“I’ve two virtually 4-year-olds, and I’m fairly highly effective and influential in sure circles, however not with two 4-year-olds,” says Joel Edgerton. “Children run their very own nation, in a manner.”
Edgerton’s been pondering loads these days about these nascent years earlier than coming into maturity because of his newest mission, The Plague, which appears to be like on the sophisticated and sometimes terrifying social dynamics of children — particularly adolescent boys.
The characteristic debut of director Charlie Polinger, the movie is ready on the planet of a aggressive water polo summer season camp, focusing totally on the dynamic inside a gaggle of 12- and 13-year-old boys who’ve ostracized one camper as a result of he has “the plague,” a nasty-looking case of eczema. One camper, Ben (Everett Blunck), struggles between his want to assist the outcast camper and his fear about incurring the wrath of the bigger group. Within the movie, Edgerton performs the well-meaning if ineffective water polo coach.
“Within the age of renewed questions on and concerns of the manosphere, The Plague is a prescient title,” wrote THR critic Lovia Gyarkye in her assessment of the movie, which is shortly turning into one of many stand-outs of the fest.
Past displaying appreciable vary as an actor in all the pieces from Baz Luhrmann’s The Nice Gatsby to Paul Schrader’s The Grasp Gardener and George Clooney’s The Boys within the Boat, Edgerton can also be a filmmaker — he acquired a DGA nom for first-time director for his 2015 thriller The Present, which he additionally wrote and starred in.
Forward of Cannes 2025, the place The Plague is ready to display within the Un Sure Regard part, Edgerton talked to THR in regards to the inherent horror of being a preteen: “I’ve usually stated about college expertise that it’s like a documentary the place you’re watching a depleting watering gap within the African savanna.”
What drew you to a narrative that’s targeted on a gaggle of 13-year-olds?
I’m actually on this thought of when can we grow to be accountable adults. There’s an untethered, unchecked interval of our life, though we’ve dad and mom, we’ve academics and, on this case, camp counselors. There’s a nature in youngsters that’s pure, that may be stunning or might be darkish. It’s by way of a passage of experiential moments that we be taught what makes others round us really feel good, and subsequently how that displays our personal character and that shapes who we’re. I assumed the journey inside this movie of the central character was a very, actually attention-grabbing common exploration of how we form ourselves on the planet. I simply wished to assist guarantee that the film obtained made.
What was it in regards to the script that had you saying, “I wish to assist it get made”?
There’s an actual cautious consideration and accuracy to how youngsters — whereas they is likely to be horrible at understanding the ramifications or the collateral harm that they’ll trigger — are wonderful at socio-diplomacy. They be taught the place to place themselves inside a flock or a herd. They perceive hierarchy. They perceive what’s harmful and what’s protected. Whether or not we consider these instincts and cues to be good ones, they in a short time discern the place they should stand and with whom. Ben’s journey is about understanding that it’s harmful to be caring in the direction of the ostracized, wounded member of the group, however his nature attracts him in that route and attracts him into the hazard as properly.
There’s the previous adage in movie about not working with youngsters and animals, however on this film, you’re solely working with youngsters. How did you discover the expertise?
I all the time marvel at youngsters, regardless of the ages of children that I’ve labored with. You’ll work with a toddler who’s by no means been in a movie earlier than and also you’ll be taught one thing from them. Kayo [Martin], who performs the bully, he may run rings round me to the purpose the place we might shoot issues, and when the strains have been blurred, I wished to throttle him. He knew that his job was simply to be cocky to all people, and so he didn’t cease with me. I don’t simply look upwards to the older, wiser actors. There’s one thing to be discovered from all people. It’s very spectacular, too, on Charlie’s facet, to create the sense of hazard for the character of Ben. Intention and impact are various things. I’d say one thing simply to make my associates chuckle at me that actually hurts you. I feel there’s a actual accuracy and element inside that for the movie. It’s not similar to bullies going, “I’m going to be imply.” It’s “I’m being imply as a result of I’m making an attempt to outlive.” For Kayo’s character, his manner of surviving is to be the chief of a gaggle.
If you put it like that, being a child is fairly Darwinian.
The grownup world has its personal governing algorithm, and we impose these on our personal youngsters, supposedly to indicate them the ropes to the world that they’re about to take a maintain of. However youngsters have their very own language, their very own guidelines. They create them. They create their very own society. Then an grownup, like my character, turns into a foreigner inside their nation.
You might be actually the one grownup within the movie. What did you see as your character’s place in the midst of the children’ dynamic?
Adults can hover round a camp or a college or a family, however they’ll’t be all realizing and all seeing. Their recommendation or their very own expertise can replicate or provide knowledge, however it doesn’t essentially assist whenever you’re residing within the ache of one thing. Ben could bear in mind my character as Charlie remembers his expertise 30 years later, however I can assure it’s laborious to obtain all of that parental knowledge or teacherly knowledge whenever you’re within the midst of the turmoil of residing in a nation of kids. This was the closest factor I’d ever learn to a Lord of the Flies sort situation — a society constructed and run and arranged by youngsters. I’ve been an enormous fan of flicks like 13 up to now, as a result of they’re like a peephole or a window right into a life we don’t get to expertise as soon as we’re of a sure age. We don’t know the way youngsters discuss once they’re with one another. I feel we’re all petrified of them. I feel we’re petrified of youth.
There are occasions the place the film seems like a real horror movie, like there’s something audiences ought to be actually afraid of onscreen.
I’ve usually stated in regards to the college expertise that it’s like a documentary the place you’re watching a depleting watering gap within the African savanna, crocodiles, and there’s a child antelope and all the pieces in between. It’s a harmful place, and something can occur. There’s one thing actually Full Steel Jacket about this film. There are related tones to this.
I assumed the selection of setting it inside a water polo camp was attention-grabbing. What did you consider having it set in that world particularly?
It may have been something. It might be a tennis camp, gymnastics or regardless of the tradition. The specificity of that tradition, cinematically, is gorgeous, and the confines of being in a single swim heart and the hazard of the water may be very potent. By way of the expertise, I used to be simply pondering again to so many experiences of my very own as a toddler and everybody on the crew was speaking about that stuff. Childhood is stuffed with sentimental, stunning recollections, however it’s additionally stuffed with loopy trauma. These issues diminish over time, we transfer on, and occasions get swallowed up, however they’ve all made their little sort of scars.