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“There’s an Inherent Absurdity to the Lengths She Goes”: Josh Margolin on Thelma
Thelma (Courtesy Magnolia Pictures) When Josh Margolin first heard that his grandmother had nearly become the victim of a phone scam — in which someone pretending to be Margolin attempted to score thousands of dollars from the elder — he immediately felt ill at ease and violated on her behalf. But it didn’t take long for the writer-director to recognize a great story: What if his grandmother had given away her money and, upon realizing the scam, set out to get revenge?
The result is Margolin’s feature debut Thelma, starring June Squibb in the eponymous role as a 93-year-old Los Angeles resident who doesn’t let her age and limitations prevent her from settling a score. The action-comedy, which sees the 94-year-old actress performing her own stunts (including body rolls and racing motorized scooters), also stars Fred Hechinger as Thelma’s aimless grandson Danny, who assists her on her mission, alongside the late Richard Roundtree, who plays against type in his final screen role as Thelma’s timid and pragmatic friend, Ben.
I spoke with Margolin via Zoom about the semi-autobiographical and personal touches he brought to the comedy, maintaining a consistent comedic tone that never punched down on his protagonist and working with Squibb, who is gaining awards attention for, remarkably, her very first leading role in a film.
Filmmaker: The premise of this film is based on an actual scam call your grandmother received. How did you take that moment and expand it, and fictionalize it, for a feature?
Margolin: Yeah, it was based on a real scam call, and I think what really stuck with me about it was just watching my grandma get thrown so off balance by the whole thing. She just has always been someone who’s so stalwart and sharp and strong, just unflappable in so many ways. Seeing her kind of duped by that, especially with somebody using my name as the guys did, I felt horrible. And it got me imagining what might have happened if she did send the money in real life and set out to get it back.
What I got really excited about was the idea of trying to write something that was celebrating her spirit and her strength, but also doing that through the lens of this lo-fi action movie. Because to me, watching her move through the world has always felt like kind of a shrunken-down version of what it feels like to watch an action movie, you know: It’s thrilling, it’s exciting. You’re on the edge of your seat, and you’re terrified sometimes, and that that’s definitely the experience of someone who basically lived alone until [she was] 99 — I mean, she lived with my grandpa, but then he passed away in 2013, so she was basically living alone from 2013 to 2020. And still driving for a chunk of that. [She was] handling herself, but in a way where we were also constantly on edge about it..
Filmmaker: As you fictionalized that event and made it into a comedy, was there tension in how far you wanted to go with the humor? Because it feels like a tricky thing to land — how to keep it funny but grounded, to make sure Thelma isn’t the butt of the joke, to avoid it becoming an action spoof like The Naked Gun.
Margolin: That was so the mission, to keep it from tipping too broad. The deck was already too stacked [and it could] skew broad really easily. When you combine action tropes and older people,we’ve often seen versions of that that are very, very silly and sometimes very funny, but it doesn’t take much to go really huge and [become] parody. Although this movie has these kinds of genre elements baked in, it’s also a very personal movie — a movie about my grandma and my family, and something that I wanted to treat with a lot of respect at the end of the day.
The intent was always to zero in on some of [how Thelma’s age comes] up against the things she’s trying to do, but to always treat it with a level of reverence and respect as well. Because the second it gets too silly, we lose the stakes. And the stakes, to me, are what motivate all of the tropes. So I never wanted it to feel too winky or referential. I wanted it to have fun with those tropes, but to use them sincerely. With the action scenes, the goal was to trust that there would be humor in it, because there’s an inherent absurdity to the lengths she goes. But the mission for me was to see what that looks like if we really try to do it as convincingly as we can, while still having some fun with it.
Filmmaker: I’d love to hear about your writing process, not just when you were working on the script but also in the edit, where you can really revise all of your ideas once you have shot the footage. Did you find yourself regulating the tone in that stage?
Margolin: Because it’s based on my grandma and my family and myself, that was always a really useful gut check for me: Would this person say this, or do this? Does this feel forced? Am I forcing something for the sake of the premise, or can I find where the characters and the premise organically meet? How do we kind of step this out, little by little, but make sure each step feels like one I could imagine that person taking. I hope that that came through in the script on some level — that groundedness or earnestness amid the comedic premise.
The people who were excited about and drawn to it were meeting it where it was. Something we talked about [during production] was wanting to play everything really straight, wanting to take the movie really seriously while playing with the absurdity of it. Most of the people involved were on the same page tonally. And June was like, let’s treat this deadly serious. Let’s just dig in. Let’s play it believable. Let’s just bring ourselves to the parts. I think everybody kind of keyed into that frequency which was great, because I think we were all making the same movie by that point. There wasn’t a ton of confusion about what the tone was aspiring to be.
