Move over, The Power of the Dog. There's a new boundary-breaking western in town.
Gabe Polsky's Butcher's Crossing, based on the 1960 novel by John Edward Williams, follows a young Harvard drop-out, Will Andrews (Fred Hechinger), who joins a group of buffalo hunters, led by Miller (Nicolas Cage), on a life-changing expedition. As the journey continues, the team finds themselves at the crossroads of humanity, ambition, and nature.
The movie had its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9 to critical acclaim, landing at 71% on Rotten Tomatoes (with 14 reviews). At the festival, Game Rant had the opportunity to chat with lead actor Fred Hechinger, previously seen in Eighth Grade, The Woman in the Window, Netflix's Fear Street trilogy, and The White Lotus.
This wasn't Hechinger's first trip to TIFF - he recalls that he attended six years ago. "My dad and I were here for two days and we saw as many movies as we could. I went to a 9:00 A.M. screening of Moonlight. It was one of those amazing life-changing movie experiences."
It became a full circle moment for the actor who recounts, "Years later, I had the honor of working with Barry [Jenkins] in an episode of his limited series Underground Railroad, and while I was preparing for that and doing research, I stumbled upon this novel, Butcher's Crossing by John Williams, and became totally fascinated by the material."
Game Rant: How was the premiere for Butcher's Crossing? Were there any standout audience reactions or Q&A questions?
Fred Hechinger: Yeah, we got really good questions. I think the experience of watching [movies] on a big screen with an audience is so major, in terms of being able to process and share it. It falls out of my hands and becomes what it is. It was really cool to see it and the Q&A was really fun. I felt that we were able to talk about the most meaningful part of making this film, which was our collaboration with Blackfeet Nation and their immense kindness.
GR: Can you share more about the collaboration?
Hechinger: It is such a deep form of respect and kindness that it's impossible to articulate it. It was the farthest thing from something that Blackfeet Nation needed to do because of the disregard for their people in history, but they were still willing to be open with us. It's just still unbelievable.
GR: What was the research process like for this role?
Hechinger: I got to researching in two very different ways. Before we started filming the movie, I went over to New England and Concord, Boston to talk with professors of the time period and study the transcendentalist movement, which inspires my character Will Andrews to leave Boston and go out West. I got visit Ralph Waldo Emerson's actual home and his relatives very graciously showed me around and spoke of family stories and shared his beliefs.
I got to submerge myself in that time period and the confusion and listlessness between different modes of thought concerning religious beliefs and the transcendentalist movement, and the way those battled one another and also connected. Then, when I finally got to Montana, the gist of the learning was physical.
GR: What was that like? Have you ever ridden a horse?
Hechinger: I was in a western called News of the World and I had always wanted to learn to ride a horse, so I learned beforehand. Then, once I got on set and started thinking more about the character and talking with the director, we both realized that, due to the status of my character, he wouldn't ride a horse. So, I learned, but it was no longer for the character, just for me.
When this opportunity came around, I had some teachings that were still there, and then I got to dig in much deeper in terms of being able to ride and ride faster, and having a relationship with the horse. A guy named Chad and his amazing co-workers and friends from Montana taught me how to ride my horse, who was named Barney. He is an amazing horse. That feeling of trust is one of the essential parts. You have to really trust each other, you know?
GR: I would love to shift to your character's internal conflict in the movie. How would you describe your character's journey?
Hechinger: It's hard. There's an intentional murkiness and emptiness to what Will Andrews is after. He wants something unethical, which occasionally could be described as a sense of belonging, but he's so inarticulate in terms of what his mission is that he invests hope in the wrong person. The man that he's decided is his hero is, in fact, a brutal, selfish, and disturbing individual named Miller.
I'm interested in that idea of thinking. I find that life can be confusing enough and we end up in places that we didn't expect. There can be a beauty to that, of course, sometimes you spontaneously magically find wonderful people and feel like you're in the place you're supposed to be, but sometimes that naïveté leads to something darker, which I think is in the case of this story. Will becomes trapped with these men, and he's after this vague notion of masculinity and purpose which ends up being a disguise for violence and senseless bloodshed.
Miller, who is performed by Nicolas Cage, is written with an initial mystery. There's carefulness and a lot of intention there. A first, Miller appears to be this mysterious and wise figure. He seems original and exciting in his confidence. But he's really desperate. In a lot of ways, he is the personification of the myth of manifest destiny, this sort of idea that you can take, take, take, and that if you can figure out how to hurt someone, then you deserve to, which is a real lie. It's a lie that a lot of our power structures are based upon in this country.
GR: Definitely. It's still a timely story, all these years later.
Hechinger: I think there's something important about recognizing an individual's responsibility, even if they're young or if they don't know what they're doing. Who you decide to be with and what you decide to do with your life matters. And there is a choice in that.
GR: Do you feel that's the main takeaway of the movie?
Hechinger: Maybe. It's hard to give a precise takeaway because I think it's this push and pull between lessons and also the pure emotion and regret. But that's definitely one takeaway that I think about.
Butcher's Crossing has been acquired by Saban Films for theatrical distribution.