Joel Edgerton Always Has This in His Pocket, And Now So Does His ‘Train Dreams’ Director

Summary

• At TIFF 2025, Collider’s Perri Nemiroff spoke with Train Dreams writer-director Clint Bentley and stars Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, William H. Macy, and Kerry Condon.
• Based on the Denis Johnson novel, Edgerton is logger and railroad worker Robert Grainier in Netflix’s powerful 20th-century drama.
• In this interview, the crew discuss bringing their characters to life on location, maintaining the novel’s “narrative freedom,” and upcoming projects, including Edgar Wright’s The Running Man .

Already being heralded as a career-best performance for its lead and executive producer, Joel Edgerton (Master Gardener), Netflix’s Train Dreams is adapted from Denis Johnson‘s poignant novella about the life of a man in early 20th-century America. At the Toronto International Film Festival 2025, where the film celebrated its world premiere, Collider’s Perri Nemiroff spoke with the cast about the making of this haunting portrait.

Co-adapted and directed by Academy Award nominee Clint Bentley with Sing Sing writing partner, director, and Academy Award nominee Greg Kwedar, Train Dreams observes the wonders and horrors of a rapidly transforming country through the eyes of a quiet laborer. Logger and railroad worker Robert Grainier (Edgerton) and his wife, Gladys (Academy Award nominee Felicity Jones), lead a humble life building their country home and raising a daughter, but work keeps Robert away for stretches of time. When the unexpected upends Robert’s life, he finds new meaning in the familiar forests. Train Dreams also stars the Academy Award-nominated William H. Macy (Fargo) and Kerry Condon(The Banshees of Inisherin).

At TIFF 2025, Bentley, Edgerton, Jones, Condon, and Macy stopped by the Collider Media Studio, where they shared their experiences together on set, the moments that didn’t make it into the finished film, and how to translate the “narrative freedom” of Johnson’s novel to the screen. Condon also teases her upcoming WWII drama Pressure, opposite Academy Award-winner Brendan Fraser, and Macy shares what it was like working on Edgar Wright‘s The Running Man.

The Cast Share Their Most Treasured Wrap Gifts

Though William H. Macy’s is a bit of a sore spot.

PERRI NEMIROFF: Joel, you mentioned that you were gifted this book by somebody you had worked with as a wrap gift. I want to know from each of you, what is the most memorable wrap gift you ever received or given? [Felicity] , I know one of your answers from ourlast conversation!

FELICITY JONES: What is it?

It was a Christmas movie mug.

JONE: Oh, yes! For Oh. What. Fun., with all the characters. Great wrap gift.

JOEL EDGERTON: On the first season of Dark Matter, my makeup artist, Mike, I sat in the chair, and for about half an hour, he was doing my makeup, and he’s like, “You didn’t even notice what I’m wearing.” I looked at him, and he had a T-shirt with, like, 30 pictures of me on it. He’d got it made as my wrap gift. He thought he’d wear it while he was doing my makeup, and I guess I was in my phone or doing something, and I didn’t even notice. But for a while, I had a T-shirt with 30 pictures of me on it. I don’t own it anymore.

Undeniably a memorable wrap gift.

EDGERTON: They’re not readily available, might I say. He had to get it made.

Maybe they should be.

CLINT BENTLEY: I actually have mine with me, one of my favorite ones. We were on one of our first days of shooting, and Joel noticed that I carry around a silver dollar in my pocket, and you do, as well. So, for my wrap gift on this film, Joel got me a silver dollar that was minted in the same year that Robert Grainier, the character, was born.

What a nice touch. I love that. How about for the two of you?

WILLIAM H. MACY: Gary Ross directed this film called Pleasantville, and in it, I had three days of night shoots of walking in torrential rain, screaming, “Where’s my dinner?” And when we went to the premiere, Gary was behind me, and he leaned forward and he said, “Oh, I had to trim up that scene.” It wasn’t in the movie, and he gave me a raincoat for a wrap gift.

KERRY CONDON: Showbiz.

MACY: Showbiz.

CONDON: A first edition of a book, a beautiful book. Yeah, I got a nice wrap gift.

BENTLEY: What book was it?

CONDON: The Country Girls. Beautiful.

‘Train Dreams’ Maintains the Novel’s Narrative Freedom

“I wanted to make the viewer feel like they’re in good hands.”

