The Thicket Cast & Director On Bringing This Western To Life

The Thicket cast and director discuss what it takes to make a unique Western, as this movie is like nothing we have seen before.

Based on the book of the same name, The Thicket follows fierce bounty hunter Reginald Jones (Peter Dinklage). He is recruited by a desperate man to track down a ruthless killer known only as Cutthroat Bill (Juliette Lewis).

A band of unlikely heroes comes together, including a grave-digging ex-slave and a street-smart woman-for-hire.  Together they embark on a perilous quest to track down Cutthroat Bill that leads them into the deadly “no-man’s-land” known as…The Thicket.

We spoke with the cast and director of The Thicket to discuss bringing this unique Western to life. Peter Dinklage was attached to the project for eleven years before finally being able to bring it to the screen this year.

Bringing The Thicket To Life

Tessa Smith: Peter, you’ve been attached to this project for a long time now. What is it like to finally have it out there?

Peter Dinklage: Yeah, it always feels a bit surreal. Sometimes there are days when you wonder if it will ever be made, and then you just have to persevere and keep going. There’s a history behind every film we watch in terms of the amount of time it takes, the money you need to raise. They cost of the talent and their schedules. It’s all really about timing. Covid locked us down for a couple years there, like everybody else that went through that, but you just got to persevere. And it works out because you get somebody like Juliette Lewis as your co-lead, and that’s everything.

Tessa Smith: You guys are phenomenal in this together. Juliette, for you, what was it that made you want to be a part of The Thicket?

Juliette Lewis: Oh, my goodness, I was just in my little mountain home dreaming of being in the movies again. So that, for starters, and then we had a great conversation, Peter and I and the director, Elliott Lester, and this was really a dream part. There was something I had thought about a part a long time ago. Wasn’t quite this, but had the ingredients of, and so when it came my way, it felt like a manifestation. And my dad, who’s a character actor, comes from westerns. He was best known for playing a villain in High Plains Drifter. So I felt very much like my father’s daughter, and I was sort of honoring this legacy. Women in Westerns aren’t villains. So this was a real chance to showcase something I never had before.

Tessa Smith: What was it about The Thicket that made you all want to be a part of it?

Leslie Grace: I was just really excited to shoot a movie, and be a part of a movie like this. I mean, it’s a no brainer. This entire ensemble cast is incredible at what they do. I was so lucky to get to know them in the process of shooting. Everyone that’s a part of this film loves what they do. I think we all signed up for not only the story, but the experience of working with each other. I felt so blessed to work with these two, Gbenga and Levon closely, and bond with them over that time. And then also, just to see like vets do what they do best. Juliette is one of my favorites in film. Peter goes without saying. Everybody in this film is just amazing. So it was really cool to be a part of it.

Levon Hawke: What got me really excited about it is that I think there’s this thing that we all fall into of thinking about olden times, that everyone was a killer and everyone was a complete badass. And what I loved about this story is that my character, Jack Parker, really doesn’t want to take lives, and actually isn’t a vicious human being. This kind of world bears down on him, but he really resisted the whole film, and one highlight for him is he manages to get through this whole story without taking a life. And what got me really excited about it was just getting to find some sensitivity in a western which is, I think, an image of masculinity that’s completely shied away from.

Gbenga Akinnagbe: I’m going to push back a little bit because arguably, Jack took all the lives. Arguably, Jack massacred everybody. But it’s this hero’s journey in the most simplest form. You have a guy on a mission who gets other folks who are kind of wandering in the West, trying to survive, and then puts in front of them this mission that they have a choice to take or not to take. And then we do, and then it’s just, it’s a train ride the rest of the way.

Tessa Smith: Can you talk about the change you made from the book, making Bill a woman.

Director Elliott Lester: It was a condition of me doing the movie. I was given the script by a producer called Shannon Golding. Shannon gave me the script. I said, I have two requisites. I said, one, we’re going to make this villain a woman, and I have to meet Peter Dinklage in the next few days. Both happened.

Be sure to watch the full interview with Peter Dinklage, Juliette Lewis, Levon Hawke, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Leslie Grace, and Director Elliott Lester in order to learn more about bringing this film to life, and the behind the scenes of The Thicket, which hits theaters on September 6th.

NEXT: Sasha Lane Weighs In On Cut Twisters Kiss

About The Thicket

When fierce bounty hunter Reginald Jones (Peter Dinklage) is recruited by a desperate man to track down a ruthless killer known only as Cutthroat Bill (Juliette Lewis), he rallies a band of unlikely heroes including a grave-digging ex-slave and a street-smart woman-for-hire.  Together they embark on a perilous quest to track down Cutthroat Bill that leads them into the deadly “no-man’s-land” known as…The Thicket.

A film about vengeance, justice, and unlikely companionship, THE THICKET also stars Esmé Creed-Miles (Hanna), Levon Hawke (Blink Twice), Macon Blair (I Care A Lot), Andrew Schulz (You People), James Hetfield (Metallica), David Midthunder (On Sacred Ground), with Arliss Howard (Mank), with Leslie Grace (In The Heights), and Gbenga Akinnagbe (The Old Man).

The Thicket comes to theaters September 6th.