Wander – Interview with Film Director April Mullen

Hi everyone. My name is Nace DeSanders of Borrowing Tape and I am here with April Mullen, the director of Wander, an insane conspiracy theory-driven thriller starring Aaron Eckhart and Tommy Lee Jones. The film comes out on December 3rd and is sure to be a hit! Thank you for being here, April.

Of course, thanks for supporting Wander.

Of course. So, I guess we'll jump right in so everyone can hear a bit about it. Can you discuss how you approached directing Wander and your favorite moments from filming?

Yes. the concept came to us, my producing partner and I writer Tim Doren five years ago. So, it's been brewing for a very, very long time and I've been pulling from memories, moments, photography, and the locations. We shot in Carrizozo, New Mexico went down early, got to be really in it, and inspired by the landscape of New Mexico, which was fantastic. So, how did I approach it? It was like in my body for five years and I was living with the story and the sort of incredible fight there was with our hero for the light and being a silent warrior against government conspiracy and getting his voice sort of crushed. I just that's been brewing for a very long time.

That's so cool.

Yeah.

Yeah. The story is definitely very unique and super interesting. So speaking about the main character, Aaron Eckhart gave a hell of a performance in this film. Was he your initial pick for the role? How did Aaron come on the project? What was the casting like?

He was the first actor to read the script and he was the only Arthur, which was so serendipitous. We flew to Los Angeles after he had read the script and the meeting was a meeting of minds. He was so on board, loved the challenge of a man going through grief and mental health issues and sort of breaking through the paranoia and the fears and anxiety he had through. Nope, being brought down and isolating himself, believing that there was a conspiracy that had killed his family and destroyed his life. And the film starts at the very moment, the pinnacle moment, where he has to make the decision to go out in the world and fight for the light and get event; avenge [his] daughter's death, and that involves facing all of his biggest fears and whether the audience believes those spheres are reality, or whether they're all in his mind is up to the viewer especially at the end. It's kind of left to the viewer's own discretion. He was so on board with that challenge and every day he brought 150% to the set and set the bar so high and is such an incredible performer. He is always looking for the spark originality.

Every scene had to be perfectly plotted out and we worked hand-in-hand and we're attached to the hip. From the moment he landed to the moment he left and talk about blood, sweat, and tears. He was with it. He had the indie spirit in his body and he was unbelievable every day. We were either crying, laughing, or filthy and exhausted and he gave it everything he had, which was unreal.

That's amazing and so awesome how you don't have to go through the process of looking for a million different people to see if he's right.

It's not always like that, but yeah.

It's great that right from the start you knew exactly who was going to be playing the character you got to work with.

Yes, it was, it was definitely meant it was written in the stars. A lot of this film, I call it movie magic. So much of this film just came together organically. Sometimes you question it, but at the end of the day, the film makes itself in a lot of ways. Although you prep and you are so meticulously, phonetically planning, all these shots and choosing the actors and what they're wearing and the music and bringing it all together at the same time, it's organic, it's like a living breathing organism. When you step on set every day, anything is possible. There could be a lightning storm, which sometimes there was, or could be, a performance that just was worth saying, "Let's explore that further." I never dreamt it would be like that. Like it was always such a moving train, It was amazing. Wow.

That sounds fantastic. Like a perfect scenario to be making a film and it sounds like that. Before all of that, what was your experience working with Writer Tim Doiren?

We've been partners for almost 20 years now. So, we've made seven films together and it started with micro budgets. Like there was only seven crew members and we were first aid, costumes, everything like makeup, hair. We were kind of every department and slowly, our films grew, as did we. In the beginning, we were forced to be producers because we wanted to make content. We wanted to make our own content and now we're pro producers in a lot of ways, not 'pro pro', but we know how to finance a film — whether it be in Canada and the US and, and our budgets continuously got larger and larger. We're a story from the ground up, a couple of punks who had nothing, who decided they loved making movies and we're going to stop at nothing. Even though every door closed in our face, we just never gave up. We had this blind ambition to make it to the finish line. Every time we started a project, whether it be five years, three years, whatever it took to get it to the finish line, that's who we are. It's a blessing and a curse.

