Boy stars

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had a recent conversation with the young stars of Jeff Nichol’s newest film, Mud, which opens in area theaters Friday. Shot largely in DeWitt, Mud is about teenage boys who find a fugitive on an island and conspire to help him escape. Jacob Lofland, 16, from Briggsville, plays Neckbone, an easy-going wise cracker being raised by his punk-rock uncle. Tye Sheridan, 16, from Palestine, Texas, plays Ellis, a confused idealist, angry about his parents’ impending divorce.

D/G: How did you get involved in acting?

Tye: Well, I did my first film called The Tree of Life when I was 11 years old, and that was really just random casting. I just got really lucky.

Jacob: Actually, my mom found it [the Mud casting call] online, and asked me to sign up, and I did. And they called me about it, four days later, I think, and after a couple of auditions they flew me to Austin, Texas, to meet Jeff Nichols and Tye Sheridan, and it just, we got it the next day.

D/G: What was the most fun part about making Mud?

Tye: I think the most fun part was just, everybody was friends onset. The whole cast and crew was just awesome. Everybody was like a big family. My favorite part was being out on the island, on the Mississippi River.

Jacob: Probably the stunts, the dirt bikes and boats, and just the action part of the movie.

D/G: What were the hardest stunts?

Tye: The hardest thing for me, I don’t know if this is really a stunt, but the scene where I fall off the log in the creek and the snakes are on me.

D/G: Those are real snakes, right?

Tye: Yes, real snakes … I don’t think they’d had their fangs removed, but they were all nonvenomous. I wasn’t as terrified as I was keeping focused … not making any facial expressions.

D/G: What did it feel like?

Tye: Well, I was laying there for an hour in the same position, same spot, so I guess Ikind of got numb after awhile.

It was cold that day. It just felt like a weight. Let’s see, I just felt like a heavy weight on my midsection, then I felt it spread over my body. That’s the best way to describe it.

D/G: Jacob, what was the most difficult part of the job for you?

Jacob: Keeping a straight face was pretty much the hardest part, because we were always cutting up whenever the camera wasn’t rolling, so we were always laughing. And we’d be joking about the lines, and then that line would come up, and I’d start laughing.

D/G: Did anybody ever get angry because of that?

Tye: Well, we can tell you this one story in particular. It was the scene where Mud’s giving the boys instructions and telling them what he needs, so he’s crouched down in a hole inside the boat, and we’re standing up. The coverage is on Matthew, by the way. And in the middle of a scene, a spider comes down on a web,and is inches in front of his face, and Jacob and I can’t help but laugh and break character. … McConaughey was like hey, we need to get serious here, and I respect that. I respect that he’s not going to beat around the bush with us and tell us to get the job done.

D/G: What was it like working with stars?

Tye: You don’t think about them as stars.

Jacob: You do when you meet them.

Tye: Well, they’re just human beings.

Jacob: Probably the day you meet them, you think about them as stars, and then you go to work with them for weeks, and eventually they just turn into your friends and family, you know?

D/G: How did you memorize your lines?

Tye: Well, I have a photographic memory. And that’s very helpful in the line of business that I’m in. I don’t like to learn my lines until the day of the scene. I’ll read the script four or five times to get to know it and to know what my character’s feeling in the scene, but I don’t like to know my exact lines. Because sometimes I feel that it can pull your focus off or pull your emotion when you’re focusing on your lines. You get what I’m saying?

Jacob: And when I read it, I see pictures. I can see the scene playing out in my head. And that’s kind of how I remember it, by what I’m seeing. Not the words as much as the actions.

D/G: When did you first see the film?

Tye: Let’s see, I saw it, I think it was last April.

Jacob: I think I saw it the same month, just a couple of days after Tye did, in Little Rock with Jeff’s parents … there was one DVD copy that went around to everybody, to Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, me and Tye, and we all mailed it and shared it, and as soon as we quit watching it, it was broke. Nobody could ever see it again. That’s just the way it worked. It was a cool experience to get to see the movie for the first time,hard work play out, you know.

D/G: What kind of film is this?

Tye: I think it’s about, well, it’s about a lot of things. It’s about love, teenage heartbreak, role models, knowing who you can and cannot trust.

Jacob: Jeff, he described it earlier today as a romantic drama, didn’t he? … It’s a coming-of-age drama, but he took some of the ideas from Huck Finn, so you really get that adventure feel, but the love is more, that’s really what comes out in it. The feeling, the passion.

