ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
It's a simple setup for a movie. Small-town girl falls for a charming con man who's just swept into town. Caroline is played by Australian actress Samara Weaving. Oliver is played by Kyle Gallner, and in "Carolina Caroline," the pair cross the South pulling increasingly ambitious scams, forcing Caroline to confront who she really is and the cost of the freedom she's been chasing.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CAROLINA CAROLINE")
SAMARA WEAVING: (As Caroline Daniels) How you know if we're good people pretending to be bad or bad ones pretending to be good?
When I read that, I was just going, bad people don't ask that. She's proving to me, at least, that she's good.
NADWORNY: I asked Samara Weaving, what makes the con man Oliver so appealing to Caroline?
WEAVING: He's just so mysterious, you know? She's in this small town. She kind of knows everyone. Not many people come through, and if they do, they're probably not some, like, Canadian tuxedoed, devil-may-care, handsome guy. So, you know, like, there's that immediate sort of attraction, and then he sort of rips off her boss.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CAROLINA CAROLINE")
WEAVING: (As Caroline Daniels) Excuse me, sir. I saw what you did in there. You got a twenty for a ten and 10 ones, but half of that money belonged to the store.
KYLE GALLNER: (As Oliver) That's right.
WEAVING: (As Caroline Daniels) You walked out the store with money that ain't yours.
GALLNER: (As Oliver) What's your name?
WEAVING: (As Caroline Daniels) Caroline.
NADWORNY: OK. So when they meet, Caroline tells him that all she wants to do is get to South Carolina.
WEAVING: Yeah. Big dreams.
(LAUGHTER)
NADWORNY: Big dreams. Yeah.
WEAVING: It's so endearing that scene, that, like, she wants to travel, and he's like, OK, where? And she's just going, oh, one state over. It's so cute (laughter). Yeah, I mean, I think for Caroline, there's a few things. I think there's, like, where does she come from? Who's her mother? Like, this mysterious woman who she's never really talked about with her dad - but has got this, like, longing to know who her mother is. And she knows she's in South Carolina, and that's kind of all she knows. And then I think on a larger, like, more philosophical sense, she's wondering, like, is she like her mom?
NADWORNY: Caroline and Oliver fall in love. They drive across America. They carry on different cons to get by. Who is in power in the relationship?
WEAVING: I think that's what's quite interesting, is that you assume it's him, and I think when I was reading it, I got nervous that he would be, like, the bad influence that would get her in trouble. But she's the one kind of pushing them along. She's the one that's encouraging this bad behavior. And I think in another actor's hands, it could have very easily been an ego-driven performance by Oliver. But what Kyle brings is this, like, immediate sense of, I love this woman so much, and I'm willing to do anything for her.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CAROLINA CAROLINE")
GALLNER: (As Oliver) I had this job once. Hated it. And then one day, I was sitting outside on my break in the alley, and I see these birds perched on the telephone wire. I think to myself, these birds can fly anywhere in the world, so why do they always seem to stay in the same place? And I asked myself that same question.
WEAVING: What he did was so wonderful because another male actor could have made him quite unlikable. I think it would have been easy to be like, I'm the macho guy. I'm the leader. Like, but instead, Kyle was like, no, I'm just following you. I'm just letting you lead.
NADWORNY: I want to play a scene from the film. Caroline and Oliver have graduated from these small cons to robbing banks. Your character is basically doing all the work.
WEAVING: (Laughter).
NADWORNY: Let's listen to it a little bit.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CAROLINA CAROLINE")
GALLNER: (As Oliver) It's just like you imagine. You're going to walk in with your gun in the air, and you're going to yell.
WEAVING: (As Caroline Daniels) Everybody stay calm. This is a robbery. All right. I need you to fill this up, and pass it real quick.
GALLNER: (As Oliver) You have two jobs. Crowd control...
WEAVING: (As Caroline Daniels) Get down. I said, get down.
GALLNER: (As Oliver) And cattle prodding.
NADWORNY: I mean, what was that like for you?
WEAVING: Do you know what was wild was that we were shooting in these, like, actual small-town banks, and the owners and managers of the bank wanted to be in the movie. So they were essentially living their worst nightmare.
NADWORNY: What?
WEAVING: I know. But you know what? It was sort of like - I think, as an actor, you - it's so fun because you get to pretend to do these, like, insane things that you would never do in a million years, you know, because you get to live out this, like, weird fantasy that I didn't even know I had...
NADWORNY: Yeah.
WEAVING: ...In the safety of being able to go home at the end of the day and suffer no - none of the consequences (laughter).
NADWORNY: OK, but how did you nail the accent? Did you have, like, a favorite phrase?
WEAVING: Well, in that accent, they turned their like Es into I's, you know?
NADWORNY: (Laughter).
WEAVING: So instead of ten, it's (impersonating Southern accent) ten.
And then there was, like, one sentence that - Kyle's face when I said it, and I think it was like, (impersonating Southern accent) what, like, my dream?
And he just was like, that is the best. The accent and the outfits were like what kind of unlocked that character for me, 'cause you can kind of get away with doing anything with that accent. It's so charming.
NADWORNY: (Laughter).
WEAVING: You know? If it was, like, my Australian accent, they'd be like, lock her up, you know what I mean?
(LAUGHTER)
WEAVING: But she's going, oh, I'm sorry, and you're like, oh, cute (laughter).
NADWORNY: You know, you've starred in a number of horror films - "The Babysitter," "Ready Or Not," the "Scream" movie. This role feels really different.
WEAVING: Yeah.
NADWORNY: Did you approach it in the same way, or, like, how was it different for you?
WEAVING: I always sort of seem to come back to horror, which is great. I love the genre, but I do like when I play people that aren't covered in blood and screaming (laughter). So this was really fun. It just felt like such a classic love story with a little bit of crime thriller in it, and I hadn't done that before. I hadn't been, like, a lead of a romance, and I wanted to see if I could pull it off, which was challenging in its own way and depended so much on the chemistry with Kyle. And I feel like we got so lucky that we got along so well, and the camera picked up on that element. It's hard to manufacture chemistry, you know? It was really nice not to be running for my life for months.
NADWORNY: Do you have things you do like about being a scream queen, though?
WEAVING: Yeah, I think it's great. I mean...
NADWORNY: (Laughter).
WEAVING: ...Who doesn't want to be a queen? That sounds lovely.
(LAUGHTER)
WEAVING: Yeah. It was funny that both Kyle and I kind of have this reputation of being, like, scream queen and scream king. And then I imagined all these horror fans coming to the movie, and then, like, super disappointed when (laughter) it was like, totally the opposite.
NADWORNY: Samara Weaving stars in "Carolina Caroline," which is in theaters now. Thanks so much for being with us.
WEAVING: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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