1 of 5 | Kyle Gallner and Samara Weaving star in “Carolina Caroline,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
Samara Weaving said her bank robber character in Carolina Caroline, in theaters Friday, is under the influence of romance. She plays Caroline, a Texan girl who joins drifter Oliver (Kyle Garner) in a series of small-time crimes.
It is Caroline who suggests escalating to bank robberies.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Weaving, 34, said Caroline was so caught up in their romance that the consequences of their crimes came as a shock.
“They’re just falling in love and they’re almost high off of that, not really thinking about the consequences of their actions,” Weaving said. “Caroline is in a lot of pain and when you’re in a lot of pain, you do want to self-destruct sometimes.”
The Australian Weaving adopted a southern accent to play Caroline. She worked with dialect coach Liz Himelstein, and attributes much of Caroline’s success in crime to her southern drawl.
“I think it’s why she gets away with a lot of what she does, that sing-songy accent,” Weaving said. “Caroline was the name of a wardrobe assistant on the job and she was from West Texas and she kept giving me the thumbs up.”
Gallner, 39, said he believes Oliver knows there’s only one way their crime spree can end.
“I also think Oliver was genuinely in love with Caroline and is willing to do anything for her,” he said. “So when she said she wants to up the ante, he was willing to do it for her.”
On the road, Caroline also seeks her biological mother, who left her father to raise her in Texas. Kyra Sedgwick plays her in one scene when Caroline finds her.
Sedgwick filmed her role in two days, but said she did weeks of preparation. The appeal for Sedgwick was the impact the character makes on the heroine.
“It really changes the trajectory of the main character,” Sedgwick said. “So that’s a powerful place to be.”
That prep work, Sedgwick said, includes imagining the memories of her character. Tom Dean’s script gave her those by articulating what happened before Caroline meets her.
“She talks about what it was like to live in that small town and what they wanted her to be and she couldn’t be,” Sedgwick said. “You just pop in some good memories into your body and your brain and then they’re just there for you on the day.”
Sedgwick, mother of Sosie and Travis Bacon with her husband, Kevin Bacon, could even understand why a mother in that situation might abandon her child.
“Everyone has a breaking point and I think she reached her breaking point,” Sedgwick said. “What she does is monstrous but she’s an alcoholic so we all know some of those.”
Director Adam Rehmeier said Dean’s screenplay offered him a chance to do a different genre than his comedy Dinner in America and teen movie Snack Shack. He cited movies like Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, The Great Texas Dynamite Chase and Badlands as abstract, not direct influences.
“You’ve got a hot guy, a hot girl, a gun and a muscle car type of thing,” Rehmeier said. “What I was focused on was taking shades of those ’70s types of two-handed movies.”
Gallner and Weaving both admired the 1993 movie True Romance starring Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette as lovers on the run with a suitcase full of cocaine.
“Patricia Arquette’s my favorite,” Weaving said.
The duo said they could also relate to their characters’ restlessness. For the actors, it was an eagerness to finish high school and become actors.
“I remember feeling like that, like really ready to graduate and go figure out who I am,” Weaving said. “Going to L.A., it was such a shock. So I can empathize with that feeling.”
Gallner said his restlessness often led to trouble. So finding his career was healthy for him.
“I was constantly running around and getting in trouble, looking for the next thing and finally made my way out to L.A.,” Glalner said.
