Latest news with #DanielleDeadwyler
New York Times
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Danielle Deadwyler on Balancing Brutality and Family in ‘40 Acres'
Onscreen, the actress Danielle Deadwyler has become known for expressing with her eyes what words rarely do. She can appear at once steely and heartbroken, fierce and fragile. She has used this ability to great effect in the HBO Max dystopian drama 'Station Eleven'; in Jeymes Samuel's 2021 western, 'The Harder They Fall'; and in Chinonye Chukwu's 2022 historical drama, 'Till,' in which she played the doting mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old whose gruesome murder in Mississippi in 1955 helped spark the civil rights movement. Now, Deadwyler, 43, is applying her skill to R.T. Thorne's first feature, the horror indie '40 Acres,' which is set in the near future. She plays a mother and former soldier, Hailey Freeman, who, alongside her partner, an Indigenous man named Galen (Michael Greyeyes), is preparing her brood for the harsh truths of their famine-decimated postapocalyptic life. They must fight threats from all sides, the scariest of which are bands of ferocious cannibals. The family tries to balance survivalist reality, including grisly encounters, with serene farm life. Days are spent training the four children to be warriors while also honoring their heritage and their land, finding surprising joy in the small things. In his critic's pick review for The Times, Robert Daniels wrote that 'Deadwyler's forceful energy fills the frame' and that she 'lends power and humor to this lovingly stern mother.' Hailey and her family are the descendants of African American farmers who settled in Canada after the Civil War, when the United States failed to fulfill Gen. William T. Sherman's promise of 40 acres of land for Black Americans freed from enslavement. 'It's a unique family — R.T. said he hadn't seen Black and Indigenous families together onscreen,' Deadwyler told me in a video interview in June. 'I hadn't either, like this.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CTV News
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
‘Incredibly ambitious and probably really stupid': R.T. Thorne's sci-fi debut '40 Acres'
Danielle Deadwyler as Hailey Freeman in "40 Acres" is seen in this undated handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout - Rafy, courtesy of Mongrel Media (Mandatory Credit) TORONTO — R.T. Thorne says he could have played it safe with his debut feature. Instead, he swung for the fences, writing an epic sci-fi thriller about generational trauma, cannibalism and humanity's connection with land — all set in what he calls 'a post-apocalyptic world where the stakes are at the absolute highest.' 'For my first film, it was incredibly ambitious and probably really stupid to write something like that,' the Calgary-born writer-director laughs in a recent video call from Toronto. '40 Acres,' out Friday, centres on a Black-Indigenous family in a famine-stricken future where a fungal pandemic has wiped out all animal life on the planet. When a marauding group of cannibals closes in on their farm, ex-military matriarch Hailey Freeman, played by Danielle Deadwyler, clashes with her son Manny, played by Toronto's Kataem O'Connor, over the best way to survive a world in ruins. Deadwyler says she was drawn to the film's historical context — the Freemans are the last descendants of a Black family of farmers who settled in Canada after the U.S. Civil War. 'The connection between the American and Canadian history of folks getting to this northern liberated land, it was very much on my mind,' the Atlanta native says in a recent video call Los Angeles. 'You can talk about the Underground Railroad for sure — there were people escaping who got (to Canada) and established themselves. When we think about Hailey, she is coming from a place where she understands the century-plus-long history of her family on the land that they are fighting for.' Michael Greyeyes, who plays Hailey's partner Galen, considers '40 Acres' an 'Indigenous rights film' because it centres on people fighting to stay on their land. 'If you look at the world in general, colonialism, empire and taking land away from Indigenous populations is an ongoing threat,' says the actor from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, reached by Zoom in Winnipeg. 'Our film actually states that the land belongs to the caretakers and that we resist empire and we resist encroachment.' Thorne says the earliest seeds of the film were planted in something more intimate: a desire to channel his relationship with his mother. 'She ran a strict household. I grew up with somebody who was so concerned and so vital in teaching me how to move in the world and what she felt was important in the world,' he recalls. Thorne got his start directing music videos for artists including Sean Paul and Keshia Chanté before creating the 2020 sci-fi series 'Utopia Falls' and helming the 2022 period drama 'The Porter,' both of which aired on CBC. With '40 Acres,' he set out to explore 'the universal generational conflict that happens in every family: the parents think they know what it is and as the young people grow up, they want freedom.' But as a self-described 'dreamer,' his ambitions quickly grew, envisioning a do-or-die sci-fi future where that family tension could play out on a much larger canvas. Originally conceived seven years ago as a microbudget project through Telefilm's Talent to Watch program, the Sudbury, Ont.-shot film expanded in scale and scope to match Thorne's creative vision. There were some growing pains. Just after the film's premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, the union representing crew members on the shoot issued a statement saying they were 'profoundly disappointed' that some crew and vendors had yet to be fully paid for their work on the production. IATSE — which represents behind-the-scenes workers across film, TV and theatre — says all outstanding payments have since been made. At a public event in Toronto last week, '40 Acres' producer Jennifer Holness addressed the situation by saying that just before filming began in fall 2023, a U.S. distributor that promised a minimum guarantee asked for script changes that would have 'damaged the film and our vision.' Holness said the team chose to walk away, leaving the production '$2 million in the hole.' With an initial $8 million budget — including $3.2 million in public funding from Telefilm — Holness said the production became a week-to-week financial struggle. 