The edit was interesting, because there’s always kind of a rhythm to it, trying to find the rhythms that both feel natural and feel like you’re serving the character, but also keep the propulsion, the overall shape of the movie. I think the score, interestingly, became a really big tool in post, in terms of kind of hugging that tone. Nick Chuba is a really, really wonderful composer; he worked really hard on it, and I think he found a really great tone to land on. It was so easy for things to feel too big, and when they felt big, it felt like parody, or it felt like we were kind of punching-down or poking fun. He likes to say [he scored the film] from Thelma’s perspective — let’s have this kind of Lalo Schifrin-esque spy theme that bleeds into the family anxiety, using percussion to keep this pulse. It always felt really of the character and the energy of the movie.
Filmmaker: This is a great, multi-generational cast — not only do you have June and Fred, as you mentioned, but also Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Malcolm McDowell and the late Richard Roundtree. What were the considerations when you were casting?
Margolin: For some movies you have chemistry reads, but for something of our scope and scale, that wasn’t part of the process. It was all [about] who feels like they are just the person who can live in this world. June was always my first choice, and kind of my only choice. She’s always so good, whether the part’s big or small — she just fills it, and it’s such an interesting presence. The camera can just sit on her face and you get so much. And part of the mission was to let the movie be built around letting this person be at the center of it. She’s just so compelling to watch and just such a wonderful, wonderful actor.
June was the first piece of the puzzle, and then the next piece was Fred. I’d seen Fred in The White Lotus, and I thought he was so funny. [Casting] was often about trying to find people who were both naturally funny and great actors. Fred is such a sincere, thoughtful, smart guy who’s also really funny. Once we had the two of them, you start kind of thinking about the age range we need for the parents that can sit between them. And Parker and Clark are both actors I’ve admired for a long time. They’re both really funny, but they know how to play it honest and small and bring so much humanity to it. I could see them as Fred’s parents.
[Richard’s] character, interestingly, is one of the more invented characters in the movie, based on an amalgamation of some of my grandma’s friends that she’s had for many years. I wanted that character to have a certain kind of vulnerability and an energy that felt different from June’s — someone who could slow down a little bit. There was something about Richard when I Zoomed with him; he had such a kindness and vulnerability, but also very charming and funny.
Filmmaker: Roundtree is beautifully playing against type, or at least the type of role we associate with him.
Margolin: That was part of what made me feel like he’s the guy. There was something about him where I could feel him wanting to do something different and a little more vulnerable.
Filmmaker: I imagine a film centered around a female character in her 90s was a tough sell. How did you convince people this was a story worth telling and a film worth making?
Margolin: It is a story about old age, but it’s also a story about aging. Thelma happens to be at this moment in life, but Danny happens to be at this other transitional moment in life, and the parents are at another moment, kind of caught in between. I always wanted to also make sure those themes felt really universal, to let us kind of almost click into Thelma’s story with more ease. My grandma is somebody who I think is just so funny and so cool; I wanted to share what I get out of her with other people. And she’s been such an important part of my life, and the kind of figure that I don’t see centered in that many movies — and especially centered in movies that aren’t either super silly parody or a really heavy end-of-life drama. How about a story that deals with independence and autonomy and aging, but is more about identity and your sense of self, coming up against obstacles and trying to hold on to who you are.
There was a lot of self-selecting in that process. I was lucky to have my producers, Zoë Worth and Chris Kaye, who were on from the start and great champions of the movie. We had a vision from the start of the movie we’re setting out to make. We were certainly collaborative, and there were many things that changed and evolved and got better with notes and feedback, but the core of the movie was always the core movie. Certain people would be like, “Absolutely not. It’s insane. You’re making an action movie with a 92-year-old in Los Angeles? No.” And then there would be people who would hear that and be like, “We get it.” That applied to cast and crew and eventually financing. The team that got built around the film was really committed to the idea of doing the thing we hadn’t quite seen done before. There was something clarifying about what we wanted to do with it and why it was important to us.
Filmmaker: You’re on your third round of press for this film: It premiered at Sundance, had a theatrical release in the summer and now is in the awards conversation. Did you expect to still be promoting it at this point? What’s your ultimate goal — beyond seeing it nominated for an award or two — for this latest.
Margolin: It’s funny, because at every chapter I was like, “All right, and this is the last chapter.” I thought that at Sundance: “Wow, this is amazing. I did it! It’s out in the world.” And then it’s like, no, we have to release it, and that’s a whole that’s another round. I was like. “Well, there it is. We did it, and now it’s out in the world.” And then we’re back. But I just feel really lucky that we’re still in the conversation, not just with awards, but just to keep the movie alive, talking about it, telling people about it and meeting new people who are seeing it. It’s been a long journey in that way, but a really satisfying one. You work so long on the thing itself and you’re in the trenches for so long. I thought the end of the journey was a shorter burst, or I expected it to be. You release it, it’s out of your hands; in some ways you’re relieved, and in some ways you’re sad. There’s something finite about it. Because we’ve been lucky enough to kind of have this extended life, honestly, it’s a really fun excuse to hang out with June a bunch. We get to kind of keep the gang together.
And June is having a version of the experience I’m having, but turned up. She’s really out there, but she also wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s having so much fun, and she’s loving doing it, and it seems like she’s getting a lot of gratification out of getting to talk to people and be out in the world with the film.
