PUSHING THE LIMITS
Shooting ‘The Revenant’ introduced young Will Poulter to a new level of filmmaking
While in Chicago last year to promote his movie “The Revenant,” actor Will Poulter took the opportunity to catch up with a friend and bring him along to an early screening.
“I think it scared him a little bit,” Poulter said. “He’s kind of reeling after the experience of watching, but he liked it.”
The 22-year-old Brit stars alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s epic tale of revenge (opening Friday), based on events in the life of frontiersman and fur trapper Hugh Glass.
After being mauled by a bear on a fur-trapping expedition in the 1820s, Glass (DiCaprio) is left for dead by his crew. The film covers his journey through harsh conditions and deadly natives as he seeks revenge on those who dug his grave.
For his follow-up to last year’s best picture Oscar winner, “Birdman,” Inarritu took an ambitious approach to filming, looking to shoot in natural light and in sequence on location in Canada and Argentina. But the sequential shooting had to be scrapped after Mother Nature gave the crew snow when they didn’t need it and melted the snow when it was crucial to the final scenes.
“The biggest challenge was in adapting to the shooting style, which was 90 percent rehearsal and then 10 minutes of shooting,” Poulter said. “We were operating in these very small windows when the light was correct in order to achieve the scene.”
“It was almost like doing a live piece of theater, so there was very little room for mistakes. There wasn’t often opportunities to go again or get what you didn’t get in a second shot.”
Compared to other films Poulter has done—“The Maze Runner,” “We’re the Millers,” “The Chronicles of Narnia”— the new movie was a departure, and not only in the way it was shot. There were physically demanding aspects, harsh weather and constant weight loss, which was a first for Poulter.
“This was physically the toughest thing I’ve ever done,” Poulter said, who played a novice member of the trapping party. “I’ve experienced some extreme weather before but of a different nature, opposite end of the spectrum, in heat. I’ve never done extreme weight loss or anything like that either so that was pretty tough, particularly when the weather isn’t as kind as it could be.”
Nonetheless, Poulter said testing his limits was an enjoyable experience, even if he can’t recall how much weight he lost during the filming.
“All of that was part of the challenge and something we all welcomed really,” he said. “It was something that helped us get into character. I think it helped us feel more confident about our performances and the story we were telling.”