In Cal McMau’s Wasteman, Taylor (David Jonsson) has been in prison for more than a decade and is surprised to learn that he is now eligible for early release, which will provide him the opportunity to get to know his fourteen-year-old son. But the arrival of a new cellmate, Dee (Tom Blyth), who doesn’t have any ideas of getting out anytime soon and seeks to make his dominance known, threatens that promising feature.
Awards Buzz spoke with Jonsson and Blyth about how these characters feel like near-opposites to the roles they recently played in The Long Walk and Plainclothes, respectively. Blyth expressed:
“I hadn’t even thought about that. It’s so true. The level of confidence of each of our characters. We’ve spoken about this at length – you’re never looking just to strategize too much or to find differentiation just for the sake of it. But you are just looking for new pastures to graze in. Oh, I’ve eaten that piece of grass over there. What can I try next? I don’t know why I’m in cow metaphors now, but anyway. What we get to do, and we’re so lucky to do it, is just to try and walk in the shoes of other people. The best actors and the actors that we both look up to are the ones that are always curious about what new shoes they haven’t tried and we get to try and do that.”
Jonsson echoed that sentiment:
“Yeah, it’s exactly that. You try not to be too tactical. It’s not for the sake of being tricksy. That’s boring. It’s trying to find new things and hopefully serve in other ways that you haven’t before.”
Watch the video above to hear about the physical impact of the filming space and what’s next for them.
Wasteman opens in theaters on Friday, April 17th.
