Like a majority of blue state voters, Fisher Stevens recalls being surprised by the 2016 election, which lifted Big Apple real estate tycoon Donald Trump to the Oval Office on red state support. So the actor and filmmaker tried to process the growing cultural divide of America in the best way he knew: by making a film. In the aftermath of the election, Stevens picked up the script for Palmer, Cheryl Guerriero’s drama about a former college football star – played by Justin Timberlake in his first live action role in four years – returning to his small southern town after serving time in prison.
“I was out of touch with most of the country when Trump was elected, and I felt I had better learn more about America,” he told Yahoo Entertainment during an interruption in the filming of HBO’s third season. Emmy-winning drama, Succession. (Stevens plays Roy family member Hugo Baker in the program and describes the experience of recording the delayed season 3 during COVID periods as ‘necessarily intense’.) ‘When I read this script, I thought,’ This movie is about people coming together and finding unity and family in the most unlikely places. ‘”
It finally took three years between Trump’s election and Stevens finally on the set of Palmer in the fall of 2019, and the film went through various iterations during that period. Originally written in Alabama, financial constraints and scheduling drove the area to Louisiana. Stevens also had various actors from the project come and go, the first of which would have significantly changed the project. “I originally presented the film to a black actor,” he reveals. “We did not get very far with him, but I started the conversation. I was very interested in that story, and it would have been a very different film. Being African-American has its own challenges, and I think it’s a film that can also be made by an African-American director. ‘
With that initial idea, Stevens worked his way up the list of other available actors – a list that Timberlake did not include. “He has not acted for a while,” said the director. Trollies star, whose last role on camera appeared in Woody Allen’s drama in 2017, Wonder Wheel. But he was persuaded by Timberlake’s management company to meet the Memphis – born musician, who along with his Man of the forest album at the time. ‘I started a conversation with him, and he was very considerate and cooperative. He’s not been to a movie yet Trollies over a period of time, he started getting into the turn of acting again, and it was a perfect way for him to play back. At one point we talked about how he might sing one of the songs for the movie, but then we decided, ‘No, let’s keep this pure acting.’ ‘
As a Southerner himself, Timberlake also served as a guideline for Stevens as he sought to capture the social and cultural realities of the region, and how they influenced individuals like Eddie Palmer, who returned to his grandmother’s home after serving his prison sentence, a struggle. to get a job and prevent yourself from getting into trouble again. A young boy named Sam (Ryder Allen) helping him on his way, whose addicted mother (Juno Temple) leaves him for a long time. “Justin and I were both attracted to the idea of people falling in difficult times,” says the director. ‘Not just those who are getting out of jail, but also people who have been addicted to drugs and alcohol and trying to get their lives back together. We shot in places where there were a lot of prisons, and where addiction to problems was a problem. All of these things were very real in the places we were. ”
The small town seen in Palmer is actually a compilation of three locations in Louisiana: Ponchatoula, Hammond and Reserve. “The people there let us into their lives,” Stevens remarked. “We got along incredibly well. Actually, I gave the text to a lot of people in the area and they were like, ‘My God, do you know my sister? This is her story. Or: ‘Do you know my cousin Rufus who played football? This is his story. ‘It seemed like they gave me the stamp of approval. ”
Even when he bonded with the residents, Stevens was hyper-aware of the divisions between them, divisions that still exist in the post-Trump era with President Joe Biden now in the White House. “There was an election while we were there for governor, and it obviously had a lot of conversations about the political situation in this country,” Stevens recalled, referring to the 2019 government between Democratic incumbent John Bel Edwards and Republican challenger , Eddie. Rispone, an outspoken Trump supporter. (Edwards eventually won re-election.)
‘We could not have been more politically different, but we saw things similarly in the sense of neighbors and people. One of the things President Biden said during his inaugural address was, “Be prepared to stand in the shoes of others for just a moment.” This is what I try to do when I make movies: put myself in the shoes of people as a filmmaker and do not judge. Part of the beauty of making this was that we did not judge, but only offered a piece of life.
While Stevens and Timberlake successfully embedded themselves in the Louisiana landscape during production, one incident that made him well known did remind him of the dangers of targeting an internationally recognized face. In November 2019, Timberlake was photographed in New Orleans and his co-star, Alisha Wainwright, was arrested. This sparked a spate of tabloid coverage that eventually led to his public apology to his wife, Jessica Biel.
Stevens, who was there that night with the rest of the country Palmer cast, remember the surreality to see the story go viral. “It was so harmless,” he says now. “It was just drinks with the cast. Unfortunately, the photographer catches Justin and Alicia at one point talking about a scene. I wish I was there to lead them, but I was not – I was in the background. It’s a raid when things happen: a photographer with a very long lens who shoots very selective moments of a conversation. ‘
Just as Stevens hopes Palmer will help Biden’s call to help national unity on a cultural level, he remains deeply critical of the position that many Republican lawmakers hold on issues such as suffrage and the environment – an issue that is close to his heart. “We find that many climate deniers are very much the same people who argue Ted Cruz’s theories that the election was hampered,” explains Stevens, who led the documentary Climate Change in 2016. Before the flood. ‘This is all wrong information, and the opposite of what Palmer go over. The film is about bringing people together, and it is the opposite of what Cruz and the climate denial movement are doing to this country. ”
“But I have to say that I’m so glad we have a Native American, Deb Haaland, as Secretary of the Interior and Michael Regan as head of the Environmental Protection Agency,” Stevens continues. ‘And Biden issued an executive order to get us back in the Paris Agreement immediately. When I make Before the floodI felt we were well on our way to getting the world back in a place to recognize climate change and do something about it, and then Trump brought us back to the dark ages. Around 2018, I even wondered if I could continue to make environmental films because there were so many dark forces against us. But now there is light. ‘
Palmer currently streaming on Apple TV +.
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