Writer/Director David Verbeek and Actress Jessica Reynolds talk to Fest Track about instinct, duality and perspective in regards to their new film: "The Wolf, The Fox & The Leopard," playing the International Narrative Competition section at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival in New York, New York.
00:00This is Tim Wassberg from FastTrack on CERF TV.
00:29Yeah, I'm here in New York City for the Tribeca Film Festival.
00:32Well, Jessica, because, you know, we're talking about different disciplines.
00:35There's so many different disciplines, but you have to have the discipline to play somebody undisciplined, you know, who is inquisitive, open to the world in ways that we can't access.
00:47Could you talk about building that, what it took, you know, when you thought that you had your handle on it?
00:54Because saying that you could do it and then doing the work is obviously two things.
00:59Could you talk about that, finding her, finding that instinct, but also finding, again, the movement coach, you can figure out the movement, but then it has to be secondary to, it has to be instinctive, I would think.
01:11But if you could talk about that process, please.
01:14Yeah, of course, I've kind of looked at it as three separate characters.
01:17The wolf girl was just super physical, non-emotional to a certain extent, until we did that one improvisation that was cut from the movie.
01:27Maybe, but that's for another day.
01:29And the, but one, and then there was one and there was Alice, it's complete separate kind of approaches to the work.
01:37But I think you're mostly talking about one, like as someone that needs to have no sense of discipline, really.
01:44And I found that, honestly, from observing my one-year-old nephew.
01:50So the wolf girl I kind of used for my dog, who was a rescue dog, and she was like abused when she was younger.
01:57And so she had traits of abuse that I could bring in heavily for the wolf girl.
02:02And one, I was, it was about, yeah, observing toddler behavior, because that's kind of, that's where people are at their purest form, you know, three, four years old, really.
02:18That's what I was looking at, because when you get past four, then the personality really starts to form, or even past three.
02:25And so, yeah, it was about just kind of letting it all, letting it all hang loose, like, like children of that age do.
02:35And so it was a lot of observational work for me, honestly.
02:41I know that sounds simple, but.
02:42No, I think that there, what I also remember is there was also some meditation involved in the forest, right?
02:48Like just sitting there and breathing and, or feeling things and just being in the moment.
02:53Was that an important part, you think, finally?
02:56Yeah, I mean, improv was kind of everything, but I feel like the making of the film in the wolf girl section was kind of all improv, right?
03:04It was about responding to the environment and getting away from the phone and kind of being alive to all these, all the stimulus in the forest.
03:12And so, yeah, that's what I was talking about.
03:42That's also the only way to work with animals, because we work with real wolves, and wolves do things because they want your love.
03:51Wolves do things because they want to do them, or you create the circumstances where they want to do them, or they don't want to do them, and then you get that response.
03:59They get angry.
04:00So you have to manipulate them in that way, but more, I mean, if you're making like an action film with wolves, then you're manipulating them, and you change the camera angle, you make them jump, and then you make it look like.
04:12That's not how we worked.
04:13We put Jessica amongst the wolves.
04:16She had her own position in the pack.
04:19They had gotten used to her.
04:21She'd gotten used to them.
04:22And we filmed in almost a documentary way what would happen, and I had things in the script that I hoped that would happen.
04:31Well, some of them happened.
04:33Most of them didn't happen.
04:34And I got other things, which I didn't expect, that came from the wolves and from her improvisation reacting to the animal.
04:42So we got something that was real, and that's how we organized the filming.
04:46Yeah, and I practiced with the wolves and kind of connected and bonded with them a couple weeks before or whatever, and did so much improv as this animal-human hybrid that when it came to set, I was completely naked for two weeks in the forest.
05:11That didn't faze me at all.
05:13Like, I was so immersed in this version of a girl that it was complete second nature to me.
05:21It wasn't a case of, what's the character doing right now?
05:24It was like, no, I am this thing for right now, and wherever David leads me, I will go.
