Inside the most unnerving scene in ‘Civil War’: ‘It was a stunning bit of good luck’

Mark Olsen April 12, 2024

Warning: The following contains spoilers for “Civil War.”

America has been shattered in Civil War,.

as factionalism has caused the nation to turn on itself.

An armed alliance between Texas and California known as

T t

he Western Forces

is on the verge of recapturing

a besieged

capital.

toppling Washington D.C.

A team of journalists

are on their way heads

from New York City to Washington, D.C., in hopes of landing one last interview with the p

P

resident

, an illegal third-termer gone rogue.

As they make their journey, Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a veteran photojournalist who has witnessed conflicts all over the world,

reluctantly

takes the inexperienced young Jessie (Cailee Spaeny)

reluctantly

under her wing. Lee sees something of herself in Jessie

,

and wants to spare her younger counterpart

from

the disillusionment and dismay she has come to feel. All the work she has done has seemingly led to nothing, as the nation

has still

rushe

sd

headlong into a hopeless

conflict endgame

.

Written and directed by Alex Garland, whose previous work includes the pessimistic, dystopian tales

of

Ex Machina and Annihilation, the film walks a

razor’s-

edge, careful not to tip to one political perspective or another. Often it is unclear who is fighting on which side, as a hypnotic frenzy seems to have overtaken everyone

people

.

No scene encapsulates the tricky balancing act of the film quite like one that involves actor Jesse Plemons,

appearing in a cameo.

Spaenys character

of Jessie

has briefly become separated from the other journalists she

was

is travel

l

ing with, including Joel (Wagner Moura) and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson). When

they

the group finally finds

her Jessie

, she is being held

at gunpoint

with another journalist in an open field by a small cadre of

militia mensoldiers

who have been dumping dead bodies from a truck into a crude mass grave.

An unnamed soldier of uncertain allegiance played by Plemons seems

to be

in charge

of the group

. As

Dunst’s

Lee, Joel, Sammy and another journalist try to figure out what to do,

a few of them

the decision is

finally

made to approach the soldier

s

in

the

hopes of saving Jessie and their colleague.

Plemons soldier, wearing a disconcerting pair of red plastic sunglasses while he idly fingers

the

his assault rifle

he is holding

, interrogates the group with unnerving calm. He asks them all to identify themselves with what has already become the signature line of the film:

What kind of American are you?

He begins to shoot those whose answer he doesnt like, revealing a blatant racism and xenophobia. As it seems he is about to

also

turn on Jessie, Sammy

arrives with crashes into the moment in

their truck, running down Plemons character as they are able to make their escape

though not without losses.In real life , Dunst and Plemmons are married with two children. Having met while shooting a season of the television series Fargo, they also appeared together in Jane Campions The Power of the Dog, both earning Oscar nominations for their performances.

Plemons cold

–

blooded psycho

ticsis

is among the most terrifying things in Civil War and his scene is a pivotal one, essentially launching the journalists toward the final act of the movie.

In real life

,

Dunst and Plem

m

ons are married with two children. Having met while shooting a season of the television series Fargo, they also appeared together in Jane Campions The Power of the Dog, both earning Oscar nominations for their performances.

In a recent interview alongside Spaeny, Dunst addressed what it was like to perform with her

real-life

partner

, especially sinceas

he had to

enact embody

such a disturbing character.

I feel like Lee’s approach in this scene is

:

We just gotta get through this and get out alive,

”

Dunst says.

“So I wasn’t scared of him

or him

as an actor

, Dunst said.

. It’s a weird question because Jesse and I, we fell in love creatively first as actors and how we work together. And we just love that process.”

Continues Dunst,

I’m going to

nna

be very honest watching him play that role, I was like, Dang, my baby is crushing this role. So that’s how I felt.

, Dunst said.

I was like, F, he’s a good actor. The scenario was very scary, but I wasn’t scared of him. But just looking at the mass grave, all of it around me

,

was terrifying.”

Shooting the scene was nevertheless unique for Dunst, as opposed to the rest of her cast mates.

“The other actors and how they were responding to Jesse was more terrifying for me in terms of what was actually happening in the scene,

continued adds

Dunst. But I also didn’t really interact with him in that scene. Basically, he asked me where I’m from, and I’m like, Colorado. So it wasn’t like he was doing things to me like he was to Cailee and the other characters in that scene, which was terrifying because the scenario’s terrifying.

Spaenys experience of the scene was very different. Shooting for two days in the hot Atlanta sun began to take its toll on her. The film was shot chronologically, so the events of the film did start to have an

ac

cumulative weight on the actors.

