With director Charlie McDowell’s Windfall now streaming on Netflix, I recently spoke with Lily Collins and Jesse Plemons about making the Hitchcockian thriller. Written by McDowell's frequent collaborator Justin Lader as well as Seven scribe Andrew Kevin Walker, the film is about a wealthy couple (Collins and Plemons) who arrive at their vacation home only to find it's being robbed by Jason Segel.
Unlike many films that explain every character’s motivation and feature people making decisions dictated by studio notes and test screening audiences, Windfall takes the opposite approach. In the film, Segel is known as Nobody, while Plemons is simply called CEO, and Collins is credited as Wife. And while you’ll learn a lot about each character, not everything is explained, and it’s refreshing. McDowell and his screenwriting team let the viewer decide why certain things are happening and between that and the three great performances by Segel, Collins, and Plemons, Windfall is worth your time.
During the interview, Lily Collins and Jesse Plemons revealed the first thing you should watch if you’ve never seen their work, how they made Windfall with a fraction of a regular film crew, how it was an all-hands on deck filming experience, why Plemons’ character wears Yeezy sneakers, and the reason McDowell used a clip from Three Amigos!. In addition, Plemons talks about how he fell in love with acting while making Friday Night Lights and Collins talks about the way To the Bone was such a freeing and difficult project to make.
Watch what Collins and Plemons had to say in the player above, and below is exactly what we talked about.
Lily Collins and Jesse Plemons
- If someone has never seen anything he’s done before what is the first thing they should watch and why?
- Plemons on how he fell in love with acting while making Friday Night Lights.
- Collins on the way To the Bone was such a freeing and difficult project to make.
- How they made Windfall with a fraction of a regular film crew.
- How it was an all-hands on deck filming experience.
- Whose idea was it to have Plemons character wear Yeezy sneakers?
- Why they used a clip from Three Amigos! in the film.