Jeremy Saulnier Talks Overcoming ‘Rebel Ridge’ Production Hurdles: “I Am Just Basking in the Glow”
For Jeremy Saulnier, all’s well that ends well.
After releasing Hold the Dark in late 2018, Saulnier wasted no time putting together his follow-up Netflix film, Rebel Ridge, in late 2019. But then the pandemic had its way with his April 2020 production schedule, delaying the film’s principal photography until the following spring. However, the once-a-century pandemic turned out to be just the the first of several obstacles, as former lead actor John Boyega abruptly exited the thriller just a month into 2021’s production due to “family reasons.”
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Rebel Ridge’s standstill was a frustrating setback for a filmmaker who’d been gaining more and more momentum since relaunching his directorial career with the critically acclaimed Blue Ruin at Cannes in 2013. His third feature film, Green Room (2015), received equal praise, putting Saulnier alongside Jeff Nichols in terms of the next great American filmmakers. (Oddly enough, Nichols also endured lengthy misfortune en route to June’s The Bikeriders.)
After folding up shop in June 2021, the Virginia native went home to regroup, and then a glimmer of hope emerged courtesy of Saulnier’s partner, Skei. She had just watched Barry Jenkins’ miniseries, The Underground Railroad, so she threw out the name Aaron Pierre as a potential replacement for the role of Rebel Ridge’s main character, Terry Richmond. The English actor had also turned heads that summer as “Mid-Sized Sedan” in M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, so Saulnier agreed to meet with him over Zoom. While Richmond is a former Marine, Saulnier was initially worried about Pierre’s “superhero” physique, but that concern quickly faded after two minutes of small talk.
With Pierre now on board, Rebel Ridge was back in business for a spring 2022 shoot, and the third attempt at filming a largely unchanged script went swimmingly. Saulnier wrapped production in late July of that year, and considering he was still doing post-production in the spring of 2024, one can surmise that 2023’s double strike gave him a few more headaches for good measure. But after everything that transpired involving the former lead actor and an overall production process that took twice as long as intended, Saulnier can confidently say that everything — including a career-changing performance from Pierre — worked out in his and his film’s favor.
“Because we faced headwinds, [Rebel Ridge] did end up being a version of the movie that far exceeded my expectations. I’m fully at peace with it, and I love it in its current form before it’s even released. This is a first for me to have this much joy upon sharing my latest work,” Saulnier tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So I do believe that this feels like the only version of the film that was destined to happen, and I’m so grateful that the fates connected me and Aaron Pierre, and that the crew and the cast had the fortitude to stick with us. And the support from Netflix all the way through to the end was just singular. I can’t think of any other comp where [a film] actually went through all this and over-fucking-achieved.”
Rebel Ridge chronicles Terry Richmond’s (Pierre) journey into Shelby Springs where the ex-Marine intends to post bail for his cousin before he’s transferred to a dangerous state penitentiary. However, as he bikes into the fictional Louisiana small town, a cop runs him off the road. From there, another Shelby Springs police officer arrives on the scene to help confiscate his bail money, exploiting a maddening legal loophole. So Terry has no choice but to square off with the corrupt Shelby Springs Police Department and apply his unique brand of conflict resolution.
The film, which premieres Sept. 6 on Netflix, contains Saulnier’s signature tension, plenty of action and some chilling story points, but it’s a purposeful departure from the bloody mayhem of his past work.
“I needed a break. I wanted to see if I could not murder everybody in a movie of mine … I also wanted to experiment with a competent protagonist and see how I can affect the audience in a way without just using terror,” Saulnier admits with a laugh.
While Rebel Ridge was in limbo for the second half of 2021 and into 2022, Saulnier found a much-needed escape through the writing of a new script, and it sounds like a return to the graphic violence that packed such a punch in Blue Ruin, Green Room and Hold the Dark.