Once we g

e o

t to that scene, it was very scary for me, sa

ysid

Spaeny, explaining that the first part of the scene focused on Dunst, Moura and Henderson

planning a rescue from afar

while

she and

Plemons

and herself

were away from everyone else. So I was down there with Jesse for about a half

–

a

–

day with him, completely in character, drilling me, improvising that whole scene.

So it was a half-a-day where we weren’t even on camera and we were an eye-line and he was just in it, Spaeny said. And so then I was like, Okay, well I’m in it too. Here we go.

And so by the time we got to the end of that scene, I think we were all really out of it. You do it that many times and it just sort of gets under your skin.

Spaeny went on

to explain that Garland and cinematographer Rob Hardy had designed the scene so that no cameras were visible, with Hardy hiding in the pit that was meant to be a mass grave.

And so you weren’t seeing some crew guy wandering in the background eating a bag of chips

,

you didn’t have a traditional close-up, sa

id ys

Spaeny. It felt very immersive. That stunt sequence was incredible. And by the time we all got into that car, when Ste

phv

en comes and picks us up, God, it felt really real. That whole sequence. The scene, the way it’s written is just completely chilling. And then the performances that I was surrounded by, it was just that combination, doing it over and over again for two days straight. It just gets to you.

Plemons was not

the Garland’s

first choice for the role.

It was a A

bout a week before principal photography began,

when

another actor cast in the role

, whom Garland declines to name ,

had to drop out. Garland recall

sed

learning he had lost the other actor while on the phone outside the rehearsal space where the cast was preparing

for the shoot

.

I was standing out on the street when I got the call and I thought, Oh s. Now, now we’re in trouble,

recalled says the directorGarland in a separate interview

. And so I went to the rehearsal and said Bad news, guys, so and so can’t do it. And Kirsten said, What? You should ask Jesse. And I thought,

Oh, that would be amazing.

Jesse was around, sa

ysid

Dunst. I was like,

what about l ‘L

et’s just ask Jesse to play this role.

?

‘

It was a stunning bit of good luck, sa

ysid

Garland. That makes it sound like I’m being disrespectful to the other actor. I’m not at all. Its just the film was very lucky to get Jesse.

It was at t T

he climactic moment of Plemons scene, when a truck takes him out,

is triggering wildly disparate reactions.that during At

the films world premiere at

the

South by Southwest

Film and TV Festival in Austin, Texas last month brought a roaring cheer from the

, an audience in one theater

gave it a roaring cheer

while

, watching the movie and a stunned silence from the audience watching in another theater’s crowd sat in stunned silence.

As they continue on, Sammy reveals he has been shot. By the time they get to the relative safety of a military encampment of

T t

he Western Forces, he is dead. Lee later looks at her camera, seeing

as she has

a photo of

his

Sammy’s body slumped in the backseat of their vehicle. In a moment of fraught tenderness, she deletes it.

We shot that scene a lot of different ways

.

: I don’t delete it

. ,

I delete it

.

, I was crying

. ,

I wasn’t crying,”

Dunst remembers.

“There

was were

many different versions of that.

, recalled Dunst.

And that’s the version that Alex wanted to tell for Lee’s character. So the decision was made for me in the edit because we just did a bunch of different choices.

Dunst recalls working through the emotions of the moment.

“I would just put myself in Lee’s shoes

,” she says. “

If a mentor for me, if I was with them during their death

,

whatever that meant for me.

, said Dunst.

But I think the decision for Lee was to keep that for herself in her memory. And she didn’t need a photo. It’ll be a photo in her brain for the rest of her life.

In an early scene in the movie, one of the first pieces of advice that Lee gives to Jessie is to wear a helmet. And during a firefight early in the film, Dunst, Spaeny and Moura are indeed all wearing helmets. But then they never wear them again, even during the climactic military attack on the White House.

Were just saying we lost them, explains

ed

Dunst

with a knowing smile

. That was a big debate, believe me. And I dont know how much I should share, but basically, for cinema, we weren’t totally sure if you wanted to see your characters through the whole

end of the

movie in helmets.

Dunst

admitted says

she thought she looked like Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin when wearing her helmet. Spaeny had concerns of her own.

You can’t see my eyes, sa

ysid

Speany, with a small laugh. It’s realism until the point you can’t see my face.

Part of what makes Civil War so powerful is how plausible it is, depicting people in rare moments at their best but more often at their worst, riven by self-interest and small-minded fears. The films bracing sense of reality also leads to a deep concern for these journalists urgently heading toward danger, helmets on or not.

It was a cinematic choice with that one, Dunst sa

ysid

.

And we just thought, we lost them.

I feel like in every other thing, we tried to make it as real as possible.