film that shows how heroic an actual, regular normal life is.”
In the Star Wars prequels and Obi-Wan Kenobi streaming series, Edgeton got to play Luke’s adoptive caretaker, Owen Lars. He also got to enjoy the lavish spectacle of Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby production.
“Gatsby and Train Dreams are almost so opposite end of the spectrum of cinema that it really illuminates for me the beauty of working in movies, how different they can all be,” he said.
Edgerton said fans still approach him about 2005’s Kinky Boots, though he regrets he never saw the stage musical adapted from the film. Edgerton plays a shoemaker who joins forces with a drag queen.
“That movie really strikes a chord and I think it’s because it’s about the harmony of two strangers who could not be any more different finding a common ground and working together. I think it’s a beautiful message in that film and just such a wild experience.”
‘Train Dreams’ and AI fears
Over 30 years, Train Dreams covers the effects of industrialization on people like Robert. In the beginning, he builds bridges for trains, only to see trains soon outmoded by affordable cars.
Even manual felling with axes is upgraded by chainsaws, which will soon be replaced by heavy machinery. Edgerton admitted he fears new technology the way Robert struggled with a chainsaw.
“Robert in that moment staring at the chainsaw, is the way I view TikTok and AI,” Edgerton said. “I know I’m probably going to have to grasp an understanding of this for my children and the future, but I stare at these new technologies like they’re alien to me.”
As an actor, Edgerton is nervously following developments with Hollywood incorporating AI. He joked that even his backup plan has been overtaken by artificial intelligence.
“Recently, I remember thinking AI is probably going to take my job at some point, so maybe I could open a cafe and become a barista,” he said. “I saw a coffee van in the middle of an airport. Inside the coffee van was a big robotic arm making coffees for people.”
Edgerton has faith, however, that the arts will always need human beings. As an example, he cited the 2023 Oscar-winning film The Zone of Interest, director Jonathan Glazer’s Auschwitz drama set entirely in the commandant’s mansion beside the concentration camp.
“I kept thinking okay, that’s not an obvious choice,” Edgerton said. “That’s a really interesting human thought and I think that’s where we need to push ourselves, is to be original.”
Ordinary, practical jobs
Even outside the arts, Edgerton believes the world needs human beings with different skills and passions.
“The world somehow works because we have scientists and we have people who like to use their hands and build things,” Edgerton said. “We all find our place hopefully.”
He enjoyed learning felling trees for the role, as he learned bricklaying for Loving.
“I know how to use an axe, that’s for sure,” Edgerton said. “If you need some firewood, I’ll pop around.”
Train Dreams also addresses deforestation. Robert’s colleagues believe that by the time they fell every tree, new ones will have grown up.
Industrialization speeds up felling well beyond replanting, but even before that, the fellers on the ground may have overestimated their inventory.
“We know that it’s quicker to cut down a tree than it is to grow up a new one,” Edgerton said. “We know how much we just harvest the planet without any kind of real future thought about what happens when something’s all gone.”
Within his own art and industry, Edgerton also takes on the practical task of producing films. He tried to secure the rights to Johnson’s book five years prior, but teamed up with writer/director Clint Bentley when the opportunity presented itself.
“I work out where I’m value added, where I can benefit the film and help push things along and introduce actors to directors and so on,” Edgerton said. “For the rest of the time, I stay out of the way and don’t presume to hover over the experience.”
Edgerton said he did the same when producing the documentary Daughters, which followed prison inmates at a father-daughter dance. Edgerton also produced the upcoming film The Plague, which is opening Dec. 25.
The Plague writer/director Charlie Polinger cast Edgerton as the coach of a water polo school where 12-13-year-old boys gang up on a fellow teammate. Again, Edgerton wanted to support Polinger’s vision.
“It was an important subject, the idea of kids learning which side of the kindness and cruelty fence they want to move in in life,” Edgerton said. “I wanted to help him get to that place of making his first feature film, knowing that the future was going to be very bright for him and the sooner he got to make that film.”
