20 September 2020
Newsdesk
The Tesla shoot felt similar to a summer camp to Kyle MacLachlan because the project was so low-budget everybody had to hang out together.
The Twin Peaks actor plays inventor Thomas Edison alongside Ethan Hawke as Nikola Tesla in Michael Almereyda’s independent and experimental biopic.
The budget was so small on the film that MacLachlan had to take himself to work in New York every day and there were no trailers for the cast members to retreat to between scenes so they had to hang out in one big makeshift dressing room.
“I took the subway out to work ‘cause there was no money for picking up at the apartment. You had to just get there,” he explained to Collider. “The dressing rooms were in one giant room that was separated by curtains and everybody was in one place. It’s a beautiful way to work. So often, in everything else that I’ve done, everyone retreats to their own little caves and hangs out there.
“It was like, ‘Well, we’re all in this together, hanging out.’ So, we spent time with each other and it had a little bit of a family vibe to it... It’s very much like a camp experience. If you’re thinking about doing something like that for any length of time, you would need to be able to retreat to the safety of your own spot. But coming in for a week, it was not a problem.”
The Dune star had previously worked with the director and Hawke on the 2000 movie Hamlet, and he was excited to work with his co-star once again.
“He’s not only a great actor, but a wonderful artist, thoughtful and charismatic, but he has an interesting take on the world and on things. It was a lot of fun working together,” he praised. “There’s nobody that I’d rather go into a scene with than Ethan. He’s up for anything and open to interpretation, and just a very generous and gracious spirit.”
Tesla is available on-demand in the U.S. now.
