Ben Foster sees some clear markings in ‘Leave No Trace’
New father, 37, can relate to living off the grid
CANNES, France – This is a first for Ben Foster.
No, it’s not his first trip to the Cannes Film Festival — in fact, the 37-year-old actor was here just two years ago with Hell or High Water, which went on to earn four Oscar nominations, including best picture.
But this international getaway marks the first no-kids trip he and fiancée Laura Prepon — whom he refers to as “my lady” — have managed since they welcomed their daughter last August.
“It’s a big deal to leave your kid for the first time,” says the star of Leave No Trace, the latest film from Debra Granik ( Winter’s Bone).
He’s sitting oceanfront on the Croisette — a far cry from the leafy, remote setting of Leave No Trace, screened as part of the Directors’ Fortnight section of Cannes. Foster plays Will, a war veteran struggling with PTSD who lives off the grid in Oregon with his teen daughter in Portland’s vast public parks.
“This was deep tracks. It’s something I would encourage anybody to do,” says the actor, who lives in New York with Prepon. “I need it. I need to get out. I love the city, but I self-medicate with nature.”
The story shares some DNA with another recent awards favorite, 2016’s Viggo Mortensen-led Captain Fantastic, but Foster’s film delves deeper into how trauma has manifested itself inside a family cut off from the outside world by its patriarch.
“Leave No Trace is everything that that movie should have been: careful, realistic, with a sense of what is possible and what is at stake for those people who really do attempt to turn their backs on conventional living and also reject the stigma of homelessness — but what is also at stake for their children who have had no choice in the matter,” The Guardian wrote.
In the drama, Will sells his VA-prescribed antidepressants and antipsychotics to buy groceries and homeschools his daughter in their tented shelter in the woods. “His trauma … the way that I understood it could be trig- gered by many things,” says Foster, so the veteran eliminates all stimuli. Will’s simple mantra: “Is it a want or is it a need?” Foster says.
But authorities soon arrive to question the environment Will is providing for his 13-year-old daughter (played by Thomasin McKenzie) and force the two into a modern shelter.
Everything about their new way of life goes against the grain for Will, who remains determined to raise his daughter holistically. Foster, who has a baby girl at home, newly identifies with the pressure of providing a healthy environment for one’s children.
Parenthood is “mighty humbling,” he says with a grin. “As I’ve already discovered, I’m often wrong.”
It’s then that a casually clad Prepon stops by mid-interview. “Hi, my love!” he says, kissing her. “Do you want anything?” she asks. “No, I’m all set,” he replies, before giving his partner kudos for catching up on sleep in Cannes: “New-mom sleep is good.”