“That has been really, really nice, having been isolated for so long.”
“I consider myself very lucky that has not changed.”
Here, Zhao opens up about traveling by van with McDormand and what she learned from hitting the road.
Illustration by EW; Photo: Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
For the way I love to work, I couldn’t ask for a better combination.
In addition to Frances McDormand, you cast actual nomads to play themselves.
How did you want to tell their stories?
Searchlight Pictures
They’re very good at telling their own stories.
I think a lot of us are.
Are you someone who more prefers to go with the flow?
But when that is solidified, it allows the details to be spontaneous.
Things like that give the consistency, while little details are what make the film rich.
What was difficult about the shoot?
We would have so many nomads come into our lives, and then everyone [would] leave.
We’d go to the beet harvest and meet people, and then leave after a couple of days.
That kind of transience that Fern’s character experiences, we experienced making the film.
Your films often center on the modern American West, and you shoot them in such a gorgeous way.
What is it about that part of the country that fascinates you?
I always used to make that joke that when you feel a bit lost, you go west.
That’s sort of a historic movement that people do.
There’s that pioneer spirit of that land, and it’s also full of tension in a way.
It feels both new and old because it’s now predominantly farmland.
I just feel like I’m part of something bigger.
These themes of unemployment and the rise of Amazon and people losing their jobs feel very timely.
We definitely didn’t plan it.
[Laughs] We had no idea, to be honest.
I started editing when the pandemic first started, when we first shut down in the U.S. around March.
Even before the film went out, we didn’t know how people were going to react to it.
And the response has been overwhelming.
In nature, we can heal.
And in the community, we can find support.
Those are the things we take for granted when things are going okay.
This is a film about community, but it’s also about solitude.
Yeah, they find a balance.
I think that’s the transition a lot us [face].
We feel like, you’re alone if you sit by a river.That’salone.
You and Frances actually traveled by van.
Did anything about the nomad life surprise you?
How much we can be brought together by discussion of how to use a bucket to use the bathroom!
[Laughs] Everyone’s gotta poop!
All the things that are so divisive these days don’t matter.