“I had to compartmentalize and switch gears. So I started writing a new film, and who knows if it’s going to get made, but I needed to do it for me,” Saulnier says. “I’ve certainly fallen in love with it, and it’s a little more hardcore. It’s a little more Jeremy Saulnier as far as the previous filmography. So we’ll see what’s next, but I’m hoping to make up for my filmography. I want to start to get a little more volume going.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Saulnier also discusses First Blood’s influence on Rebel Ridge, the absence of his frequent collaborator Macon Blair from the cast and his brush with Sicario: Day of the Soldado.
Not to be reductive, but Rebel Ridge really feels like your take on a modern First Blood. Did you ever define the project that specifically?
By the time I was pitching it, it was First Blood meets Michael Clayton, as far as the institutional nature of these things and the cerebral back-and-forth dialogue. I didn’t actually reference First Blood until I set up the premise and realized, “Oh, this is going to be a guy against a small-town police force, so First Blood it is.” I had to zig or zag away from First Blood or lean into that trope for fun as I became more aware. But I became most aware of my references after I finished the movie. Growing up as an ‘80s and ‘90s kid, I didn’t know that I was referencing this or that moment in the movie, but I certainly can admit it. I like to convince myself that I’m some sort of mad genius with nothing but original ideas, and then I later realize that’s not quite the case.
You mentioned your pitch, and I find that interesting because you’ve always written on spec. Was Rebel Ridge the first time you sold a pitch?
No, I only pitched it conceptually and aesthetically, but to date, I’ve only done spec writing. I like to control that process, and most importantly, I like to find the right home for it. I was cautioned early on in my career that If you take a dollar for a script, you have no control over it. So it’s all mine, and then I find the right home and let it thrive.
All three involve different degrees of frontier justice and lawlessness, but do you consider Rebel Ridge to be part of a spiritual trilogy with Blue Ruin and Green Room?
They’re certainly in the same cinematic universe. I referred to Blue Ruin the most as far as just the aesthetic and my lookbook that I created for collaborators and technicians. I don’t actively link my films together with themes. I just let myself be myself and allow for people like you to naturally make that connection. I don’t overthink it.
You were really put through the wringer on this one. In 2020, the pandemic delayed production a full year. In 2021, production was paused after a month [due to the exit of the former lead actor] until the spring of 2022. And I assume post-production was prolonged due to the labor stoppages. But based on Aaron Pierre’s star-making performance and the overall final product, it seems like everything worked out for the best. Are you far enough removed now that you can finally say that as well?
Absolutely. At this point in the process, when I’m about to launch a movie, I’m usually cowering indoors. I don’t want to be near it. “I’m too close to it, I can’t judge it. My career’s over.” This and that. I’m panicking and calling my agents. But, because we faced headwinds, for sure, it did end up being a version of the movie that far exceeded my expectations. I’m fully at peace with it, and I love it in its current form before it’s even released. This is a first for me to have this much joy upon sharing my latest work. So I do believe that this feels like the only version of the film that was destined to happen, and I’m so grateful that the fates connected me and Aaron Pierre, and that the crew and the cast had the fortitude to stick with us. And the support from Netflix all the way through to the end was just singular. I can’t think of any other comp where [a film] actually went through all this and over-fucking-achieved.
I’m grateful to Netflix for not throwing in the towel at any given point, but was there ever a time where you thought the plug was going to be pulled?
So I’m a bit of a control freak like many directors. I have a hand in every aspect of my movies, but I actually can lean back when I don’t have control. So the things that were out of my control, I let unfold and I just tried to stick with the mission, which was to get this movie across the finish line. And so I’m just grateful to be here.
Did you have to revise the script at all for round three in 2022? Did you have to account for new actors and locations?
I had to trick myself. We changed a few lines or added some exposition just to make sure, because we did not want to add reshoots. So I certainly agreed to shoot additional coverage, maybe a page and a half total, as the film evolved over three years. But my mission was to stick with the impulse of telling the story, the excitement that we had in 2019 and 2020, and just to stay in love with it. So I had to actually remove myself. I did not want to go back and tinker and tweak and overthink. I wanted to put it on a shelf, start a new script and come back to it.
