Thomas Wright Talks About the Dark Side of ‘The Stranger’

variety.com:

Gregg Goldstein Australian native Thomas M. Wright is no stranger to dark material. He portrayed a haunted ex-con in Jane Campion’s series “Top of the Lake,” wrote and directed fierce plays for his Black Lung theater company and examined a twisted relationship in his 2018 directorial debut, the black comedy “Acute Misfortune.” But few of his past projects approach the level of anguish and suspense in his sophomore feature, “The Stranger,” which plays in Un Certain Regard May 20. “I certainly grapple with difficult ideas and truths in my work,” Wright says. “But the world is a dark place.”Though he directed plays for years, Wright felt he “didn’t have any right to do it” onscreen until he was cast in “Lake” by Campion. “At the end, I said to Jane, ‘I’m thinking of writing and directing,’ She said, ‘You need to learn to write first, and when you’ve written something, send me the third draft.’ She was a generous supporter of mine.” He credits her and directors like Garth Davis and Warwick Thornton for teaching him by studying their work on set.Wright based “Stranger” on an infamous 2003 child murder investigation, and centered his fictionalized script on two duplicitous men (played by Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris) whose seemingly chance encounter sets the story in motion. “I wanted it to be like a dark room with a crack of light in the far corner,” he says. “Through the whole film, you’re walking toward that light.”He met with Edgerton for a possible role in the 2018 drama “Boy Erased.” Though “Misfortune” took Wright out of the running, Edgerton asked to watch his finished film. “He immediately said, ‘Whatever you want to do, I’ll make myself available.