Catching Dust’s Stuart Gat and Erin Moriarty speak morally complex characters

Erin Moriarty is a woman trapped in a relationship she doesn’t know how to escape Catching dust. He first broke out with her role in Jessica Jones Season 1 Moriarty has been on a steady rise to stardom for the better part of a decade, with other lead roles in the acclaimed Viggo Mortensen-led drama. Captain FantasticThe biographical comic thriller driven and the true story-based sports drama The miracle season. Arguably her biggest role to date is that of Annie January/Starlight in Prime Video The boysWhich is set to conclude with the in-development season 5.

in Catching dustMoriarty stars as Gena, a woman living in a deserted commune on the outskirts of West Texas with her husband, Clyde. Not allowed to travel to town, Geena longs for a life beyond their home and Clyde’s frequent suppression of her thoughts. When a couple from New York show up with their own trailer in an effort to escape their own past drama, Geena’s longing grows stronger, and the tension between her and Clyde increases.

Along with Moriarty, the ensemble Catching dust throw incl Suicide Squad Starring Jai Courtney as Clyde, stabs Ryan Corr and Archive 81 Elm Dina Shihabi. The film, which comes from writer/director Stuart Gatt in his film directorial debut, is a tense and emotional exploration of characters in love who do not know how best to deal with their feelings and how external forces can bring about positive and negative changes.

Before the release of the movie, Screen Rant Interviewed writer/director/producer Stuart Gatt and star Erin Moriarty to discuss Catching dustExplore the morally complex characters at the heart of the movie’s story, confronting taboo topics and working with Jai Courtney.

Got approached Catching dust From a unique outsider’s perspective

Screen Rant: I watched Catching dust Last night, and it’s such an emotional ride from start to finish. Stuart, I would like to turn to you first. This is your feature directorial debut, and I’m curious how you came up with the concept and the characters for this, and what about that idea made you want to make your feature directorial debut with this?

Stuart God: It’s interesting because I’m from London, and have nothing to do with Texas, let alone West Texas. I think I’m one of those people who daydreams a lot, and for some reason, I was getting these pictures of a desert, and then I started getting these pictures of a trailer in the middle of the desert, and I Started to get curious about who might live there, why they are there. Just from the first idea, I built the story. Maybe there is some subconscious pull to this world because I grew up loving cinema in the West. It’s so iconic, but it’s also hard. I have to be honest. It’s hard to really articulate why, because it’s so different from where I come from.

Erin Moriarty: That’s probably why.

Stuart Gat: Yes, exactly. I’m definitely one that’s not trying to make stories about what I grew up in, although there are teams for sure, that are personal to me that I play with Geena and Clyde, but transposed on this very different world than I know well.

Moriarty was drawn to Gatt’s exploration of “Messy” Letters

Erin, I will turn to you next. What was it about Stuart’s vision and your character that really sparked your interest in wanting to be a part of the film?

Erin Moriarty: Stuart doesn’t shy away from taboo things, and I really like that with individual characters and with plot, as a whole. I think that there are subjects that we go to the cinema, or we go to see a film, for reasons that have a lot of time escapism. But I think it is possible to have that coexist with confrontation, and I feel like we less and less have that as this paradoxical, but coexistence, set of traits in a film. I think that Geena, on a micro level, exemplified that. I’ve talked a lot about scripts like Catching Dust and roles that I’ve been so lucky to play – because I didn’t write them, right?

I’m not the writer behind the characters, I can bring them to life, and I’m lucky. They are messy, and I love the concept of this, hopefully, new female character presence in our world that entails mess, which is of equal honesty. That the mess is equivalent to her strength, but it does not evaluate her strength. Actually, she’s stronger because of the precursor to the mess that she is, and we’re all ultimately a mess, but it always felt black and white. to me It felt like it was Captain Marvel or the love interest. I love the hybrid roles, so, yeah, defying stereotypes and all those things are exactly what drew me to it.

Balancing empathy with confrontation in Catching dusts story was a challenge for Gat

Stuart, I really wanted to touch on that because, as Erin said, we don’t see something like the story is told too often, as far as the domestic toxicity that’s in the film. What is it like to explore that from both a compassionate point of view where we want to see the characters grow in their relationships, but also a sensitive one, because many people are in these relationships in real life and may feel insecure about how the characters act ?

Stuart Gat: Yes, of course. I think that, as a writer, you’re always challenging yourself to find humanity in each character, right? If a character becomes negative, he becomes reductive, and he does not become real. Everyone is human, no matter how barbaric they may behave. So, I think that was the challenge of trying to develop and explore that in the script, but then working with talent like Erin and Jay, who understood that was part of their challenge. They bring so much to it, because I think if you just look at paper, you can try to understand humanity, but they have an important job to help try and humanize the nuances of this, as you say, quite sensitive subject. And I think that they did it brilliantly, they got the balance of it perfectly.

I think that when you see Erin and Jay in the film, and watching it on set, you always kind of fear, “Will one character come across as just a straight victim? They walk that line so perfectly, I think until the At the end of the story, we really understand the motivations and how they accepted certain things, and how they got to that place, and the dynamic they created on set was incredible. I think that what they did, performance wise, Was just so brilliant they couldn’t have revealed the nuances around this topic more perfectly.

Erin Moriarty: It was so special. It doesn’t happen that often, but you need to feel comfortable around each other, and we felt so comfortable around each other. When we started filming, we were such good friends, and that makes such a difference. But also, it’s interesting, because you said toxicity, and there is toxicity. It’s so present, but it’s so funny how I just feel like we don’t like to associate toxicity with the fact that the magnitude of the toxicity is usually due to how strong the love was to begin with, right?

