Robin Wright’s accomplished quite a bit over the years and she’s hitting yet another major milestone in her career right now. She’s received three Daytime Emmy nominations, eight Primetime Emmy nominations and 10 SAG nominations, and now she’s busy celebrating the release of her feature directorial debut,Land. Wright also stars in the movie as Edee Holzer, a woman who decides to completely disconnect from society by purchasing an isolated cabin in the Wyoming wilderness.
WithLandnow available to watch on PVOD, Wright took the time to join us for an episode ofCollider Ladies Nightto break down how the steps she took in her career paved the way to this new release, beginning with her early admiration forMeryl Streep:
“When I first got the bug to want to pursue [acting] after being petrified at the notion of it, it was after watching Meryl Streep’s work. Like Kramer vs. Kramer, she was in Deer Hunter. When I saw these films, I was like, ‘That’s inspirational!’ That kind of talent and range, so yeah, she was definitely an inspiration.”
While it’s very understandable to have a great deal of nerves when first committing to pursuing a career in acting, it might come as a surprise to hear that Wright still has some of those feelings today, even after everything she’s achieved. Here’s what she said when asked what petrified her about the field:
“It kind of still does for the same reason, [laughs] which is, I don’t like getting emotional in front of a huge crew of people. That just doesn’t feel comfortable to me. Now, I think for some people it is very liberating because they are performing. I don’t know, I kind of go insular. I do the inverse. So that fear of, I guess, maybe it’s a fear of being judged! If you’ve got all these people, you don’t really know your crew and it makes you nervous. It’s strange to still have that feeling, you know what I mean?”
If Wright still harbors those feelings, they’re certainly not apparent in her work. And that’s the case of her work on screen and behind the camera as well becauseLanddoes feel like an especially confident first feature. Having directed the award-winning short film, “The Dark of Night,” and a number of episodes ofHouse of Cards, Wright had been receiving material for potential feature debut for some time. What made theLandscript stand out from the pack? Here’s how Wright put it:
“It was the time in which I received the script. It was about three years ago when we were all witnessing and many experiencing a lot of loss and grief with these random shootings that were going on, almost bi-weekly. And I just couldn’t stop thinking - everyone morning I woke up [thinking], ‘How do these people get through?’ How do they find their way when everything they knew and that existence that they lived in is gone forever? Life will never be the same again. How do you retrieve yourself or find a new self? So I really wanted to delve into the phases of trauma, frankly, and how we need to re-remind ourselves, and that’s what this movie does, that there is hope and the power of human resilience is incredible and it generally takes the kindness of another person, the compassion of another person that pulls you through when you’re faced with adversity. And the uplifting and empowering feeling that you get at the end of this movie about hope, a renewed sense of faith, I feel like people want that positivity right now.”
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If you’d like to hear more from Wright on her experience makingLand, how the ending of that movie changed, what she admired most aboutPatty Jenkins’ work onWonder Woman, howDavid Fincherconvinced her that Netflix would be big and more, you may watch our full chat in the video at the top of this article or listen to it using the podcast embed below:
Robin Wright:
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