'Every single week after the third week of production, we were in a situation of, 'How do we get to the end of the week and pay everyone?'' she said. 'We did 12 weeks up there, and we paid our crew every single week on time. We, the producers, had to come together and invest in the film ourselves. It was a journey. It was an incredibly stressful journey.' The film was picked up by U.S. distributor Magnolia earlier this year and heads to screens across North America this week. Thorne says all payment issues have been resolved and commends Holness for 'steadying the ship.' He adds there are many issues that occur during productions that people don't know about. 'You're always almost falling over to get it to the screen. The thing that I will say is that you come together as a community and you try to fix the mistakes and issues that you have and you make sure that people feel taken care of,' he says. 'And then you come out successful at the end when you do it. And the films that don't, you don't hear about them.' Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'40 Acres' Review: Danielle Deadwyler Protects Her Farm in a Dystopian Home Invasion Saga
In a crushing blow to anyone who claims they'd rather be dead than vegan, a fungal plague wiped out animal life on planet earth 14 years ago. The natural disaster effectively wiped out thousands of years of human economic development, turning us back into an agrarian society overnight. Land has become the most important resource on planet Earth, and anyone who owns their own farm is both blessed with the resources they need to survive and burdened by the knowledge that people are trying to kill them at all times. And because people still need protein, cannibalism is making a regrettable comeback. So begins '40 Acres,' a dystopian home invasion saga anchored by a phenomenally grizzled Movie Star Performance from Danielle Deadwyler. The actress stars as Hailey Freeman, a former soldier who runs a family farm and is all too aware of the kinds of people who would love to take it from her. Even in a world that's now firmly focused on the bottom level of Maslow's pyramid, Hailey is determined to make sure her son Emanuel (Kataem O'Connor) and stepdaughter Raine (Leenah Robinson) have some semblance of a humanities education. In addition to all the farming and self-defense lessons, she makes them read the classics and assigns book reports for good measure. More from IndieWire You Can Now Buy Tickets for Angel Studios' Founding Father Biopic 'Young Washington' Before It's Even Shot Brad Pitt Says His Generation of Actors Were 'More Uptight': 'You Didn't Sell Out' with Franchises Her rigid discipline has created the closest thing that you can find to a conventional nuclear family under such dire circumstances, but it's all predicated on her having complete control over everyone. And children don't stay young forever. The danger has only increased as of late, with an influx in cannibals infiltrating farms posing as soldiers making routine inspections. That has led Hailey to tighten her grip on her children at the very moment when the teenage Emanuel is starting to crave independence. The situation comes to a head when a new girl (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) appears in the forest. Emanuel's desire to protect her clashes with Hailey's military mom instincts, leading to a collision that forces everyone to consider how much safety is worth giving up for freedom and vice versa. '40 Acres' marks the feature debut of R.T. Thorne, who has found plenty of success directing TV episodes and music videos over the past two decades. The film benefits from his steady visual hand, with elegantly composed shots of swooping landscapes and hard-won food that illustrate just how inseparable this dystopian society is from the farmland that these characters are willing to die for. Thorne also knows exactly how to shoot his leading lady, framing Deadwyler's militant Hailey with the imposing gravitas the character deserves as she rules with an iron fist in order to shield her children from outside horrors. The strong visual language elevates the film over plenty of other limited-location dystopian survival stories that have come and gone over the years — a good thing, since this is one of the few that actually has something to say. You don't have to look too hard to see the sci-fi film's overt engagement with American history. It takes its title from the infamous broken promise that every freed slave would receive 40 acres and a mule to rebuild their lives during Reconstruction, and follows a Black woman named Freeman who owns her own farm. Natural disasters that wipe out civilization as we know it and turn everyone into cannibals have a funny way of making us forget about the past in favor of more timely concerns, so Thorne's decision to essentially reboot history gives him a largely blank canvas that's unburdened by what came before. But in this new world, just like the last one, land ownership continues to be the most valuable currency around which all other economic relationships are formed. By turning the tables and making a Black woman the landowner, the filmmaker manages to both subvert the past and illustrate the same economic forces that led to all the inequality we still face in the real world. It all makes for a fitting Fourth of July weekend viewing, with plenty of cannibal combat thrown in for good measure. A Magnolia Pictures release, '40 Acres' opens in theaters on Wednesday, July 2. Want to stay up to date on IndieWire's film and critical thoughts? to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers. Best of IndieWire The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies, Ranked Every IndieWire TV Review from 2020, Ranked by Grade from Best to Worst
Washington Post
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
‘40 Acres' reinvigorates an old action genre with provocative new blood
'40 Acres' is a genre movie the way genre movies are supposed to be but rarely are. It invigorates an old premise with fresh ideas, layers well-crafted action with thematic richness, boasts committed performances and is so taut with tension that the audience might snap before the characters do. Best of all, it features the brilliant actress Danielle Deadwyler as a ferocious postapocalyptic Mother Courage. Deadwyler should have been Oscar-nominated for playing Emmett Till's mother in 'Till' (2022) and as the sister in 'The Piano Lesson' (2024); she's a stage-trained artist who brings riveting emotional authenticity to whatever she does, whether it's classy, like those two earlier movies, or mean and lowdown, like this new one.