I confessed to Netflix and my actors in the last three months that between 2021 and 2022, I did not read the script for a full calendar year before making it. I knew it so well; I’d written it. I just dug into each and every scene and approached it with fresh eyes and trusted that the original architecture would stay sturdy and stable for us. And then that carried over to the edit. I didn’t watch a full cut of the movie until I was about two weeks from picture-locking. I knew it so well that I didn’t need to see it. I had to focus on each scene, each sequence and see it through. And then, when I finally brought it before a friends and family screening, I watched the film for the very first time from start to finish, and I was just overjoyed. There was still some snipping to do, but I fell in love with it and it felt very safe. So the last few months have been just a joy to finish it off, see it through and get it out there to a wide audience.
Whether it was CQB in Blue Ruin or any number of acronyms in Rebel Ridge, your research remains on point. Did you write the scene first and then pinpoint the appropriate acronym to plug into it? Or did you find the acronym first and then write the scene around it?
I am big on research, and then I let it guide the narrative. So, for PACE, or whatever acronym it is, I find it, and then I see how it might apply. But that goes for all the scenes. Of course, I was not initially aware of the stifling details of the cash bail system or these lawless muni courts that have no public defenders, depriving people of constitutional rights. But you find this shit out, and it’s like, “Wow, this is super interesting.” So I let the research guide the narrative and that applied here too as far as the Marine Corps acronyms and whatnot. But once I find something that’s a really neat nugget, I will then write a whole scene around it. I knew that a conversation needed to unfold, but then I designed it around the research, which is always fun. That’s how it seems organic. I can go back and forth. I can either lead the narrative where I need this to happen here, or I can find something awesome and wrap it around that.
Terry Richmond (Pierre) is a character who insists on a low “gore score.”
(Laughs.)
He prefers “less-lethal” methods. Is this an indication that you’ve moved on from your past bloodlust?
It is not — only in that I needed a break. I wrote this in 2018, and a lot of the films that I create and stand by leave the audience with a gut punch or a feeling of dread. I didn’t set terms, like, “Well, Jeremy, you’re going to do this and here’s your body count. Your ceiling here is this and you have to check this box.” So I wanted to see if I could not murder everybody in a movie of mine, but we’ll see if our guy gets across the finish line. We don’t know. I also wanted to experiment with a competent protagonist and see how I can affect the audience in a way without just using terror. (Laughs.) And it’s weirdly addictive. When you’re in a room with people watching this film, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before as far as the vocal feedback. Certainly, it’s harrowing. There’s some really dark and deep moments, but there’s also euphoria. There’s laughing and yelling and high fiving [from the audience]. So that’s new for me, and it’s sort of addictive, so who knows?
To that point, there’s often a trope in action-thrillers where the antagonists discover who they are really up against, and as soon as the cops’ Wi-Fi connection went out, I became giddy in anticipation of that inevitable moment of revelation. You were consciously playing with that convention, right?
Oh, absolutely. I actually had to stop myself from adding a Colonel Trautman joke. (Laughs.) But just knowing that’s a trope, I leaned into that, which created some really fun tension.
Your best friend and longtime collaborator, Macon Blair, is an EP on the film, but he’s not in the film. Is this what happens after making one Chris Nolan movie?
(Laughs.) Our schedules did not align this go-round, but he was there for every step, from the script phase to getting the music cue sheet dialed in, licensing music. He’s just such an encyclopedia of knowledge. I always turn to him at every stage. He’s the first guy to watch a rough cut. He’s the first guy I go to when I need to swap out a song at the last minute: “Give me a melancholy country song right now, Macon! Send me a playlist!” (Laughs.) So he’s my best buddy, and he’s climbing up. Seeing him in Oppenheimer …. By the way, he doesn’t tell me about the jobs that he books, so my wife and I just keep seeing him in everything. It’s always a fun Where’s Waldo? moment for us.
When Aaron’s character is cuffed on the ground at the start of the movie, a hornet or wasp or some kind of flying insect lands directly in front of his face. Was that a fluke occurrence that everybody rolled with at the time?
