The husband-and-wife filmmaking team discuss Faults, their funny, eerie deprogramming drama.
I read that this film was inspired in some way by real-life deprogrammer Ted Patrick?
Ad content continues below
Riley Stearns: Loosely.
I mean, just like deprogrammers in general.
It was inspired by that.
Ive always been fascinated by cults even as a kid.
I could say that I always watched documentaries and specials on it.
But their families just needed a way to get them out of these things, these situations.
And it lasted for 10 years or whatever.
Its like, Dude, dont they have the right to make decisions for themselves?
But then you also know that theyre not in their right mind as well.
All that stuff is so fascinating to me.
Did you interview or talk to anyone who had been through the deprogramming process at all?
Stearns: Not necessarily.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Not really.
I did a little bit of reading of books and things like that.
And Riley didnt actually know anything about Ted Patrick.
(To Stearns) Well you knew of him but you didnt know the specifics.
Stearns: I didnt read the book on specifics on how he handled deprogrammings.
Its a little stylized.
Stearns: I definitely wrote with her in mind.
Not even just in mind.
But I didnt want Mary Elizabeth herself to influence it too much.
And then for everyone else that was in the script I didnt write with anything else in mind.
I do like to have a clean slate, especially when youre in indie film.
Youre probably not going to get your first four or even your fifth choice of people.
I knew Mary was going to do it.
She very early on was reading pages and was responding to it.
Luckily with Leland, we found him and he was just like 100 percent in.
He not only fit who I saw physically and everything, but hes also an incredibly talented actor.
Winstead: Yeah it was perfect.
Is that an accurate quote?
Winstead: Its pretty accurate, yeah.
Theres even more pressure for it to be good and for it to be right.
So I was worried about that when I read it.
Im not the throw in that they would cast in this part.
So I feared that maybe that was true.
But yeah, it was the most challenging mainly because of my doubts and fears surrounding it.
Winstead: I would.
To me its not really about saying no, lets do it this way or really antagonizing the filmmaker.
I would always be by his side just helping with whatever he needs help with.
So thats something I definitely want to do.
The film has a very unpredictable and shifting tone.
Was it challenging to navigate those tones in just the right way?
Stearns: Because I wrote it I felt like I always had a good understanding of it.
And from a directorial standpoint I also never really felt like it totally changed.
Or if it changed it changed so gradually as it went along that it wasnt out of left field.
It was always a blending of tones.
But it was always fun and I felt like we understood it.
At least I felt like the actors totally got where we were going, which helped me as well.
It just felt very natural and instinctual on everybodys part in terms of the actors.
Most of the movie takes place in the one room.
How do you make the movie interesting for 90 minutes in that one drab space?
Stearns: It was very much about trying to not let things feel boring or repeat coverage.
Mary, did you and Leland rehearse any of those really long scenes?
Winstead: We usually ended up not rehearsing.
And thats fun too.
I like just sort of going with whatever the process is for each different film.
And Lelands typically that way too.
We ended up doing a lot more just talking about the characters and talking about scenes.
Stearns: Which I was involved in as well.
Winstead: Yeah, which all of us will sit down and do.
And thats typically what I like.
But we dont actually do it until were there so that were kind of saving it.
The family creative partnership is an interesting one to me.
Do you take the work home with you?
Do you try and leave it on set?
Stearns: Were pretty good about not taking it home.
Winstead: I was going to say, when youre doing this kind of movie youre just never home.
We were staying at a hotel nearby our Long Beach soundstage so that I wasnt driving far every night.
Winstead: Sleep directing.
Why am I in my underwear?
And Mary would have to talk me out of it.
So that was part of taking it home I guess.
Winstead: Thats the thing.
Instead, you go home, you sleep, you wake up, you go to work.
There is nothing to take or not take home.
Until youre done with the movie thats just your life.
And I was like, Good.
Youre like, Okay, are you ready to go to bed?
Winstead: Yeah, that was as much as we got.
Mary, let me ask you really quickly aboutThe Returned, which premiered on A&E on Monday.
Winstead: Its about this small town where people start coming back from the dead and its totally unexplained.
Theyre not zombies, theyre not ghosts.
Theyre just back, you know, the same exactly as they were when they died.
And they dont know what happened.
They have no memory of anything.
Theres kind of a foreboding sense of dread about it but you dont really know why.
There is a bigger reason for why this is all happening but its not really explained.
Faultsin in theaters and available via VOD now.