Clint, I bring this up because it truly was one of my favorite qualities of your movie. You said, “It was a constant push and pull of needing to give the story a shape so that it would work as a film … but [not to the point of losing] that looseness and narrative freedom that the book has that’s so beautiful.” How do you strike that balance?

BENTLEY: Thank you very much. It is a hard thing to do. I wanted to make the viewer feel like they’re in good hands and were going somewhere, while also letting the story digress and letting the narrator talk about a comet for a minute, or letting a cowboy walk into the picture and do his thing, and then leave. It really is just trial and error and going through it again and again, and getting it as well as you can in the scripts. But then in the edit, it’s a whole new process of just really going through the film over and over, showing it to people, seeing what’s working and what’s not. I do that a lot and find it very valuable in the edit process of showing it to friends along the way, showing it to our collaborators, and it really is just some fine-tuning along the way.

Is there any particular note you received during those kinds of conversations that wound up being especially effective, and now we can see in the finished film?

BENTLEY: That’s a great question. It was interesting to find that people were looking for something in the ending that I wasn’t giving them. Everybody had a different idea of what they wanted, and nobody had the specific thing, but everybody was looking for something, and that really changed the ending that was in the script. And then the ending that was in the first 14 cuts wasn’t the ending that we ended up with. I won’t spoil it for people who haven’t seen it, but that was really just an aspect of trying to figure out how to land something emotionally that people were looking for from the journey that they had been on.

‘Train Dreams’ Highlights the Beauty of a Quiet Life

“Though we might feel insignificant, there is a significance to all of our lives.”

Joel, a particular quote I have here is, “Robert doesn’t do anything that really alters the course of history. He doesn’t fight in some great battle or create some invention that changes people’s lives, and yet he lives a very deep and rich life.” What is the key to making sure the audience feels the profundity of his experience and his life, even though he doesn’t do anything that’s traditionally cinematically big?

EDGERTON: I have this belief that every single person is interesting if you spend enough time with them and you ask the right questions of them. I think it’s a mistake to discard anyone as not important to you or not worth speaking to. I think there’s something in Robert that reminds us that though we might feel insignificant, there is a significance to all of our lives, and to be confident in that. Particularly in Denis [Johnson] ’s hands, and how then Clint has taken the reins to show this ordinary man’s life, that within the ordinary life are extraordinary things.

Felicity, I’ll loop you in for a question for both of you. The movie feels like it basically lives or dies on your chemistry. At the beginning of the movie, can you each tell me the first thing you saw in the other that made you know to your core, “That right there is the Robert to my Gladys,” and vice versa?

EDGERTON: We’ve had a long history of dancing around the idea of working together. I first saw Felicity in a piece of theater, and then had a conversation with her. I feel like it was 20 or 15 years ago, like the early 2010s. I remember having that exact conversation with Clint, that the relationship between Robert and Gladys is the furnace of the movie. I think that conversations with Felicity early on, and also the kind of extra dimension that she brought to the conversations around the script and her position, and, not to speak for her about her character, but definitely about the isolation aspect of it, and therefore the longing for each other, I think we were the right people together. There’s something that I see in Felicity that feels timeless, which I think is important for the film, but beautiful and also incredibly independent and strong.

JONES: I remember Joel’s performance in Loving, and I had been totally struck by that. As Joel said, there were other films that had come up where we were potentially going to work together, and then obviously Train Dreams was the perfect opportunity. With Gladys and Grainier, it had to feel as though there was something really elemental and almost mythic about the connection and that relationship, because that relationship almost has to represent love; it has to be universal. As you say, once that’s in place, then hopefully the audience is locked in and they’re rooting for their survival, and for the survival of their love.

William, in the press notes, you mention that when a scene was over, Clint would say, “Keep going,” and that wasn’t something that you were super used to. Can you give me an example of a time when he said, “Keep going,” and unexpected magic came up on the spot, and maybe we can see it in the finished film?

MACY: Not a lot of it made it into the film, I noticed.

JONES: I skinned a goat.

BENTLEY: Yes, I know. I’m sorry.

JONES: Did that make it into the movie? Nope!

MACY: It was fun to do. [Laughs] I came down to get dinner at your tent, and we went on and on for another five minutes about what was in the stew. I was listening to a guy cut a log, and I said, “That ax is dull. I can tell by the sound of it.” I thought that should have made it in.

BENTLEY: The hard part is when you have so much good stuff, you can’t put all the good stuff in the film.

