Fred Hechinger, June Squibb, and Clark Gregg at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
Presley Ann/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival
By Bailey Pennick
Deciding to share your story with the world for the first time isn’t something that’s easy to get used to, especially if you’re unveiling it at the Sundance Film Festival. For Josh Margolin, it’s been six months since his debut feature, Thelma, premiered to a packed audience at The Ray Theatre during the 2024 Fest, but it’s still a bit hard to believe.
“It was very surreal, very overwhelming,” Margolin says with a smile. He’s currently in a soundstage for a full day talking all things Thelma alongside his cast. The breakout comedy about a tenacious grandmother (an iconic performance by June Squibb) getting justice from phone scammers is in theaters across the country now, but the first screening in Park City is burned in the writer-director-editor’s brain. Margolin, whom we first got to know before the Festival, now realizes that his premiere demeanor might not have appeared as slick or effortless as he thought it did.
“I thought I was really cool and holding it together,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘This is great. We’re going to show the movie. We’ve shown the movie before!’ And then 10 minutes before the movie ended at our premiere, I suddenly was like, ‘Oh my God, I think I’m going to pass out.’ My girlfriend, Chloe, was like, ‘You’ve been breathing like a crazy person.’ I say, ‘I don’t think so.’ And she was like, ‘Trust me, I’m sitting next to you. You sound insane. Take a breath.’ Somehow everything really hit me in the moments leading up to, honestly, having to talk about it.”
Following that sage advice again half a year later, Margolin pauses to collect his thoughts about the whirlwind that is debuting at the Festival: “Something about owning it in that way at Sundance — at our premiere — it was something I’d dreamed of doing, and then to be there, I felt like I had held it together for as long as I could… It sort of all hit me and overwhelmed me for a moment, and then I took a few breaths and walked up, and we went from there.”
When Margolin says “we,” he means his full Thelma family who made that dream a reality. This, of course, includes his stellar cast who brought the semi-autobiographical story to life. The chemistry between the actors — Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, and the late Richard Roundtree — is infectious to watch on screen and, frankly, to be around.
Off-screen, the Thelma gang looks out for their own, too, whether it’s sharing lines while running through promos in a Hollywood studio or giving each other character advice on set. When it came to navigating the Sundance Film Festival, Margolin’s fictionalized family had a leg up with two Sundance Institute regulars playing mom (Posey) and dad (Gregg).
The excitement of a Sundance premiere isn’t lost on Gregg, who has been part of the Festival as an actor, director, panelist, and juror (“I was trying to figure out how I made it onto the science jury… I think somehow Marvel got me on there, but I’m not sure.”), for nearly three decades. “To come back and watch Josh and [producers] Zoë [Worth] and Chris [Kaye], and this young indie star, June Squibb, having their great experience at Sundance this year, really, it felt very full circle. I adored it,” he says.
Gregg’s advice to his fellow castmates and crew about riding the Fest’s chaos wave isn’t too far from what you’d expect a father to say either. “My Sundance Film Festival tip is very similar to the tip that I give to people who are getting married or having a baby, which is — and in a way, it’s very similar — that there’s going to be so much pressure and so much terror involved, and so much energy coming at you… just try to be in the moment. Have fun because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing you’ll remember the rest of your life. It’s your first time getting to see this thing you’ve given your heart to connect with people, and sometimes in a giant theater.” That connection to humanity is also what drew the cast to Margolin and his story to begin with.
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It’s hard to know when you’re making something very much born of your own life, you hope the more specific it is in that way, the more universal it is.
Josh Margolin
Inspired by (and aptly named for) his own grandmother and her experience being scammed, Margolin’s script leaped off the page for everyone involved, especially Squibb — the freshest action star out there. “Well, it was beautifully written and it was not overwritten, which I think, especially with young writers, is a problem,” she says, taking a quiet moment after posing for photos on the film’s signature Jazzy scooter. “I just felt, ‘Oh gosh, I do want to be this lady!’ I just felt she was so wonderful, and then the more I found out about it — knowing it was Josh’s real grandmother that he was writing about — I just felt it was something I had to do.” By the end of the film, everyone wishes that they were Thelma, which has been astounding to Margolin.
Authenticity is a common refrain in the cast’s answers about Thelma, but how has releasing a fictionalized version of his family and life to the public been for Margolin? “That part’s been surreal and strange,” laughs the filmmaker. Between directing “himself” through Hechinger and watching Posey pull up to set in her own accessories, perfectly capturing his own mother, to say that Margolin’s heart is up on that screen within every frame of Thelma is an understatement. “It’s hard to know when you’re making something very much born of your own life, you hope the more specific it is in that way, the more universal it is,” he explains. “But what’s been really cool and surprising in some ways is how much June reminds people of their grandma.”
That dynamic is special to Hechinger. Sporting a freshly buzzed head and a camo jacket, the soft-spoken actor grins as he thinks about his own family. “I’m really close with my grandmother, and I grew up watching movies at her house with her. We’d watch Turner Classic Movies together, and we’d go out and see movies too,” he says. “She loves to go to the movies, but there, unfortunately, are less great movies about people her age — that treat her experience with care and seriousness and humor… [Films] that just treat them with fullness. And I felt that every page of this [script] did that: treated the characters with such fullness.”
“It makes hard choices and has people do rough things,” says Gregg, offering his interpretation of the script’s “fullness.” “But there was a generous appreciation of the human spirit that I felt very taken with, and it’s necessary in humor.”
From initial coffee meetings in the San Fernando Valley to opening the film to theaters across the country, Thelma’s cast continues to attribute that generosity to the man at the helm. Squibb is first in line for her Margolin fan club membership. “Josh is great and I kid him, I keep saying he’s got at least eight or nine other films in a drawer somewhere… this cannot be his first film! I think he’s amazing to do what he’s done and to do it in the spirit and the way he’s done it.” She looks off to the side where the filmmaker is sitting. “He’s a leader, he really does. He led all of us on the journey.” And while they have come a long way from production and the Sundance Film Festival premiere, Thelma’s got a long scooter ride ahead.
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It’s your first time getting to see this thing you’ve given your heart to connect with people, and sometimes in a giant theater.
Clark Gregg
“At the time, I was like, ‘Okay, we get to the Festival, this is amazing, and then this is the end of the work.’ And I was very wrong,” Margolin exclaims. “Because it feels like ever since, it’s been a whirlwind, but it’s been great. It’s been really, really exciting and cool to get to incrementally share the movie with more and more people…”
Once again he follows his partner’s premiere advice, takes a breath and a beat.
“Yeah, I thought Sundance was the end of a chapter, but it feels like it was actually the beginning of, well, a chapter.” He shakes his head and starts to giggle to himself. “I couldn’t think of another word. Let’s use that quote. That’s a good quote.”
