Lynn Shelton has spent much of her prolific career directing movies — eight in total, including the upcoming “Sword of Trust.” The pic premiered earlier this year at SXSW and sees its central characters, played by Marc Maron, Jillian Bell, Michaela Watkins, and Jon Bass, teaming up to sell an antique that apparently proves the South won the Civil War.
Along with “Sword of Trust,” Shelton has recently been spending much of her time and effort on television directing. What she once viewed as a way to support her film career has turned into something of a full-time gig — “GLOW,” “Love,” “Fresh Off the Boat,” and “Casual” are among her many TV credits. Her upcoming slate includes four episodes of Hulu’s miniseries adaptation of Celeste Ng’s “Little Fires Everywhere” and an installment of Apple’s “The Morning Show.”
Shelton has received two Film Independent Spirit Awards and a Sundance Special Jury Prize, among other accolades, for her work. The American Cinematheque recently honored her with a retrospective.
We chatted with Shelton about “Sword of Trust,” working on “Little Fires Everywhere,” and what it means to write, direct, and act in stories with genuine authenticity.
“Sword of Trust” opens in New York on July 12. It will expand to other cities and launch on VOD July 19. You can find screening info here.
This interview has been edited.
W&H: You’re being honored at the American Cinematheque. How does that feel?
LS: It’s interesting. First, I was very self-conscious about it, and I was sort of in denial. But when I allowed myself to take it in, it was a really overwhelming thing, honestly — just the fact that they felt that my body of work is worthy of a retrospective. I have so much respect for the American Cinematheque. So, then I settled in and thought, “I will enjoy this.” It’s a thrill just to have the opportunity to dust off one’s old films and see them on the big screen. I am going to sit through all of them!
W&H: I just streamed “Outside In” before our call. What has the rise of streaming video meant to you?
LS: It’s a mixed bag because my experience with “Outside In” has been that it had a very small theatrical run and basically went right to Netflix. Of course, Netflix doesn’t do much promotion unless you do a film like “Roma.” They let the algorithm draw people to the film. It felt a little bit like going into the ether because you don’t have a sense of how many people are watching. They don’t give you numbers so for a while it’s disheartening, and you wonder if anyone is seeing your film. But I’ve had so many people tell me that they saw it and recommended it to other people. Then you realize, it does work. Being able to tell people it’s readily available and easy to watch, that’s certainly a lovely aspect of it.
But it’s such a sea of content and you do feel like if there’s no gigantic machinery of promotion behind your film, most people are not going to know it exists so there is uneasiness. For me, I was really hoping Edie Falco would get a nomination — like a Gotham Indie Film Award nomination. She’s spectacular in it and really does something she hasn’t done before. Same with Jay Duplass — they were incredible performances. At the very least, I hoped they would get some kind of recognition but the awards season came and went. It was a year of great films, so I didn’t take it personally. I just wondered if people didn’t know the film existed. It’s tough. It’s a new landscape. But I am grateful for it. More people are watching my movies.
W&H: Congrats on directing and executive producing “Little Fires Everywhere,” which is very much about strong female protagonists. What does this particular project mean to you?
LS: It’s the biggest opportunity I have ever had by far. I’m still pinching myself that I get to be a part of it. I’m really, really honored to be involved. The talent is insane, of course — Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon at the top, but I get to work with Rosemarie DeWitt again. Joshua Jackson is also doing an unbelievable job, and the kids are fantastic. Just the vision and scope that is being aimed for is really exciting. I’m in the middle of doing my cut for the first episode, and I’m so proud.
Diversity is important to me, too, and that’s another reason I really wanted to work on “Little Fires Everywhere.” This is a project that deals with race, white privilege, with the class of cultural economic diversity, and that has become more important to me as well as representing LGBTQ characters and other marginalized communities that need representation on-screen.
W&H: What is it like working on a show that’s getting so much attention already?
LS: I feel like my last two films [“Laggies” and Outside In”] feel like a very evolutionary leap for me. Not that I’m throwing my other films under the bus because I really do love them all. It’s more about the process. I feel so much more confident and at ease on set because of all the hours I’ve logged on television sets. Between “Laggies” and “Outside In,” there was a three or four-year gap, and I was getting so much experience doing television.
I enjoy television. I love the collaboration and it seems that most of the creative and financial capital is going this way. If you do something on the level of “Big Little Lies” or “True Detective” or “Handmaid’s Tale,” you’re probably going to get more attention than you would by making a tiny movie. I really hadn’t put myself out there to get the opportunity to direct an entire series or even do pilots. I had directed a few [television episodes], but I was mostly banking on my capital, paying the bills, and saving up my energy for making films. I really consciously made a decision to be involved in a bigger television project and gave it a shot.
“Sword of Trust”
W&H: You’ve worked with Rosemarie DeWitt, Emily Blunt, Ellen Page, and Edie Falco, to name a few actresses, and you regularly examine family ties, friendship, and love with a certain level of authenticity. How important is it to you to work with women and write stories that mirror our lives?
