Dennis Quaid co-stars in the indie film now available on digital platforms.
The first time we see True Brandywine, the hard-luck protagonist of writer-director Carlyle Eubanks’ fascinating and affecting rodeo drama Broke, he appears to be rising from the dead. Seriously.
In reality, though, he’s pushing himself, through sheer force of will, out from a premature burial beneath a heavy blanket of snow. We only gradually learn, in flashbacks skillfully interlaced throughout the narrative, that True landed there during a freak spring blizzard, after falling from his horse during a ride across the countryside.
As he struggles to survive in the unforgiving cold, he’s forced to look back on a life filled with busted dreams, risky behavior, and redemptive opportunities — and to consider what, if anything, lies ahead.
“The day we shot that opening scene,” Wyatt Russell, the actor cast as True, told C&I a few days ago, “I think the temperature was minus 35 or something like that. And since it’s supposed to be spring, I wasn’t wearing a winter outfit.
“So for a minute and a half, I’m under snow with a snorkel coming out the other side. And let me tell you: Snow is very heavy for anybody who’s never been buried in snow. And I could barely, only faintly, hear ‘Action!’ where I had to come up from the snow.”
As far as Russell is concerned, however, the deep freeze was well worth the discomfort. He is deeply and justly proud of Broke, an outstanding indie film now available on digital platforms. So proud, in fact, that he took time during his promotional chores for Thunderbolts*, the smash-hit Marvel Comics movie in which he plays the faux Captain America known as U.S. Agent, to talk with C&I about what he describes as a “passion project.”
Broke, which is structured in an arresting time-tripping manner that gives it an almost European feel, tells the story of True Brandywine, a bronc rider who rarely wins even pocket money at small-stakes rodeos, and who relies a great deal on self-medication to get himself through life in and out of the arena.
When he’s not riding, True works the family farm alongside his father, George Brandywine (Dennis Quaid), a former rodeo competitor who left the sport years ago and seldom looks back. George is understandably worried about True, and repeatedly urges him to consider other career options. But neither his father nor his girlfriend, Ali (Auden Thornton), can dissuade True from chasing the thrill of victory, even if the pursuit too often ends in the agony of defeat.
Broke is by no means Russell’s first rodeo. The son of actors Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, he made one of his first screen appearances, fleetingly, as the younger version of his father’s character in the 1998 cult-fave sci-fi action-adventure flick Soldier. (Decades later, he again played an early iteration of Dad in the limited-run series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.) He put acting on the back burner for a few years as he played hockey for several amateur and pro teams, ending his career on ice only because of injuries he endured in 2010.
Russell subsequently shifted his focus back to acting, and has since appeared in such notable films and TV dramas as 21 Jump Street, Everybody Wants Some!!!, Blaze, The Good Lord Bird, Under the Banner of Heaven, and the 2021 limited-run series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (which introduced him as U.S. Agent).
We recently had the pleasure of interviewing Wyatt Rusell during a pause in his Thunderbolts* tour. Here are some highlights from our conversation, edited for brevity and clarity.
Cowboys & Indians: Let’s start with the obvious question. What’s more difficult, playing ice hockey or busting broncs?
Wyatt Russell: That is a tough question because there’s two completely different areas of toughness that you have to have. The length of a hockey game, and the difficulty of getting through a season, is what’s actually difficult. So performing for eight seconds — or hopefully eight seconds — is a really wild foreign concept to me. Because when I played hockey, you’re playing for two hours and then you’re getting on the bus, and the next day you’re practicing, and you might play the day after that. So there’s a pace-yourself element to hockey. And then towards the end, in the playoffs, you’re playing through the injuries that you’ve sustained through the whole season.
Whereas bronc riding is like eight seconds of a car crash every time you go out there. So if you’re just talking about sheer willpower and grit and determination, and lasting through something that’s difficult, the bronc riding. Because, like I say, you’re strapping yourself to a car accident every time you get on the horse. But what would I rather do to keep my longevity? I think I’d rather play hockey.
“So I felt like I’m in great hands no matter which way we go, because the authenticity is not going to be questioned.” — Wyatt Russell
C&I: In Broke, you really have to maneuver through some daunting emotional extremes. I’ve been told by actors that, in situations like that, you really have to trust your director to be there with the net in case you fall off the tightrope. What did Carlyle Eubank do to earn your trust?
Russell: Honestly? He wrote the script. And the reason I say that is because I had read some other things that he had written, and they were very good. But then I came across this, and it was very different from some of the other things that he had written. There are certain things that you read and you go, “Oh, OK, this person’s obviously very researched. Obviously, they love this world.” There’s two types of movies, especially those that involve sports. There’s movies that are written by fans. And then there are very, very rare movies that are written by the people who actually did it. And that’s what this felt like to me.
So I called him and said, “Hey, I love your script. How do you know all this stuff?” And he’s like, “Well, this is what I do.” He runs cattle, and he lives on a ranch. That’s his life — it’s not like a hobby. And he worked in the rodeo world for two years. His whole life revolves around this world in a very real way.
So I wanted to do this movie because very, very, very rarely do you ever see a movie where there are these little mundane details in the script, and you go, “Oh, this person really knows what they’re doing.” So I felt like I’m in great hands no matter which way we go, because the authenticity is not going to be questioned. Because the main thing that we’re going after here is authenticity.
