Thelma filmmaker Josh Margolin pointed the film’s 95-year-old leading lady June Squibb to the same source of inspiration that sparked the movie itself: his grandmother, who shares the name of the title character.
“Josh gave me some little films that he’d made, like of Thelma going to the store or Thelma celebrating her birthday, just to get an idea of who she was and what she was like,” Squibb explained during a panel with Margolin at the Deadline Contenders Film event on Saturday.
“She’d always just been a huge figure in my life and sort of an inspiration to me and someone I always looked up to,” Margolin said of the real-life Thelma Post. “I had been making these little documentaries about my grandma when she was living alone in her nineties for the first time ever,” recalled Margolin. “And it was just an interesting time because two things were happening: She was grieving the loss of her husband and kind of entering this new chapter of aging, but also kind of relishing having that space and that time in a way that she just never did before then.”
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Margolin told his grandmother’s story through the lens of a con targeting the elderly that Thelma actually experienced. “In the wake of the real scam incident that inspired the movie, I realized I had been thinking about her for I guess my whole life, but especially in those past few years in a new way,” he said. “And the movie became a way to both celebrate her and kind of reckon with those contradictions and those anxieties that I had about her safety and wellbeing, and also her being able to kind of hold onto who she is.”
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“To me, it was always kind of an expression of, or a way to celebrate my grandmother’s sort of spirit and her grit and her tenacity,” the writer-director-editor explained of framing the film around Thelma’s quest to find justice. “And I think I just got excited about trying to explore that through the lens of a lo-fi action movie. And then tone was always really important. I never wanted it to feel like we were poking fun as much as sort of going along for the ride with her and experiencing these trials and tribulations through her lens.”
Squibb, who was Margolin’s first and only choice to take on the role, said she relied on her instincts when it came to keeping the comedy of the film grounded and not condescending toward the elderly. “I always look at funny as very real, so I never think in terms of ‘This is funny’ – I just don’t,” she revealed. “I’ve had friends like Dom DeLuise and Ruth Buzzi – now they think funny and I can recognize that, but I can’t do that. So we worked together completely on how this should be played or what we felt in our feeling going into the scenes.”
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In her first leading film role, Squibb said she was pleased to convey a positive message about aging. “This was like saying, ‘Age is not damning,’” she said. “”It can be very uplifting.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
The presenting sponsor for this year’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles is United for Business. Sponsors are Eyeptizer Eyewear, Final Draft + ScreenCraft, and partners are Four Seasons Maui, 11 Ravens and Robina Benson Design House.
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