LS: It means a lot to me. Even when I write with men in mind as the main characters, like in “Humpday,” which is a great example, the wife character didn’t get as much screen time as a supporting character. Yet it was incredibly important to me that she be a fully fleshed out human being, not just a device. I am as proud of her role in the film as I am of the other characters and how she fits into the story. She has layers, she’s complicated, she’s not just a wife character on the sidelines that is just two-dimensional.
When I’m asked about what kind of characters I like to have in movies, I think a lot about Mike Leigh. I write and make movies with people in them. I’m really interested in people, and you’ll see that most of my movies involve both [women and men]. I’ve yet to make a movie only about all women or completely all men. There’s always a mix. This last film [“Sword of Trust”] is a great example. Marc Maron really is the main character but there are also two strong women characters in it and it’s really an ensemble cast.
But having women on-screen and seeing them authentically portrayed and being flawed and giving them the opportunity to be just as screwed up as men are very important to me. In “Laggies,” I love the character that Keira Knightley plays. It is one that we sort of could see Seth Rogen playing, someone floating around without ambition. She was not a character I had seen women play very often before and I loved it. But I love men, too, and the way they interact.
W&H: Do you feel the business has changed since the dawn of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements?
LS: Yes, I think more opportunities have opened up. I used to be one of the only women or the only woman or one of a small number of women directing on a show. Now I’ve been on shows where the majority [of directors] are women or there’s a goal of gender parity. “A.P. Bio” [which Shelton has directed on] has a male showrunner but he said from the start he wanted gender parity both in the writers’ room and directors’ roster, and that is new, man. That is not something you always heard. It’s really encouraging.
There are definitely still shows staffed by mostly men but it’s definitely in the consciousness of folks who are in charge more and more. It also presents the opportunity to tell more stories like “GLOW,” which is a great example, coming on the heels of Jenji Kohan’s “Orange Is the New Black,” and “Little Fires Everywhere” and “Big Little Lies.” These are the shows that are all about women’s relationships with each other, their daughters, and sisters. It’s really encouraging to see more of a diversity of stories.
W&H: Let’s talk about “Sword of Trust.” What was the inspiration behind the film?
LS: In many of my movies, I have an actor who’s my muse. In this case, it was Marc Maron. I really wanted to work with him. I worked with him for the first time four years ago and he seemed to like working with me as well. I was on his podcast [“WTF with Marc Maron”] and a few months later on his show “Maron” in the final season. From the very beginning, I knew he had an untapped depth that I needed the world to see. He has an amazing screen presence and an incredible range. So we started writing a script together which we still hope to finish one day. We were having a hard time finding time together and I got frustrated because I wanted to get on set with him again. So he told me to write him a role and he’d show up.
I came up with this idea of him being a pawn shop owner. There were other things I wanted to put in place in the film. I wanted it to be relevant to our political and cultural situation but not in a way that would make you want to slit your wrists afterward. After just making a drama [“Outside In”], my only drama, I was really excited to make people laugh and I wanted to take it further from my previous comedies which were planted in the real world. I wanted to go outside the plot but have emotionally grounded characters. I wanted to use improvisation again, as I did in “Your Sister’s Sister.” I wanted there to be a con involved. It all centered around the fact that I wanted to work with Maron again.
W&H: That scene in the van with him was very intense.
LS: Yes, I’m very proud of that scene. It started out with a pretty tightly constructed plot, it’s very plot-heavy, and I asked the actors to improvise the scene. The film was half-script, half treatment, there were lines they could use or not. That scene just said, “They get to know each other in the back of the van.” That was all it said. It was the most heavily improvised scene.
They were in the back of this van for nine hours straight. It was really uncomfortable and poorly air-conditioned. They were real troopers. They all told backstories for their characters, and in the editing room, we found the balance for each person. There was a lot that got cut out. There was so much beautiful work that got done. It ended up culminating in the story that Marc’s character tells and it’s some of his best work I’ve seen.
W&H: You shot the film in 12 days in Alabama. What was that experience like for you?
LS: Yes, I’m not sure how we did it. We only had two cameras, trying to get as many angles as we could. It’s crazy how hard it was. If one cast member had fallen down, I couldn’t have done it but they were all brilliant and made it come to life.
W&H: It’s a terrific cast. Michaela Watkins is truly an emerging actress and during filming, she posted ecstatically about her involvement. What was it like working with her?
LS: Jason Reitman, who was an executive director of “Casual,” asked me to direct on its first season and it didn’t work out because of scheduling. When I found out that Michaela had been cast, I was so angry I hadn’t worked it out. But then I came into the second and third seasons, and our relationship and love for each other were cemented. I can’t wait to work with her again and again. We click as collaborators, and I’m very grateful for her support.