C&I: There is a time-tripping, almost stream-of-consciousness structure to Broke that actually makes the storytelling more arresting and compelling. But were there ever days on location when you had to ask yourself, like, “OK, is this before or after I fell off the bronc, or what?”
Russell: [Laughs] There was some of that. The way we shot it, it was really nice — well, I mean, nice is probably the wrong word to use — but we shot the first three weeks during winter near Wisdom, Montana. We were in the middle of nowhere for a lot of that stuff, in a snowstorm. Or in a blizzard. And we were able to shoot in sequence.
And then we went back in the summertime, and we shot in Butte, Montana, and we shot a lot of those scenes in chronological order. So there wasn’t a lot of “Am I limping here? What am I doing here?” We actually got lucky with the weather, so were able to do two different time periods, in two different seasons. Because you kind of had to shoot it logically.
C&I: Dennis Quaid is very effective, and really very subtle, as True’s father. I mean, that’s a role that I can see a dozen different actors — even some very fine actors — getting wrong and playing George like an authoritarian jerk. What did you think of his performance, and how easy was it to develop this father-son relationship on screen?
Russell: His performance was so real and great. I think that, honestly, before Dennis came in, we had this idea of a more difficult relationship, a tougher relationship. And when Dennis came in, what he brought to it was a reality, and a sense of sharing. Especially with the bronc riding. Obviously, True kind of idolizes his father in some ways, because he’s doing the same thing that he did, and he wants his father to be proud of him. And he also looks up to his father.
Dennis played [George] with his ease and charm, but not laying it on thick. Just like he is as a person. And that added an element of “Yeah, of course True wanted to be like him. Maybe they don’t communicate perfectly, but it’s more real that I love my dad. We can’t communicate exactly right. And sometimes that gets really lost in translation.” Dennis is just an easy person to get along with as a human being. So that just kind of made it easy to be honest, because he understands the world and understands the people that we're portraying.
C&I: And again, you have someone who’s enhancing the film’s authenticity.
Russell: Some filmmakers will take this culture, and have the characters go like, “We're so Western” or “We’re so normal.” And it’s like, no, these actually are normal people who are just trying to make it. And Broke is for the people you don’t see at the PRCA finals, or the NFR finals. You don’t see them on ESPN or FS1. Look, 99.5 percent of people that ride pro and do rodeo, you’re never going to see ’em on there. They win 300 bucks if they win a rodeo in that event, and then it’s on to the next place in a trailer, with pills. And it can be depressing.
But they keep the culture and the spirit of it alive, because they love doing it. I felt that way about hockey obviously, and so that’s why I connected to the character. But I also connected to that aspect of a character like that with a father like that. I just found that really interesting, and I loved doing it with Dennis.
“When lightning strikes, it’s awesome. Sometimes it doesn't. But sometimes it does.” — Wyatt Russell
C&I: What do you think is the best advice your father has ever given you as an actor?
Russell: I’ve answered this question a lot, and it’s always the same. Be on time, know your lines, and don’t be a jerk. There’s nothing else that anybody can give you about advice about when it comes to how to be better at your job, or how to emote, or how to connect. It’s all inside of you in a way. That, and things that you’ve learned in your life. So don’t be late. Know your lines. And be a good person to collaborate and work with. Try your best, and those three things you can actually have an effect. The other things are things that just … well, they could happen or not.
When lightning strikes, it’s awesome. Sometimes it doesn't. But sometimes it does. Do your best. God touches you in a certain way, in my opinion, for people that I’ve known who become big movie stars. Actors get the right role, stuff like that. But there’s a lot of things that you can’t control. So you focus on the things that you can.
C&I: You’ve now officially entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in Thunderbolts* and two upcoming Avengers movies. And you’re also going to be in Steven Spielberg’s UFO movie. Now ’ve had a fairly successful acting career up until now, and you’ve given some very fine performances. But do you have a sense right now that, hey, you’re on the diving board, and you’re about to jump into the deep end of the pool — in terms of recognition, in terms of influence, in terms of your ability to help certain films get made?
Russell: To be honest, I’d love to be able to say yes. But the answer is no, because I’ve been doing this for going on — well, I’m 38 years old now, and I’ll be 39 later this year, so almost 16 years. And I think I've been one of the longest on-the-cusp actors in history.
It’s funny: When you have parents who are famous, people still think of you as a 19-year-old or a 25-year-old or something. And you’re like, “Hey, I have two children and a wife and a family and a life where I’m almost 40 years old.” Look, it’s nice to be thought of as young. I’ll take it. But I’ve had so many experiences within Hollywood or within the business where people go, “Oh, so this is it. This is going to be so big for you. This is going to be so great.” But for me, it’s always been gradual steps.
I don’t know if that’s because I don’t like taking the spotlight very much — it's just not my personality — so I have shied away from it. Probably to my detriment. But I’ve enjoyed my career, I’ve enjoyed the roles that I’ve been able to play. I used to be very competitive, and I was much more concerned with making a mark so that I could do the things that you just said. You want to be that person, become that person. And as you grow older and your career takes on a shape, you start to feel differently. You have a family, you have children, you start to feel you want to do things that are fulfilling. I want to do things that are worth my time, and I want to do things that are going to push me to be better, and I want to do things that I'm going to walk away from going, “That was a worthwhile experience.”
C&I: Like Broke?
Russell: Yeah, it’s been fun. I love talking about Broke, because it was such a passion project. Passion over many years of getting it made. And I’m happy that people are going to be able to finally see it.