I love that. It's it sounds beautifully poetic. Yeah. I love it. So what about the town that the whole movie is based around and the title comes from? Where did that name Wander come from?

Wander, the title actually came way before we went to New Mexico. It was the title from the very beginning. It just had this innocent vibe to it of a sense of wonder and wander and the character wandering into sort of his own mind, and into conspiracy into what was happening underneath the surface. So it kind of had this, horrific nightmare and magical feel at the same time where anything was kind of possible and we needed that to kind of resonate. We arrived in New Mexico six months before shooting and could not find our town like everywhere was too modern. Everywhere was too populated. Everywhere looked 2020, and somebody had to go pee and we pulled over at a gas station, and low and behold, this incredible gem of a cinematic perfect town appeared like out of a Mason Jar box, the genie in a box and it was the town of Carrizozo.

And it was almost like it had been paused and frozen in time and there was very little technology. There was about 150 population, one restaurant, two motels — motels which we took over and I lived in for four months with a little mini-fridge, you make it work. The community embraced us, open[ed] their doors. We were able to shoot in their homes, their high school. That's where we built the foxhole. We took over their streets. The Valley of fire was right up the road and we shot there too. The landscape of the land is absolutely stunning and then the character of Carrizozo just became Wander like that. It was heavily the production value and the signs and the homes were heavily designed, but in a lot of ways, it spoke for itself. It was an energy, it was a vibe. And we had to, we knew we had to shoot in New Mexico because that's where MKLtra and conspiracy theories and, all of that came from, so we wanted to go to a place where those things were happening in the past.

Wow.

Yeah.

I love it. So, on the topic of location: the film was shot on Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache lands. What was it like shooting in such a location? Like, I mean, you already told us a little bit about it, how you found this amazing town, but I feel like the beauty of New Mexico, the landscapes really showed on film.

There's a spirit there, you know, and there is a strong spirit there of history and a dark past a bloody past, but one that is, feels ever forgiving and welcoming to anyone who comes there. The earth, as silly as this sounds really is open. And it's such vast landscapes. It seems to go on for an eternity. And there's something so beautiful about the infinity there, it's almost like the skyline of the horizon line disappears into the earth itself. And there was such a love for nature, the environment, the history, and respect for where and what lands we were shooting on. We did this beautiful ceremony and did a smudging, with the indigenous community there our very first day to make sure we really respected the land. It was a gift. It was a gift to be able to shoot there.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So, speaking of that, in the opening moments of the film, there's a message to all black, brown, and indigenous peoples who have been displaced through or to border control on stolen land. Why was it important to you to have this message included in the film and right in the beginning?

You know, I've always been sort of tiptoeing because I want to keep creating. And as a female director, especially, I often silence my own voice to allow myself to continue to stay in the director's chair. Sometimes I would do things that I didn't believe in or shoot things that I creatively didn't agree with and I did that because I love so much what I do. Five years ago when we were making the film and there's chip technology and border control and stolen land, and we really show that the victims of government violences and surveillances often are indigenous. Why would we, at least for now in my career, why would I silence that again? The card was on and then it was off and then it was on. Then I thought I've been doing this 20 years. It's my voice. I finally am able to define my voice in a world where I believe it will be accepted. And without it being there, I felt uncomfortable because it wasn't my truth. So we said, you know what, this time we're just going to do it. Whether the repercussions are positive or negative, we're being honest. We're champions of the light and trying to propel growth and change and awareness and this is why we made the film. So let's just make it known this time.

Yeah. I liked it. I definitely thought it was good to have the card there in the beginning, especially because you were filming on these lands to make sure that people watching know that you understand what's going on, where you're coming from. I thought it was a wise choice.

Thanks.