The thing is, though, she’s not new to Hollywood.
In fact, she’s been acting for more than 70 years.
JUNE SQUIBB:They tried that on me too!
June Squibb and Fred Hechinger in ‘Thelma’.Courtesy of Sundance Institute/photo by David Bolen
But I don’t have any grandchildren, so I knew it was a scam.
JOSH MARGOLIN:That is your secret weapon… [Laughs]
SQUIBB:…not having grandchildren.
[Laughs]
But that just frustrates me so much, how they prey on older people.
Richard Roundtree and June Squibb in ‘Thelma’.Courtesy of Sundance Institute; photo by David Bolen
Josh, I know this is inspired by your own grandma’s real-life experience.
MARGOLIN:Fortunately, it was largely a nugget.
It was basically the same exact scam that we do in the movie.
And she somehow convinced my parents that it was happening and everybody got into this chaotic state.
Luckily they were able to call my girlfriend and tell her I was in jail.
And she said, “No, he’s here, he’s next to me.”
Fortunately, it was a great way to stop that in its tracks.
But she was getting her money together.
At what point did you decide you wanted to turn that into a movie?
MARGOLIN:I think it was probably in the months following that.
And, obviously she still was, but it was upsetting to see her duped in that way.
SQUIBB:No, I wasn’t.
Because I just look at the script and I love the script and I understood the script.
It wasn’t that I had the ponder over it, I understood it.
So no, I never thought in terms of the size of the role, but I never do.
Josh, were you on a mission to get this in June’s hands?
MARGOLIN:Ialwayshad imagined June for the part.
Ever since I started writing it, I was imagining my grandma and I was imagining June.
And I said, “That’s exactly the plan.
That’s what I want to do.”
And then we started putting the pieces together.
June, you mentioned the script and how important that is.
So much of this story is about not counting people out of the game just because of age.
Well, this is not just your first lead role, but it’s also an action role.
Were you already a fan of those?
I’ve seen a lot of action.
[Laughs] I felt well-versed in that genre.
[Laughs] I had a ball driving that.
MARGOLIN:June was driving that thing a lot of the time.
SQUIBB:And Richard was sitting there tall and proud behind me.
[Laughs]
I love that so much.
Using the hearing aids and the phone app was so smart.
I’m curious the things that you were really excited to play around with?
SQUIBB:Well, I loved the idea of the stunts!
I was eager to do my own stunts.
They were so worried about me, physically, and we had just gotten on the scooter.
This was a fairly new one and they said, “Just tap his scooter.
Don’t attempt to do too much, we’ll fix it.”
But I decided, oh, what the hell?
So I powwed into him like that and they were all, “Oh!
[Laughs] But they got it.
They got the shot of me hitting the scooter and then I just zoomed right off.
MARGOLIN:I don’t think I knew that was a decision until just now.
I thought you got stuck on the throttle.
SQUIBB:No, no, no.
I thought, well, let’s just do this.
If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it.
MARGOLIN:It looked great.
You have a wonderful cast surrounding you here Parker Posey, Clark Gregg.
And I love the relationship with Fred.
SQUIBB:It was wonderful.
One of the first things we shot together was the graveyard scene, which was kind of early on.
But that helped a lot because it was just he and I sitting there talking.
And Fred and I have become really good friends.
When he comes to L.A. he comes over for lunch or dinner or something.
What memories will you take with you working with him?
It was so wonderful working with him, just he and I in a lot of those scenes together…
He brought me flowers on my birthday.
MARGOLIN:He was the best.
There were definitely days on set where it felt like an an embarrassment of riches.
I knew I was in good hands.
Tell me about getting to explore that aspect of Thelma.
And you don’t get that in a lot of films.
When you read a film, you think, well, I will bring that to it.
I know this and I will bring that.
But this, Josh gave it to me it was there in the script, and that was wonderful.
He really lets everybody see who this woman is, and that’s so important.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
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