That’s why it happened to begin with, because they had this intense love, and there are people who aren’t perfect and don’t know how to handle it, and it’s heartwarming because of that. But I think it’s funny, because when we were making it, the emotional component of it, and even watching it, knowing what Clyde was going through, I knew that Jay was doing a brilliant job, because my heart was breaking for him. , and he was simultaneously my suppressor. This is exactly what we set out to accomplish, the very complex dynamics that you can’t put in a box that you desperately want to.

God saw Clyde in Jai Courtney the second he met him

Stuart, I’ll get back to you next because I wanted to ask about casting Jai. He’s been an action hero of sorts for so long, and I think this is one of my favorite performances of his so far. He really shows, as you say, the barbaric side, but also, as Erin said, the really kind and caring side. So what went into finding Jai to play this role?

Erin Moriarty: Oh, yeah, I’m curious, I don’t know the story. He reminds me so much of Josh Brolin when I watched it.

Stuart God: Yeah, so when the script came out, the casting director said, “Look, Jay’s agent introduced him, they want to do a meeting.” And I was like, “Wow, this guy’s huge stuff.” I didn’t think I would be able to get such a joy, and as soon as I talked to him, within a few minutes of connecting with him, I could see it. Jay is such a personable person, such a unique character, and he is very intelligent. You see him playing the kind of big, brutal roles, but Jay is very smart, and as he talked about the character, he understood that dichotomy, what it would take to show the nuance of that.

Because Clyde, like all the characters in the story, is dealing with some childhood trauma, and he is the one who is really exposed to the worst parts of it. So, within a couple of minutes, I remember — because I’m in London, and we had a zoom call — as soon as I saw him, I was like, “Wow, that’s Clyde.” Just visually, his energy. So when he spoke with the nuance he did, I knew it was him, same with Erin. As soon as I had the meeting with Erin, I was like, “This is Geena.” You just get a feeling. It’s so hard to describe sometimes, and you have to trust your instincts. And, I think, honestly – I’m not just saying it because it’s my film – I really think it’s Jai’s best performance, he’s incredible.

Erin Moriarty: He’s amazing, I think he’s amazing. But it’s funny, because when I first met him, I felt the same way. I thought he was exactly what I expected him to be, and yet, so not at the same time. This dichotomy and contradictory person who is strong, but goofy and has an immense amount of soul, and within three minutes of meeting him, I thought, “I’ll be fine. Just minimum, I’ll be taken care of.” And that’s what you need on a film like this, because it’s so sensitive. And we’re all goofballs, as well, because it’s a dark film, and you need levity, as well.

Yes, I couldn’t agree more. Even throwing the water scene around felt like a nice little respite from some of the darkness.

Erin Moriarty: Oh wait. Remember that day when I was like, “Stop throwing it away!”? [Laughs]

Stuart Gatt: It’s funny, because even like the reprieve throughout the film, there’s still a bit of dark music, I could have left it to Hollywood. [Laughs]

Erin Moriarty: Also, it’s the darker moments where you find yourself laughing the hardest in between, because you need to. It’s like a human coping mechanism.

Moriarty found a unique emotional link to Geena through her art

I also wanted to ask, Erin, as someone who I personally have no drawing or painting skills, I know how challenging this can be. This is so ingrained in Geena’s character and finding a way to escape from the isolated world she is in.

Erin Moriarty: I definitely practice to try and make it feel as authentic as it can feel. But I didn’t draw the drawings. I didn’t show them. I must say that my way in the character’s gravitational pull to the hobby and that catharsis, I had to find out what the emotional meaning of it was for her. That was the most important part for me, because there are so many characters that we get, and we don’t know how to – like, I played a character once, and I had to know how to ride a Harley-Davidson. I don’t know how to do it, but what it means to the character, so what it means to Geena is cathartic.

She is stressed, and so she is able to subconsciously, and then consciously, let her suppressed inner thoughts and soul come out on the page, and so it was a matter of learning how to see it accurately on the screen, because this is a Great love. Of mine, when people do things in a way that [isn’t accurate]. I like to take a granular approach, and I think you do too. We want it to look as real as possible, of course, so I wanted to do that. I cannot take credit, because the drawings were beautiful, and they were not drawn by me. I was able to copy them, but it was about finding out what those behind the pull to – no pun intended – pull. The ones that were very emotionally rooted in some real foreshadowing, actually.

Stuart Gatt: I will say, though, when everyone first came on set, we were practicing, do you remember the paintings you did? They are actually really good.

Erin Moriarty: I do, yes, and it’s funny. I think it’s because, through Geena, I felt so much that I could have been able to do something through her, that I couldn’t have done like Erin. But that’s what’s cool about acting. You access the parts of yourself that you don’t know are there, and maybe they won’t come back. And I don’t suspect that, because it means that I entered her at that moment. But yeah, it was about what it meant to her, and the gravity of what it meant to her, and then why she makes that connection and why it really opens her eyes. It seems like a small thing, but it means so much to someone in her position.

About Catching dust

Geena finally decides to leave her criminal husband, Clyde, and their isolated Texas hideout when a couple from New York suddenly arrives, looking for respite from the city. Ignoring the danger their presence may bring, Geena convinces Clyde to let them stay, a decision with dangerous consequences.

Catching dust is now in select theaters and on VOD.

Source: Screen Rant Plus