D/G: Are you more into the love or the adventure?

Jacob: Adventure.

D/G: Were there any scenes where you cringed watching yourself?

Jacob: I think I cringed every time my face was shown on the screen.

Tye: Sometimes watching myself, I don’t even feel like it’s myself … I watch the movie, and I don’t see me, I see Ellis.

D/G: Any scenes you’re particularly proud of?

Tye: I think I’m proud of the whole movie. I don’t know if I’d go back and change anything.

Jacob: I’m proud of the dirt bike scenes.

D/G: Jacob, did you get an agent or a manager out of this movie?

Jacob: I did. I’ve got a manager in L.A., and my agent is actually Sarah Tackett at The Agency, there in Little Rock.

D/G: Is your new manger also Reese Witherspoon’s manager?

Jacob: It is. Management 360.

D/G: And that came through Mud?

Jacob: Right, right. … Actually she found me. That DVD I was telling you about, whenever it went to Reese, she found me on that. That’s where she saw me for the first time and got interested.

D/G: What was a typical day on set?

Tye: Well, it’s work and sometimes -

Jacob: School.

Tye: Well, sometimes you seem to forget that it’s work because, I mean, you’re out on this island, and it’s a paradise, you’re surrounded by people you really like to hang out with, and it’s just a lot of fun.

Jacob: Usually we wake up about 7 or 8 and work till they called it “pumpkin time” for us, because we couldn’t work more than, how many hours?

Tye: I think it was 10.

Jacob: I think it was 10 hours. I don’t know if it was that many. Anyhow, we could only work so long, so it was kind of like, you wake up and go to work for so long and you do a little school in there, but we had two weeks before where we banked all of our hours for school. That way if we had to miss it one day for a big action shot, we could. But there wasn’t really a typical day, because it changed every day. You were going to a different place and doing different scenes, and you didn’t know what to expect. Sometimes it would be at night, even. I remember not even showing up till like 1o’clock in the morning one time and working till, like, 4.

D/G: Are you like the characters that you played?

Tye: I think we shared some similarities, as to the physicality of our character. But maybe mentally, we think different.

D/G: What do you mean?

Tye: Well, I differ from Ellis. I think we both spend a lot of time on the river. But maybe he’s a bit more curious than I am, or sees love a different way than I do.

D/G: If you end up not being actors, what do you think you’ll be?

Tye: I don’t know. I guess I still have a little time to think.

Jacob: Yeah, I haven’t really gave that much thought. ’Course I never gave acting any thought, either.

D/G: Has this changed how you think about your future, possibly?

Jacob: It has, definitely. It’s opened up a lot more doors, and it’s kind of showed me that there’s a lot more available to do than just blue-collar work, as people call it.

D/G: What do your parents do?

Jacob: My dad is self-employed and my mom works for the National Forest Service … she makes maps.

Tye: My mom owns her own salon and boutique and my dad works for UPS.

D/G: Did you get to go to France for Cannes [Film Festival]?

Jacob: Yeah, it was actually the first time I’ve ever seen a beach and ocean … yeah, that was a first.

D/G: What’s a movie that you like?

Jacob: I like the new Red Dawn.

Tye: There’s this movie called East of Eden. It’s a really old movie, but I like it a lot.

D/G: What was the funniest thing that happened on set?

Jacob: I think one of the funniest things was one of the boat scenes, and the fish had jumped in the boat with us and hit the cameraman in the back of the head.

D/G: That is really funny. Was it a big fish or a little fish?

Jacob: It was big enough. It had some pounds on it.

D/G: What were Reese and Matthew’s personalities on set? Was one of them sillier and one of them more strict and serious?

Jacob: Reese was definitely more serious about it.Matthew joked around with us a lot.

Tye: Well, I think they’re both serious about their job.

Jacob: Well, they’re serious about their job, but personality-wise, I think Matthew was a lot more free -

Tye: More of a jokester, maybe.

Jacob: Right.

D/G: What is Jeff like as a director?

There is silence, then muffled laughter. Jacob’s mom apologizes and says, “I think these two have had a day of this, so they’re getting their giggles on.”

Tye: It’s really great, because he’s a really talented director and writer and he describes stuff very well.

Jacob: Yeah, you could really tell by the way he described and explained how he wanted it. He knows how he wants stuff. We wouldn’t quit till we got it that way.

See Friday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette MovieStyle section for a review and more coverage of Mud.