In today’s episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo gets in the weeds with Joel Edgerton (“Warrior,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “Thirteen Lives”). The talented writer/actor/director is promoting his latest film, “Master Gardener,” directed by the great Paul Schrader. The film acts as the third and final entry in what Schrader is now calling his “Man in a Room” trilogy, which also features “First Reformed” and “The Card Counter.” The film follows a scrupulous greenskeeper of a wealthy plantation as he tends to the needs of the grounds and a new understudy who uncovers disturbing details about the gardener’s past. The tense drama also stars Sigourney Weaver, Quintessa Swindell, and Esai Morales.
During the chat, Edgerton discussed the feeling of getting a call from director Paul Schrader to be in his latest film – particularly the end of a trilogy that started with “First Reformed.”
“I love [Paul Schrader] as a filmmaker,” Edgerton said. “In particular, the film ‘First Reformed’ made a very strong impact on me. I was living in New York when it came out. I went to the Angelika in the first week that it was playing. I’d been very buzzed about it coming out…and it delivered an even greater experience for me than I was expecting. So, to then, a few years later kind of, in the midst of COVID lockdown in Australia – to sort of get a phone call from Paul to be front and center in his next film, which was going to be part of a trilogy that started with ‘First Reformed.’ I was absolutely flattered, and I was sort of willing to dive in, and if he was going to show me the script, of course, I was going to read it, but I would have said yes.”
Edgerton also surprised “Star Wars” fans last year when he showed up as Luke Skywalker’s Uncle Owen Lars again after almost twenty years in “Obi-Wan Kenobi” for Disney+. Some may look at Edgerton’s current status as being above returning for a small supporting character, but Edgerton saw things differently.
“I thought, ‘This is a chance for me to get it right,” Edgerton shared. “Because I was twenty-five or six at the time. I had no idea what I was doing. I only had worked in the theater and done a couple of small roles in films, and I was terrified. So, the whole thing was a bit of a blur. And here I was, getting a chance to sort of say thank you to Lucasfilm and George [Lucas] and everyone there for handing me a chance to break open the doors of Hollywood. And to come back a bit more of a mature actor with a bit more confidence of knowing how I go about things…I feel more confident now. So, a reunion with Ewan [McGregor] and Hayden [Christensen] and all these guys – I was like, I shouldn’t question this at all. Even if there’s not necessarily some big meaty challenge as an actor. And I had a fantastic time, man! Just coming out of COVID. We were in L.A. and shooting in this quarry – the director there was incredible, the whole team was amazing, and it was a pleasure to be back at work, and it was a pleasure to be back at work feeling like I was also completing my own little psychological circle, in a way.”
Edgerton can next be seen in Apple TV+’s adaptation of the hit sci-fi novel, “Dark Matter,” which follows a physicist who is abducted into an alternate multiversal version of his life and attempts to return home through the other lives he could have lived. Edgerton has initially been averse to television roles, but that all changed for him during the pandemic.
“I will say about TV – for me being a film snob – I realize that post-pandemic that most of what I’ve been watching is television,” Edgerton admitted. “A lot of it is really good. The writing is really good. You get to understand a character better over a longer period of time, and if you’re an actor, you get to explore it over a longer canvas of time. And ‘Dark Matter’ I read and was so excited by the material and was thinking, ‘If you squeeze this into a film, it’s probably not going to be as good.’ We just finished shooting that – I end up playing twenty-eight different versions of the same person, so it was fascinating to do.”
And while the multiverse has been everywhere in pop culture recently thanks to superhero films, Edgerton says that “Dark Matter approaches things differently.
“I also refer to it as ‘The Multiverse for the Middle-Aged Man.’ The multiverse is a bit of a hot thing at the moment, and there are questions about the plausibility of the quantum mechanics of the multiverse, but rather than this being dressed up as superheroes and special effects heavy, it’s very much a normal guy coming up against this prospect of having his life taken away and realizing that he’s had his life taken away by someone that may be himself and how do you get back and what questions does it raise about how complacent you’ve become in your life and how you don’t know what you have until it’s been taken away from you.”
“Master Gardener” is currently in limited theaters. You can listen to the entire conversation with Joel Edgerton below.
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