Wes Studi Describes His Reaction to 14-Year-Old Q’Orianka Kilcher Being Cast as Pocahontas: “I knew it would cause repercussions. I feel mainly for Colin [Farrell]. That fact that he’s like a 30-year-old man who’s on film with a 14-year-old child. On the other hand, were you in the 1600’s, it was totally normal. 12-year-old women were women. 12-year-old men were men. Things have changed. We’re in 2005 and we look askance at that. That was the reality of the time and that’s what we’re doing - that time.”
Kilcher’s a newcomer to films and is young to boot. Did that worry Studi? “It does me no good to worry. I’ve worked two films with girls of that age. I thought, ‘They have to be pretty tough.’ I think a 14-year-old is capable of it. It’s probably more a problem that we adults have about their capability of putting up with that kind of strain and stress. They’re so resilient. A 14-year-old is extremely resilient. She worked hard day after day. It’s all about her. I don’t know how many days she had off, if any. And long hours out in the wind, but she’s tough. This girl is tough."
Wes Studi’s Biggest Challenges – The Language and the Grass: “The language was a heck of a challenge. And some of that darn grass was sharp, I tell you, and we were running around in skirts. Skirts and no shirt and that grass…”
Studi had a system for tackling the language. “I did it page by page, day by day, the night before. After a while, some of the words become familiar and you’re glad to see one you’ve said before or that you’ve mastered the sounds of one. We had the language coach there with us all of the time - the guy who put it together - though he was totally monotone in how to speak it so we had to add the emphasis to the whole thing. Those Indians around there have adapted that particular language and are teaching it amongst themselves. It’s a good thing. Plus, the professor there, he’s putting together a language for the Mashantucket up in Connecticut. He’s doing a lot of work.”
Asked if the film will help revive interest in the language, Studi responded, “It comes at an opportune time because there is a huge rival going on worldwide. There’s a huge resurgence, since we learned five years ago that there was a language disappearing every fifteen days throughout the world. We began working on this about ten years ago. There’s quite a reaction. This comes at a good time. We could’ve used it as a tool a little more, but as is it doesn’t quite hit the mark.”
Wes Studi Explains the Casting Process: “Rene Haynes, who has the distinction of being the only… if you’ve ever noticed, you’ll see each time there’s an Indian picture, you’ll see Native American Casting: Rene Haynes. There’s not another casting person anywhere. Do you ever see African American Casting or Asian American Casting? You don’t. She’s carved herself quite a little niche. She’s a wonderful lady. I love her. She’s been around since just after ‘Dances with Wolves.’ She began doing that. Native Casting. It makes us kind of special, I guess. We have our own casting woman.”
Haynes has cast Studi in a variety of films and came back to him for “The New World” at Malick’s suggestion. “She came to me and said, ‘Terrence wants to make this film and this is a great part for you. What you’re doing is reprising an angry guy who makes war… very much like the Toughest Pawnee [Dances with Wolves] and Magua [Last of the Mohicans].’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve done that many times before. Do you think that’s a wise casting choice?’ She said, ‘Terrence wanted to do it that way.’
She put Terrence and I together by phone. I come to find out Terrence is from a small town 25 miles from where I grew up in Oklahoma. Turns out we know a lot of the same people. Of course, we’d never met. We had a nice talk and he told me about the language, which is actually what the producers, Sarah [Green] and Trish [Hofmann], were… [They] pushed this particular language that I told you about earlier. At first, we’d talked about doing this in English and not having subtitles. I don’t know. Subtitles scare people sometimes. With this film, they got cut down so much. There are only…what? 12 or 15 subtitles that happen throughout the whole thing. That’s what I found intriguing, the use of that. Otherwise, it’s an often told story. You just wonder, ‘What in the world can you do to make different?’ Myself, I think I would’ve darkened it up a little bit. I think I would’ve darkened it up quite a bit, but this is what we have.”
Authenticity and Having Experts on the Set: The production notes for “The New World” make a big deal over Malick consulting with experts and making sure that every single item used on the set (or used as part of a set) was authentic. Studi says, “And we don’t see that on the film, do we?” So what will it take to see this story told differently? Studi opines, “What it would take would be for me to edit it. I don’t know. I don’t know if they’ll ever let me in an editing room.” One thing’s for certain, if Studi edited “The New World” there would be much, much less grass.