Forbes
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Danielle Deadwyler Talks ‘40 Acres' Film And Her ‘Widening' Career
Danielle Deadwyler attends the "40 Acres" screening with Talkback during the 2025 American Black ... More Film Festival at the Miami Beach Convention Center on June 14, 2025 in Miami Beach, Florida. She has been a leading force with her deep, emotional and layered character performances in such films as The Harder They Fall, Till, The Piano Lesson, Carry On and The Woman In The Yard - yet actress Danielle Deadwyler still has plenty of on-screen personas that she is eager to take on next. 'I'm trying to get to every segment dot on the line - and it's not a line, it's a circle. I'm trying to hit every quadrant.' Next up for Deadwyler, 43, is 40 Acres, a gritty drama about a Canadian farming family, living in a dystopian world where they must protect their land & resources at all costs. Directed and co-written by R.T. Thorne, Deadwyler plays Hailey Freeman, the matriarch of this formed family. So, what initially drew Deadwyler to this project? 'The root of any film script is just intelligence, right? Does this piece know what it is? How is my writer, director connecting? That's the realest thing for me. I'm all about the people. What is the story? How do you want to tell it? I jump onto things because of that, first and foremost. R.T. is visually brilliant. He has worked in the realms of music videos, as well as television. And so, to dig into this story of farmland, to dig into this story of family, of survival, of dystopia - I was connected to that on a personal level because I had been dealing in what does it mean to be learning about how to maintain land, to reconnect with land, on a spiritual level and a rooted level.' The Gotham Award winner not only stars in 40 Acres, but she also serves as an executive producer. So, I wondered what it means to her to have this type agency and leadership role behind-the-scenes, and if it ultimately benefited her on-camera performance. Deadwyler said, 'I think it does. I think a producer is there to mother and help birth the film, and to take care of the wellness of that project from pre-production to post-, right? To distribution. You are ushering this thing along. Executive producer, I feel like it can be financial, but it is largely creative. It's a checks-and-balances of the work. My job as an actor is to enhance this vision, to enhance this language - but in conjunction with being an executive producer is to instill a greater knowledge of what it is contextually, historically. Having a hand at supporting something like that is moving forward - it's the way that I want to deal with any project.' (Left to right) Danielle Deadwyler, Michael Greyeyes, Kataem O'Connor, Haile Amare and Jaeda LeBlanc ... More in "40 Acres" Being the mother to a teenage son in real life, I wondered if Deadwyler brought her own maternal instincts into her acting performance of playing a protective mother in 40 Acres. 'I think that mothering doesn't always come through birth - literal birth, but hell yeah. There is a beauty to children. I believe in protecting them. Everyone was a child at some point - just the protecting childhood and innocence is critical. I do bring that know-how. I taught elementary school and have taught across the educational gamut - the educational span from ESL to GED to arts camps and whatnot. It's important to protect people in the midst of their expansion, in the midst of their widening eye, and to protect their bodies from harm. So, that's the basic thing to do and bringing that to Hailey - bringing that to any role, quite frankly - that entails the exploration of motherhood - that urgency, that passion has to be present. If we're talking about a dystopic North America, we are surely talking about hardcore, passionate, urgent, rigorous, ruthless protection.' When moviegoers get the chance to watch this 40 Acres Magnolia Pictures film in the theaters starting July 2, I wondered what Deadwyler hopes that people will take from its story and overall theme into our own divisive real world. Danielle Deadwyler, R.T. Thorne, and Milcania Diaz-Rojas attend the "40 Acres" screening with ... More Talkback during the 2025 American Black Film Festival at the Miami Beach Convention Center on June 14, 2025 in Miami Beach, Florida. 