05:29Wherever the wolves lead me, I will go.
05:30It was a complete environmental experiment embodied thing.
05:35And you enjoyed it a lot.
05:37I remember you enjoyed it a lot.
05:38I mean, you were doing things in cold temperatures.
05:40It looked physically very uncomfortable, but it was liberating in a way.
05:45It was actually exactly like the Tanaka character says when you captured, like, she looked or she felt to me like a potential for liberating oneself from oneself, to liberate yourself from yourself.
05:58And it was fascinating to see you actually experiencing that when we were shooting.
06:03Like, yeah, let's go again.
06:04Let's do it longer.
06:05It was almost the easiest part of the film because she wasn't traumatized then.
06:09It was physically demanding, but it wasn't mentally strenuous for me, whereas the rest of the film was.
06:53And I hopefully have time for one more question, you know, because we're talking about, obviously, the practical logistics, but how that affects emotionally.
07:02What's interesting, I think, once you get towards the end of the film, without giving too much away, is the aspect is that you feel the sadness.
07:10You feel the empathy, what she's gone through with mother and father, when you see an interaction later, really makes you understand no matter what she does, she's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
07:21She's just putting on this vest of society.
07:26You know, could you talk about finding that?
07:29Because she doesn't have to be likable, but she's empathetic.
07:32Empathetic.
07:32There's a sadness and a rage, and it seems to blanket everything.
07:37Could you talk about finding and accessing those emotions and making sure the camera sees it?
07:45Because the thing is, that's the hardest thing, to say something without saying anything.
07:50Do you mean as Alice?
07:52Yeah.
07:52Yeah, so I suppose it is a weird kind of juxtaposition, because I feel like at that point, she is her most human, obviously, but she's also her most kind of switched off.
08:06So there's a dissociation to her, but then she's got, like you say, her most amount of empathy and sadness.
08:14How did I find that?
08:18I think it was just about numbing a lot of my own expressions, and kind of, it was this weird balance of kind of turning everything off, but also having such a hypervigilance in order to, and a need to appear a certain way, because that's what she has been forced to do.
08:38She's been forced to appear in the way that everyone is telling her to do.
08:42So there's that constant inner monologue with Alice of, oh yes, and she's been through lessons of how to speak, how to smile, how to work.
08:51And so there's a constant inner monologue of someone that is going, okay, don't look at someone for too long.
08:56Okay, smile.
08:58Okay, that was funny.
08:58You should laugh.
09:00You know, that was kind of the constant inner monologue that I was living in, in that role.
09:06And so as long as I was sticking to that, whatever came out is what you see.
09:10And David, if you want to talk about that and wrap it up, but also the aspect of environment.
09:40Every single environment, that environment of that oil rig is something else, but it's a cage.
09:47Yeah.
09:47I mean, I think what was also very important in finding your rage in the end was really to kind of, to really understand the betrayal, the sense of betrayal that you feel.
10:06Right.
10:07So it really became apparent that everyone is trying to force their narrative, their story, and their vision of what your identity is, like a savior, a kind of Jesus Christ figure, or a patient that needs to realize that she has obsessive compulsive disorder.
10:31Or all these narratives upon you, it's actually, you know, it's a very violent act to tell someone else's story.
10:40So the fact that there's a book about her telling the world who she is, that enrages her further and further.
10:47So it's not just like, in the beginning, she was a wolf, in the end, she's still a wolf.
10:51No, she's someone that has liberated herself from the very violent act of narration about her.
11:00So, yeah, and the stages in the film, like the stories that are told about her, keep changing.
11:09She's a patient, then she's a Jesus Christ kind of figure, a messiah, a daughter that needs to be raised.
11:17And then she's someone that needs to be a functioning member of society with a traumatic past that she needs to, you know, address.
11:26So there's, and so just like the environments change, the stories about her changes.
11:32And that's why also she has a different name in every, in every phase of the film.
11:56And that's why she has a different name in every phase of the film.
