“Thelma” star June Squibb has always been a die-hard action fan

“There was a time in my life when I saw every action movie that was made,” enthused ninety-year-old and Oscar-nominated June Squibb, the star of the action comedy Thelma. “I love the Mission Impossible movies and have seen every single one of them. I even watched the old TV series that inspired them. I love Bruce Willis, especially all his early movies, and I love Jason Statham. I think they’re great.”

After its huge success at Sundance, the film has now landed in one of the best summer slots in cinemas. Thelma In “The Lonely Man,” the 94-year-old Oscar nominee plays her first leading role. Inspired by an incident with screenwriter and director Josh Margolin’s grandmother, Squibb plays Thelma Post, a grandmother who is swindled out of $10,000 by a con artist. The con artist calls her and claims her grandson is in trouble and needs her help. She doesn’t take this lying down and sets off with her boyfriend Ben, played by the late Richard Roundtree, on his electric vehicle through Los Angeles to get back what is hers. The film not only uses classic genre tropes in action films, but Impossible mission Movies were a big inspiration and references to the franchise received Tom Cruise’s blessing.

“I don’t know if he saw it,” Squibb pondered. “But you sent him a link, Josh?”

“As far as I know, he has not seen the film yet,” Margolin replied. “We gave them something and he generously gave us permission to use footage from Mission: Impossible – Fallout. We sent him a sample of that scene and the script and he signed it, which was great. We were thrilled that Tom gave us the OK and we are grateful to him. We are excited to bring the film to his attention.”

Thelmawhose ensemble consists of Parker Posey, Clark Gregg and The White LotusFred Hechinger as grandson Danny is the perfect addition to another 2024 action film that also deals with the scams of the elderly via technology. The Beekeeperstarring Squibb favorite Jason Statham. Why are storytellers and audiences drawn to this subject right now?

“People are fascinated by it,” Nebraska said the actress. “They hate it and want to do something about it. It’s a strange thing. The scammers have knowledge and are versatile and do things very well, and that’s a little scary. What can you do?”

“I loved The Beekeeperby the way,” Margolin continued. “It feels like this problem is affecting more people and a wider age range because it’s becoming more sophisticated with AI and all these other advances. Every time we show the film and talk to people, they or their family members have had experiences with it, so unfortunately it feels widespread.”

“At least I hope that when people see this and recognize this scam, they think twice, even though there are other kinds. The one in the movie is almost word for word the one my grandmother experienced, and I think it’s pretty common. It’s called the grandparent scam. It’s definitely on people’s minds and seems to be very common.”

This was one of the reasons why Thelma When asked, Squibb agreed without hesitation. She even did most of her own stunts, although Heidi Pascoe, her double, took on some of the more physically demanding parts.

“When I read the script, it was all there,” she recalls. “I knew Josh wanted action, but there were some things I didn’t see or understand until I saw the finished film. I did what was in the script and understood what I was doing. There’s a scene where Richard and I are walking away from a store and there’s a fire behind us, and it took me a long time to get there. It never occurred to me that I needed to know what was going on, because I didn’t. I trusted Josh. Some things just dawned on me, and now I understand them.”

“The script was wonderful and I felt like Josh knew exactly what he was doing. I loved everything about it and I could see us doing it. When we talked, we just said, ‘Hi, I’ll do this.’ We talked for about half an hour, but I don’t remember what we said. I felt like we had to do this.”

Margolin knew that she was under pressure with such support, especially because Thelma was his film directorial debut.

“I had to live up to it, but more than anything it was encouraging,” he said. “I’d had my eye on June for a long time and the fact that she came on board meant a lot to me and from that moment on we thought, ‘Okay, we’re going to do this. We’re going to get this thing going.’ My producers Zoë Worth and Chris Kaye and I said, ‘Okay, now we’re in business.’ It’s incredibly momentous and you feel like you have to rise to the moment and I think June carried that through the whole process. She’s an absolute professional and she set the bar very high so we knew we had to match her and that was a great ethos for the whole production.”

“I was lucky to be surrounded by a lot of people who all knew more than I did,” the writer-director continued. “In many ways, I think that was a gift of the film. I had very specific ideas in many ways about what I wanted, what tone I wanted, how I wanted to shoot it, how I wanted it to feel. The wonderful thing about working with actors like June, Richard, Clark, Parker, and even Fred at his young age, is that everyone put so much care into the project. Not only that, but experience, care and thoughtfulness. Most of the time, the answer was to simplify and to tune out the noise.”

The author and director also wanted Thelma was to capture the unique relationship that often exists between a grandmother and her grandchildren.

“I suppose it depends on the grandparents and grandchildren, but I think that generational difference allows you to see each other from a unique perspective,” Margolin mused. “You can love and adore someone without feeling all the responsibility for their well-being. In that way, you can almost be a friend who happens to be a few decades older or younger.”

When paying homage to action films, care was also taken to ensure that key elements such as catchphrases were present but not intrusive.

“I feel like Thelma has a lot of little catchphrases. It never felt like there was just one,” Margolin explained. “In real life, my grandma has a lot of little catchphrases that feel iconic to me. I wanted to take that feeling and sprinkle a few of them in here and there. There’s not exactly one iconic one, but the closest thing would be maybe ‘I think I know her.'”

“Another is when I ask Richard, ‘Did you say something?'” Squibb added with a giggle.

Another element that had to be included in the mix was a theme song for Thelma, composed by Nick Chuba.

“I think that’s really important. It keeps the film in Thelma’s perspective and helps with tone and drive,” Margolin said. “Anytime we can start to associate instruments with her and a melody, a repeating and growing element, I find it anchors the film. I think the music does that in general. The film needs to thread the needle and start in this grounded naturalistic world, then escalate into something closer to the genre, but keep the honesty of the beginning and make it feel character-driven. I think Nick did a great job using instruments inspired by Lalo Schifrin but putting her own spin on them.”

Not least, Thelma needed an iconic outfit to create an instantly recognizable silhouette for her character. That came in the form of her jacket, which even had its own handler on set.

“It was actually completely handmade by my partner Chloe Searcy, who customized it for June,” Margolin revealed. “She and my wonderful costume designer Amanda Wing Yee worked together on the planning, and Chloe and my producer Zoë Worth custom dyed the fabric to match the look of the film. Every action hero has a distinctive outfit, and Thelma needed a distinctive piece. I associate dynamic and colorful jackets with my real-life grandmother Thelma, and they absolutely nailed the look. June kept it after filming.”

“I do,” she laughed. “I have it and I still wear it.”