'Man, I think the other day, R.T. and I were having a conversation about what's the significance of the film. This is a conversation across generations, right? I think we're at a, you know, every moment is critical. It's not like this is just now the critical moment to be doing this thing. The generational divide has been ongoing, right? For the past umpteen hundred years plus, there's value to Hailey's desire and need to insulate. There is value to her mistrust or distrust, her guarded-ness. And yet, there is an inherent need for her son to desire to know more. It is not just this nuclear family. So, what does it mean to meet each other? Just to meet each other - that kind of discussion is what should be happening. I think in the nuclear family, for sure. As to the greater world, we have a whole other conversation to be had, but the least we can do with those who we are in community with on a day-to-day basis is meet each other, because we are fighting to be together today on a basic level now.' So, with thought-provoking films like 40 Acres, is Deadwyler noticing that her priorities and interest towards the stories and characters she wants to take on, evolving at all as time goes on? Deadwyler said, 'Oh, heck yeah. I can hit a Till, I can hit a Piano Lesson, I can hit a Carry On, I can hit a Woman In The Yard - and then now, I'm hitting a 40 Acres. This is in the dystopian future - and then I'll pull it back. You can hit it in a horror thriller capacity, in an action thriller capacity, in a drama. This is a family drama with some action thriller. I think people respond to all kinds of stuff and I'm trying to have a wide range of a discussion or engagement with all kinds of audience members. If I can get them in these different genres, then let's play. If I can get them in film, TV, let's do it. Theater, performance art - let's do it. I'm just trying to have a well-rounded conversation about what does it mean to exist in this body and the narratives that come through it.' While reflecting upon the trajectory of her career up until now and what she is perhaps enjoying more today than in years past, Deadwyler said, 'Well, when I was a child, that's when I started. What am I enjoying today? I think the community is widening for me. I think that's exciting to feel and see, and dialogue with folks who are of like-mind. I think I'm trying to go a little slower. Things are hectic - things do move fast. The industry is at a critical tipping point. And so, how do you take something from infancy to adulthood as a project? That's what I'm getting the privilege of doing now, to take my time and to be that much more critical of the things that have been coming my way - and to develop. I'm getting to mother the works that I am connected to.' As Deadwyler continues on around Hollywood projects, with celebrated recognition already surrounding her outstanding performances by groups like BAFTA, the Critics Choice and the Film Independent Spirit Awards, I was curious what she is liking about the ways of the entertainment industry today, and what aspects of yesteryear does she wish were still in place. 'I feel like as difficult as the internet and social media have contributed to the shifting nature of the business, I am a beneficiary in that I'm from Atlanta. Aside from educational stints elsewhere, I've always lived in Atlanta and have not had to live in Hollywood, in order to have a greater conversation. I think that Hollywood is global at this point, which is a challenge to a lot of spaces - which has been a challenge to an ongoing conversation in Los Angeles. It has opened the world up, and I, along with other folks, have had the privilege to be witnessed and not necessarily in-person, though I have had that, too. So, it's a weird thing to have come in right at the cusp of the mad dash shift into bookings off of just self-tape or whatnot. I think the ability to be working is the massive privilege and something that I am grateful for. The other movements are a bit more challenging. I just want to be someone who's encouraging and advocating for work in local spaces that may be in LA - like bringing more things to LA, that may be in Atlanta. Everybody's having a kind of dearth of projects, but bringing things back to the U.S. is critical.' Having navigated over the years as a creative professional herself, what advice does Deadwyler have for other creatives that want their skills to be considered within a competitive and often unstable industry? 'You have full capacity to make - you have so much technology at your hands. You can just make, right? Like literally, collaborate with people who are 'simpatico' with what you are doing. If that thing can be made on a very small, intimate level - and it can be made on a grander level - but you can just start right here. I think when I started doing performance art about 13 years ago, that just fueled me to the things that I could do. I don't have to wait to show my skill in a way. I have to do it for myself. I have to do it for the local community that I'm trying to have a conversation with. Everything, it has its place. I think you should be preparing for all of those spaces and doing it with people who you have a connected heart to.' As I concluded my conversation Deadwyler, I left her with my signature and original interview question, wondering what she would say to her 40 Acres character Hailey, if only she could. Danielle Deadwyler in "40 Acres" Deadwyler said, 'Girl, you should smoke the weed, instead of drink the liquor [laughs]. At the end of the day, the fight that she has is so important. If not for that, would they have been able to protect themselves the way they needed to? There is a need for reprieve, as much as there is a need for the ability to fight. So, I'd tell her to take a couple of tokes and let everybody live.'