It was a dragonfly, and I had fun in the sound mix. I insisted on doing a full pass of adding dragonfly wings sound effects. Down there in Louisiana, we got our fair share, and they just kept coming into frame. So I wanted to actually highlight them and not just have them come in and out. So, in that opening scene, you’ll see some dragonflies come in and out of frame, and I embrace that, but there’s also a tense scene on a country road. There’s a mounting sense of dread, and these dragonflies just kept crossing frame. So I used that in the sound design to amp up that heightened sense where you’re with Aaron Pierre, as Terry Richmond, who’s looking, observing and clocking the rear inside view mirrors of his truck. But I did a full pass of those, and I thank you for noticing the dragonflies.
I pointed at the screen like Leo DiCaprio when I saw the Bonneville Pictures card at the start. It’s the perfect name choice for your production company. Are you still in possession of that blue Bonneville from Blue Ruin?
My mom had to let it go. That car was gifted to us by my uncle years and years ago. And since it was a hand-me-down, I staked the claim on that one: “We’re going to destroy this for a movie, Mom. Please. Come on, Dad.” So they let us take it and weather it. I do have some nice farewell photos, but my mom — about a year after we had wrapped and premiered Blue Ruin — donated that Bonneville to charity.
You’ve always been hyperaware of where you are in your evolution as a filmmaker, and when you were promoting Hold the Dark, I remember you saying that you felt like a proper filmmaker for the first time because you incorporated some scale. [True Detective] also contributed to that. So what does Rebel Ridge represent in your evolution as a filmmaker?
I think it complements my filmography quite well. It’s a little different, but it has the same core elements. I always let my filmmaking intuition guide me instead of overthinking or injecting an actual theme or politics or whatever it is. I just like to observe and report, basically. It’s not all mustache twirling as far as the antagonists in Rebel Ridge; it’s a lot of humans. So, to ground them and to hear them out is way more interesting.
But Rebel Ridge, as far as scale, is by far my biggest production. Although I had more resources, the challenge here was that I really wanted to make it seem intimate and intentional and specific. So when I got to the editing room, I wanted to simplify it. I’m not Tony Scott. I’m not Ridley Scott. When you have a big three-camera shoot, I can’t really manage that. So I hired this amazing Colombian DP, David Gallego, to come shoot this movie because he is a true artist. I used that as an insurance policy to make sure I did not let my ambitions get the best of me.
But I do have my own secret: I’m not playing chess here, I’m playing checkers. (Laughs.) I want to keep making movies to buy myself one stinker, and then I can pull back and dig my way out of director’s jail. But I’m very happy to report that I have no fears that Rebel Ridge will do anything but help my career. So I’m excited to get it out there and show people that it’s a good time. My cast and crew, we love each other, and there is trust, but what are they going to say to me? “It’s great, Jeremy!” So I waited until they texted our stunt coordinator who’s on a job in Texas, and then he called me with their legit feedback, so I am just basking in the glow. I just showed it to the crew two nights ago, and it was one of the best nights of my life. It was amazing.
Since Rebel Ridge has been a five-year saga, I was going to ask if you were able to write anything else in between it all, but it sounds like you’re well underway on your next script.
To preserve my love and attention that this Rebel Ridge script deserved, I had to compartmentalize and switch gears. So I started writing a new film, and who knows if it’s going to get made, but I needed to do it for me. I’ve certainly fallen in love with it, and to allude to your earlier question [about bloodlust], it’s a little more hardcore. It’s a little more Jeremy Saulnier as far as the previous filmography. But it has to be organic, and I’m going to probably jump back into that after I see Rebel Ridge out into the ether. So we’ll see what’s next, but I’m hoping to make up for my filmography. I want to start to get a little more volume going. I love being on set. I love making movies, and I’m just so proud that I got to fully realize this one. It was worth it for me. But I want to get right back in there.
On the subject of roads not taken, I still wonder what Jeremy Saulnier’s Sicario: Day of the Soldado would’ve looked like. Were you actually on the verge of making that?
I was in talks, for sure, but it did not work out. Sometimes, I will go for big movies, but I always end up having a really solid backup plan, which is my original material. So the fates didn’t align on that one, but I certainly enjoyed it in the theater. It’s also very hard to follow Denis [Villeneuve], so maybe it worked out for the best.
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Rebel Ridge premieres September 6 on Netflix.
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