TORONTO — ONE at a time, the cast members of "Into the Wild" are filing in to a conference room at the Park Hyatt Hotel, during the Toronto International Film Festival, to discuss their experiences working on this unique American road trip of a movie.
Star Emile Hirsch, who thankfully has put on some weight since his starring role as Christopher McCandless, is soft-spoken and thoughtful, seemingly still a little shell-shocked by his experience and the attention he's received.
Hirsch said that when he was cast for the grueling part, he "was pretty out of shape, about 26 pounds overweight," and spent hour after hour by himself in preparation. Writer/director Sean Penn also put him through a difficult physical regimen.
By the time Hirsch's cinematic journey was over, he underwent "withdrawal" and said he had a hard time reacclimating himself to society.
"You go back to where you were living and what you were doing before," he said, "and you feel like a stranger in a strange land."
William Hurt, who plays McCandless' hard, materialistic father, is curious and talkative, interested in discussing the Armenian genocide with a reporter of Armenian descent, happy to talk about his son who recently graduated from Philadelphia's University of the Arts and has landed a role off-Broadway, and comparing "Into the Wild" to "The Grapes of Wrath," saying "It's the most amazing film pictorially of America in a long time."
Jena Malone, who plays McCandless' sister, Carine, arrives in a black dress, wearing a jaunty fedora and talking a type of spiritual philosophy that would have made the 23-year-old actress at home in the Beat Generation.
She said the real Carine is "rad and crazy and beautiful" and was "very instrumental in getting the movie made."
"We had a really beautiful, intimate, creative collaboration," she said. "I've never felt as connected to someone. I don't know her, we don't spend Christmas together, I don't call her up for coffee, but I'd never felt like that, like I was understanding someone's smell, someone's taste."
Kristen Stewart, who plays Slab City's Tracy, a teen who takes a liking to McCandless as he passes through the Bohemian man-made California town, is as poised a 17-year-old as you're likely to meet. She sees McCandless' story as one about a search to be free, and said, "Anyone who's human has that primordial instinct to demand their freedom."
Another beautiful actress who seems a bit uncomfortable in her skin, Stewart has been working in movies since the age of 10 ("Panic Room") but was still stunned when her agent told her to call Penn on his cell phone because he was trying to put together a table read of his script (a table read in which Stewart read Tracy and Carine).
"The thought of Sean is intimidating," she said, "but he's sensitive, gentle, emotionally in tune."
The actor who was not intimidated by Penn is the actor who had the most reason to be. Brian Dierker, who plays Catherine Keener's hippie husband, Rainey, isn't an actor at all. He was brought on to the project as the marine coordinator, to help shoot the river scenes and teach Hirsch how to kayak.
Dierker, a regular guy with a long, grey ponytail, is facing press for the first time (the camera-boat operators tend not to do interviews or be trailed by paparazzi) and he's as natural here as he is in the film.
He said he never had any interest in being an actor — "I have too much respect for the craft of acting" — but said Penn can be "pretty persuasive."
Dierker said Penn tried not to "clutter things up" for him with a lot of direction and he was pleased that he never did have a "full freeze-up on camera."
"I never got into the fetal position and started sobbing," he said.
In explaining the Americana aspect of "Into the Wild," Dierker said that in Slab City (one of the film's 30-plus locations), "I think Sean did a remarkable job integrating the people who lived there into it. That's a wild bunch that lives down there.
"The production crew was fantastic with those people, they kind of adopted them. And in return they adopted a lot of us....They're not wealthy people, by any means, and a lot of them have lived real hard lives. And there are probably some people there not only running from publicity but from the law.
"When Sean was down there with his scouting crew," said Dierker, "they really figured out who was who in that community. And there's a character there named Insane Wayne who's kind of like the mayor of Slab City. He's an unforgettable presence when you meet him. He's got deep, piercing blue eyes and he's kind of a folk singer. He's got his own little repertoire of music that he occasionally shares with the Slab people. He's revered and feared...
"Sean figured out what he had with Wayne and then built him in to the concert scene. He had to be involved in Sean's eyes."
Unfortunately, by the time the scene was to be filmed, Wayne was in jail.
Penn, using all of his powers of persuasion, convinced a judge at the 11th hour to give Wayne a work furlough so he could appear in the film.
"We were shooting another scene," said Dierker, "in the little art community there and this corrections van pulls up, the doors swing open, the corrections officers get out fully armed, and then this guy in the orange suit gets out fully shackled — arms, ankles, waistband — and the local people we were using as extras are going 'Welcome home, Wayne!'
"Those corrections officers were within 15 feet of him the whole evening...but he was included in the shoot.
"Actually," Dierker added, "the story goes on a little more. There was a group of Hell's Angels that were brought over to be in the crowd and sure enough while we were shooting a little scuffle started — the Hell's Angels were beating some guy up —and the [corrections officers] snatched old 'Insane Wayne' up in a heartbeat."
But, in keeping with the film's adventurous, don't-quit message, "then they settled everybody down and finished the shot." *