MACY: Oh, shut up!

The good stuff that gets cut out winds up informing a scene that you shoot later, even if you’re not fully aware of it. So I do think there’s great value!

MACY: We had a brilliant script. It didn’t need our ad-libs, so I’ve got to say he was right.

BENTLEY: One thing that he did do is he wrote the song that he sings in the film. He was going to hum a tune in the script, and he said, “I’ve got this thing, maybe it works.” And it was perfect.

Do you remember the spark that ignited that idea? What made you think to yourself, “No, I have to switch gears and write a song here?”

MACY: I think it was scripted that he sings. There wasn’t a tune, and I suggested a tune, and I happened to have a harmonica with me, and we put that in too. I always have a harmonica and a ukulele with me.

Do you have one with you now?

MACY: Yes. [Laughs]

BENTLEY: At the end of the interview.

Kerry, I love your character. I want a whole movie just about her day to day. I love her warmth and her understanding and her kindness. I find that when someone is like that, you run the risk of being so kind, warm, open, and understanding that it can come across as disingenuous, and that is the exact opposite of what I feel in your performance here. How do you convey that in a way that is so clearly her truth?

CONDON: Well, one of the things I liked initially was that it said in the script that she felt like an old friend to him. Me and Joel have known each other for a really, really long time, and so I immediately was like, “Oh my God, this would be great, because we kind of do know each other already.” And then honestly, the only thing was listening to Clint. He was saying she doesn’t judge him, she never judges him, and I really just followed direction to kind of walk that fine line. Because it’s really about his character, and I knew my purpose in the story was really to kind of facilitate this moment for his character.

Kerry Condon Is Eisenhower’s Right-Hand in WWII Drama ‘Pressure’

She plays opposite Academy Award-winner Brendan Fraser.

I’ve got to start winding down with you, so I’m going to shift my focus to a couple of upcoming projects. Kerry, I was reading about Pressure. Kay seems like such a fascinating person and perhaps the type of person that we don’t often see on screen in war movies, so can you tell me a little bit about what inspired you in terms of what she did and what you’re most excited to share about her with the world?

CONDON: I suppose it’s another one of my fortes, a woman in a man’s world kind of thing, and so I suppose there’s that. She was like his right-hand woman at wartime. Honest to God, the only thing I remember at the moment is the wig, how long the wig took every morning. I’d have to relook at that because I filmed it, it seems like, a long time ago. But yeah, it’s around D-Day. She’s just amongst all these soldiers and helping. That sounds ridiculous, “helping.” Do you know what I mean? She was like Eisenhower’s right-hand man, who’s Brendan [Fraser] ’s character.

That’s another type of person that feels like maybe she deserves her own movie with her journey – where she started, and then how she winds up in the situation she’s in at this particular point in time.

CONDON: Yeah, maybe. I don’t know.

MACY: You were the secretary. Did you?

CONDON: Did I what?

MACY: Well, the rumor is you guys had an affair.

CONDON: Well, that would be spoiling all of it, wouldn’t it, though? And we never know! We weren’t behind closed doors.

William, I got one for you, too. I’ve got to hear a little bit about The Running Man. I love Stephen King so much. We’re having quite the Bachman year right now! I love, love Long Walk and cannot wait to see this movie. I’m so curious what it was like working on The Running Man movie directed by Edgar Wright, because his style is just so incredibly specific. Can you tease anything about working with him on that story that will make this version of it so uniquely his?

MACY: I really can’t. We shot it in London. I was so jet-lagged, I didn’t know my name. He shot a fair amount, but didn’t overshoot it. I remember the set was so dark, I couldn’t find my way out of it. It went fast. I don’t know. You’re talking to actors, man. This is out of our heads in minutes.

Train Dreams will receive a limited theatrical release on November 7, followed by its Netflix debut on November 21.

Special thanks to the partners Roxstar Entertainment and its Campari Cinema Center and Campari, who featured their signature festival red-carpet drinks, including the Campari Negroni and Campari Spritz. Also host venue, Discreta Toronto, and Oscar-winning visual effects (VFX) company, Rodeo FX as well as Lavazza Coffee, Vellamo mineral water, Santa Carolina’s Reserva Chilean Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon wines,La Vieille Ferme Rosé and La Vieille Ferme Reserve Brut Sparkling, Peroni beer, and food catering by Miss Ivy Toronto @Cinemactr