Benh Zietlin & Devin France interview: An unconventional 'Wendy' goes to Neverland

Photo courtesy of Alex Geranios

There is a playful energy between writer-director Benh Zietlin and actress Devin France as soon as I enter the room to interview them. They’ve been fielding questions from journalists all day long, but at this moment they couldn’t be more energetic as they make each other laugh and talk about their mutual love for Taco Bell. They’re both in San Francisco today to promote their new film “Wendy”, a dreamlike take on the classic Peter Pan story.

The film is a milestone of sorts for each of them. For Zietlin, it’s his first film since 2012’s Oscar breakout “Beasts of the Southern Wild”, and for France this is her first film, period. The young actress wasn’t looking to be in a movie, much less play the leading role, but after Zietlin saw magic in her audition tape, things changed for them both. His visual style has often been compared to Terrence Malick, and that definitely applies to “Wendy’s” loose and improvisational feel which gives the finished product a dreamlike quality. According to Zietlin, this also made it easier to work with a lot of kids on a very stressful movie set.

The following is our conversation with Zietlin and France, where we discussed the harsh shooting conditions, how the film was affected by the Disney acquisition of Fox Searchlight and of course, Taco Bell.

Q: I just got back from Sundance and saw your film there for the first time. How was that experience for you as a filmmaker?

Benh Zietlin: It was very surreal because after getting home from Sundance with “Beasts of the Southern Wild” I stepped out of the world for seven years to make “Wendy.” I worked on it non-stop and then reappeared at Sundance to present this new film, it almost felt like “Alice in Wonderland.” It was such a great reunion for us because we became such a family making this film and post-production went on for a very long time, so to get everyone back together was a moving and beautiful experience.

Q: During the last few years of that post-production process you were having a lot of reshoots, right?

Zietlin: Not exactly reshoots but a lot of element photography. We did a lot of practical photography that went into the visual effects that were shot after the main production. We also did some underwater work that the kids came in for. But we hadn’t had the kids and the principal crew together since 2017 when we finished the main shoot.

Q: Devin, this is your first film and a brand-new experience for you. How easy or difficult was it for you to jump into a movie like this and tackle the lead role?

Devin France: Since Wendy is a lot like me it was a little easier to get into character. Some parts of the shoot were harder than others. The cave shoots were hard because you had bats flying around and freezing water when we shot underwater.

Q: If filming underwater was the hardest part of the shoot, what was the easiest?

France: When we were shooting in water but I wasn’t going underwater. I like swimming.

Q: I can only imagine because I’m sure the finished product we see onscreen is only a fraction of what you went through on set.

Zietlin: Absolutely.

Q: What was your biggest roadblock on set and how did you get through it?

Zietlin: (laughs) Honestly, the kids. No offense to Devin.

France: I was going to say not having Taco Bell but ok.

Zietlin: There’s a real challenge because the kids were cast because of their spirit. They weren’t trained, most of them didn’t want to be actors, their parents weren’t pressuring them to be actors. They were real kids that were full of mischief and didn’t want to be told what to do. A film set can be extremely boring, high-pressure and sometimes an uncomfortable place to be so the kids would never be able to act if our set felt that way. Taking a high-pressure set and always making it seem fun for the kids was a test of will and interesting because it tied into the thematic of the film.

Q: I know you said a movie set can sometimes be boring but I’m sure it’s never boring for you.

Zietlin: (laughs) Not at all.

Q: I like what you said about casting the kids because of their spirit. When it came to Devin, what did you see in her that made you click internally and give her the lead of the film?

Zietlin: I learned a lot about Wendy from Devin and there was something in her first audition where you could see that she had this wildness and ferociousness to her combined with a lot of heart and tenderness.

France: Thanks Benh.

Q: What about you Devin? What did you see in Benh that made you comfortable working with him on set?

France: He likes Taco Bell and horror movies. But seriously, he is a genuinely good guy and he knows how to work with kids from his experience on “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” He used bribery to get us to do stuff and it always works on kids. I’d still like to be friends with him after this movie and experience ends.

Q: You guys can hang out at Taco Bell.

Zietlin: (laughs) We do, actually.

Q: One of the strongest elements of this film and your previous work is your collaboration with composer Dan Romer. How closely do you work with him in getting the music for the film just right?

Zietlin: Historically, we usually start after the film is shot but on this film we had to start before we rolled cameras. We had to have this one melody that was going to define the film for the kids.

Q: You mentioned earlier that you had a long post-production process on this movie. What’s the biggest lesson you learned during post?

Zietlin: (long pause)

Q: Or was there more than one lesson you learned?

Zietlin: (laughs) It was an interesting and protracted process. I come from making films by myself and doing every single job. Now I have many collaborators but when you’re doing everything by yourself it isn’t a problem to have every element affect every other element. It was a bit of a learning curve to realize the way I’m constantly changing things means that when I want to change one thing I want to change everything else.

Q: Another element is that Fox Searchlight is no longer Fox Searchlight. Did the studio’s changeover to Disney affect the film’s post-production process or was the film already locked when Disney took over Fox Searchlight?

Zietlin: No, not really. To Searchlight’s credit they really trusted the way we made “Beasts” and knew that we had made that film in a way that no other film had been made before. My collaborators and I had invented this new way of working and we had made it clear that we wanted to make “Wendy” in the same style even though it was going to be on a larger scale. It turned out to be almost the same process, “Beasts” took five-and-a-half years to make but both films were made with the same methodology and that methodology takes longer than most movies. The change of hands at the studio didn’t change our collaborators so there wasn’t a radical shift in our experience. We were worried that everyone was going to get fired but thankfully that didn’t happen. I think a lot of that happened at 21st Century Fox and they left Searchlight alone, thankfully.

Q: Devin, do you want to keep this going and make some more movies?

France: Absolutely. I really like acting and psychology.

Q: Both of you have been traveling from city to city answering a lot of the same questions. Is there one question you wish would go away?

France: For me it’s “what do you think people are going to get out of this film” and I never know how to put it into words. I get really nervous and don’t know what to say.

Zietlin: The question I get the most is “how do you work with kids” and it’s such a weird question because there’s a different answer for every single kid. The way I work with actors is to get to know them as a person and figure out what is going to allow them to do a performance. There’s no method that works with two people.

“Wendy” is now playing in limited release.