It’s a familiar setup: a young woman, Caroline, drifts through a directionless small-town existence while hoping to one day find her estranged mother, played by Kyra Sedgwick. In Adam Carter Rehmeier’s “Carolina Caroline,” that restless search soon collides with Oliver, a like-minded traveler with a knack for a specific kind of money-exchanging con. As the two form a fast connection, Caroline’s quest moves from small-time hustles into more dangerous territory, with her pursuit of the thing she wants most taking a shape she never expected.
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A small-scale “Bonnie and Clyde” story set against the backdrop of the American Southeast, “Carolina Caroline” works as a road movie, romance, and pressure-cooker crime story, all anchored by the chemistry between Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner. Rehmeier, who previously directed “Dinner in America,” also with Gallner in the lead, brings similar care to a story that balances loose, sunburned charm with sudden shifts into violence and heartbreak.
The Playlist’s Brian Farvour spoke with Weaving and Gallner about trusting Tom Dean’s screenplay, shooting on location, trying to understand the film’s central con, and the quarry day they still remember.
How did you get into or formulate these characters? Kyle, you’ve worked with Adam before. Did you create backstories for these roles?
Weaving: For me, it was the script. Tom just did such an incredible job, and then the accent really unlocked a lot for me. I realized people quickly get away with doing a lot if you sound like that! And the wardrobe really helped. When you meet Caroline, she’s got denim cut-offs, a cute T-shirt, and a flannel, and then when she’s doing the more dangerous things, she’s got red leather and a black wig, and that really helped inform it. But honestly, once I had prepped with my drama coach and gotten the words off the page, it was such a well-written script that I really just got to play and trust and live in that space. It made my job very easy!
Gallner: It’s kind of a crapshoot, who you end up with, you know? I love Adam to death, so I trust him completely as a director, and there’s a huge thing there. I’m already tight with half the crew because Adam works with the same people, so there’s already a safety net and comfort level going on there. And then meeting Sam, I was already a fan of Sam before coming in, and then you meet, and you’re like, “Oh, thank God, I get along with this person. Wow, we work pretty similarly.” When you’re able to show up and play, and you have a good script, and you’re not having to do the guesswork because most of it is already in the script, you can really just come and have fun and do your job. That was really what this was because everything was already so dialed in. We didn’t have to make anything up, do any guesswork, or waste time figuring things out. We were like, “Let’s just try a million things and have fun.”
With the location, how much did that influence you? Did that play a role, too?
Weaving: I think shooting on location is tough when it’s hard, but this was really fun because it felt like summer camp. If you shoot in L.A., you go home to your realities, and you don’t really get to hang out, so this was really fun. We all have to really get to know each other, get along, and be silly!
Gallner: We’re jumping off the quarry into the water, we’re driving the cars, we’re in these motels, we’re in the restaurants in the small town, so it just feels so much different. You can do a replica of that apartment on a stage, but being able to be in the apartment, and you hear the cars outside, and the windows actually let light in, and you’re really there, it just feels different. So, when you get to make a movie like this, where everything is on location, you really are kind of on your own mini-adventure. It’s just fun.
Weaving: Hanging on street stoops and stairwells…
Gallner: Yeah, waiting for them to set the camera…
Weaving: Those bars were mental! And all these bikes would just be there…
Gallner: It smells like cigarettes, and there is, “Wow, there’s old beer on the floor,” and it makes it all feel really alive.
The thing I noticed, right out of the gate, is that they’re meeting for the first time when Caroline observes that first con Oliver is doing. I’m curious, speaking of the con, I’d never heard of that. How did you understand it?
Gallner: We don’t really understand it! It is real. It works best at bars and stuff, where the cashier is distracted. It is real!
Weaving: It is real. I don’t get it! You can look it up on YouTube, and they will explain it, but it’s in one ear and out the other!
The transition from that con to the bank robbery is such a pivotal twist, and it speaks to the film’s momentum. Then you get hit with a scene like Caroline meeting her mother. That was riveting and incredibly emotional. How did that come together?
Weaving: Kyra just came in like a wrecking ball, hopped on the mic, and left! She was so prepared!
It was like this. Adam shoots in chronological order, so I had reached an emotional place where I was very curious about how that scene would unfold. I love that I didn’t really meet Kyra before. I would have realized how lovely she is! So, I was getting to know her that day, but she was so in it that it felt like a front-row seat to the best play in town. It really was like a one-woman show. She just came into this incredible monologue. I just had to react. I really didn’t have to do much. She just made that character so cutting, painful, heartbreaking, mean, and gritty. And then what was great was that every scene afterward was also in chronological order, and it helped inform how I was going to play the rest of the movie. Stunning work from her.
I didn’t know the whole movie was filmed in chronological order.
Gallner: Adam likes to do that because it takes the guesswork out of it. The first time Oliver and Caroline meet is Day One, and that way, you know a scene that’s as important as that. Anything that happens after that, you don’t have to guess because you’re doing it before you see it. So, he likes to shoot as orderly as he can.
What is something that both of you brought to this that almost didn’t work, but ended up making it across the finish line? What’s something that you brought to your characters as you were going along?
Weaving: I think, not that this is really answering that, but what was cool was that the ending was slightly different. Adam, Tom, and both of us realized that this was such a great love story, and that we had lightning in a bottle, that we had such good chemistry, that we all sat down and rewrote the final scene. We made it really about them and their love for each other and their journey. There was a slightly…I don’t want to spoil anything, but I think that shows how what everyone did and what everyone brought actually changed the story somewhat.
So, this really was a team effort.
Weaving: Tom Dean has full credit for the incredible script, and the fact that he was watching the dailies and open to our idea of maybe altering some things made it a great team to be a part of and so collaborative.
What’s a day on set that you’ll never forget? Something that maybe happened unexpectedly. There’s got to be something.
Weaving: The quarry was a fun day, really warm. We just ended up swimming around, and…
Gallner: It was funny. Usually, those water scenes and stuff are a nightmare, and you’re dreading cold, but it was such a warm summer night, and it was all lit up, and it was cool. It was a sweet day. How often do you get to do something like this?
Weaving: It was just us flirting, and so it was just us swimming around. There were no high stakes.
As you were preparing for the shoot, what was your first instinct about your roles that maybe ended up being wrong? Did anything not quite hit the target, and then take you in a different direction?
Weaving: I think, again, it was all on the page. So, for me, anyway, I just had to show up and know my lines, and the rest was trusting Kyle, trusting Adam, and letting the words do the work.
Gallner: Yeah, I agree. I think it’s always like, I come with 500 ideas that are just dumb, or wrong ideas, or whatever, initially, and then you get there, and you’re like, “I don’t even know why I have these.” I always show up with too much stuff, and then you show up and start doing it, and all that disappears immediately.
What’s something that you didn’t expect you’d take away from this?
Weaving: Kyle stole an ashtray for me. Didn’t expect that!
Gallner: Didn’t expect to be a thief! A big, fancy ashtray from a hotel!
Well, never get rid of that.
This interview has been edited for clarity. “Carolina Caroline” is in theaters June 5.
