February 17, 2025

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“Being so personal makes it universal” — Fred Hechinger Talks Thelma

June Squibb and Fred Hechinger in Thelma

Magnolia Pictures

Fred Hechinger is making his mark in Hollywood. Taking over from Barry Keoghan in the upcoming blockbuster Gladiator II, Hechinger has certified ‘off-kilter’ energy. In Thelma, out July 19 in UK cinemas, he takes centre stage alongside June Squibb as slightly lost grandson Danny who is bereft when his 93-year-old grandmother goes ‘missing’ on a hunt to get back $10,000 out of which she was scammed.

FILMHOUNDS spoke with Hechinger to discuss the film’s tightrope between action, comedy, and drama, the unique bond he builds with his characters, and how he approaches every project.

 

Something I was instantly struck by was the amount of patience Danny has for his grandmother. It really belies the otherwise unsettled energy he has in the rest of his life. How much of that was a juxtaposition you were consciously imbuing the character with? 

I think the friendship between Danny and Thelma is one of the simplest and most fundamental aspects of Danny’s life. I feel that they’re best friends that just by happenstance are grandma and grandson. That relationship is maybe one of the few things in his life that doesn’t require a great amount of work or anguish. With Thelma, he feels like such a natural version of himself. 

He doesn’t have that kind of self consciousness and fear of screwing up and sort of debilitating aspiration for perfection mixed with low self confidence that he has with other people. The way that Thelma sees Danny is with such wholeness. Part of the reason he feels comfortable is that she’s not someone who just sees him as perfect or imperfect, but rather loves him with his messiness, and likes to see him figure something out.

I’ve found that in my life, I’ve kind of sectioned off different parts of myself and it’s taken time to realise that the calm that I feel, say when I’m with my best friend, is also a part of me and could be applied to the person that I am in a work setting or in some kind of other context. 

 

Is there a world in which that ability to compartmentalize and self dissect is a positive in terms of acting? 

Yes, and no. There’s a focus that is required at all times to precisely build and carve a person, and then I also think you have to have set your own rules constantly. To me, what is especially exciting about storytelling and art is the surprise, and that’s true of my experience of life, which is that people are not ever solidly one thing. 

So I think you have to begin at a place of that sometimes, or you can begin in a place of a sectioning off, making these decisions to build this person, but then I also think you have set aside the things that you’ve decided on to take risk, and find things that are hopefully more true. 

I think it’s a constant of setting up rules and then breaking them and setting them up. 

 

Saying this knowing that you’re young and early in your career, but do you look at the roles you’ve taken so far and the roles you’re looking to take and imagine a kind of canon, or body of work, for yourself? 

It’s not something I think of, if I’m being honest, that I’m particularly conscious of a wider body of work. 

I think I end up being more granular, like specific to each moment in the sense of, I feel that to make something, it requires such commitment and urgency…

I mean, I definitely don’t want to repeat myself. So if I ever feel that there’s a similarity between something, I think there’s a desire to see it in a different way. I think it’s more about the demands of each particular project. Unconsciously, there may be something to that in a larger way, but I don’t know.

 

Beyond newness, is there something particular within a character, as opposed to the overall story or team, that draws you in?

I don’t know. I really think there’s no kind of person or no place or time or idea that can’t be expressed through film. So [acting] feels vast in that way. 

I will say, I think one of many reasons that I gravitated towards Josh’s [Margolin, writer-director] script and felt that I had to do it was his love of human mess. I felt that he was not afraid of the ways that people are messy. In fact, he crafted a movie that gave structure and highlight and joy and action and love to all of humanity’s messiness. I think that’s it for me. A lot of movies that mean a lot to me are ones where you feel that the people are kind of overflowing through the frame, that they’re not being whittled down to serve a story.

 

There’s a particular scene between Thelma and Ben (played by the late Richard Roundtree in his final role) where they talk about picking up socks and their late spouses, and it really touches on this idea of the wholeness of the characters outside of the film itself.

Literally! That was one of the things I love so much about Josh’s vision was the explosion in the movie is as big as picking up the socks. Because in my experience, that’s true to life.

 

I really appreciated how little details of Judaism were woven into the film. Was that something that stood out to you when you were reading the script? 

I think the way to connection and depth is through the specificity of every character and every person. I think one of the tonal kind of tightrope walks that Josh did in this movie is he made a movie for everybody that’s really personal to his life. By being so personal, he made it universal. 

Tone was obviously a very big part of this movie, you never wanted it to fall into just action or just comedy or just trauma, you want it to be this human blend of all three at all times that was specific to the realities of Thelma’s life. It was both funny and dramatic without ever, you know, looking down or laughing at it in a condescending way, but also without ever making a kind of tragedy of it. I was so thrilled by that challenge of holding all of those truths together. 

 

When you’re performing, how do you balance that challenge of being cognisant of all of those things and also giving yourself over to the process?

I think I do both. In the prep period you’re building who the character is, and also through getting to know everybody in the crew. I would say once we’re on set, it was less articulated, it was more… Kind of, finding that place, like you reach similar wavelengths so things become maybe less verbal. 

For every scene, there’s a mix. When you are figuring out that tonal thing, it has to come through character, but it also is an expression of the movie itself. You are sometimes doing these larger things, but you can only do that through the person that you’re playing. 

 

With something like Gladiator II, filming in Malta with a huge crew and ensemble cast, does your approach to a project or a role shift? 

I wouldn’t say the size of a picture changes how I prepare. Every single project is in the best way completely different. One of my favorite things about making movies is that you cannot apply a copy and paste method to any of it. Despite the classic sort of onset verbiage, it’s completely a different experience every time, and I do feel that every story creates its own essential process. 

I would say, though, the feeling of being excited, of feeling in the moment of something, of feeling surprised and alive within a scene, even when the scenes are vastly different — even when one is on the island of Malta and one is in Sherman Oaks — that feeling vibrationally can be very similar. The connection of something, something is happening that is outside of you, in between everybody. 

 

What is it like being part of a cohort of actors that are in a similar sort of age or phase of their career? 

I love the community of actors. I feel very grateful for the people that I get to work with. For Gladiator, working with Paul [Mescal] and Joe [Quinn], it meant a lot to go into that experience together. Because it’s so massive and super exciting but so terrifyingly massive. To have their camaraderie meant a lot to me. 

I get so excited when I see a great performance, and I do have an impulse of like ‘Put me in coach!’ you just want to play with that person immediately.

Thelma is in UK cinemas from July 19th.