The Cast of ‘Wicker’ Discuss the Film’s Fairy Tale World: ‘When You’re in Trusted Hands, You Go Anywhere’

It’s hard not to be intrigued by the premise of “Wicker.” The film follows a lonely fisherwoman who asks a master basket weaver to build her a husband out of wood, only to become the envy of the village that once shunned her. It’s a fresh take on timeless stories like “The Bride of Frankenstein,” which explore what happens when you build yourself a romantic companion before having to reckon with the concept of their autonomy. But most of all, the film is a portrait of a fairy tale-like world that’s filled with storybook magic yet is just as gossipy and sex-obsessed as our own.

Prior to the film’s Sundance premiere, “Wicker” writer/directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson and stars Olivia Colman, Peter Dinklage, and Elizabeth Debicki visited the IndieWire Studio, presented by Dropbox, to discuss the process of immersing themselves in such an outlandish premise. In the actors’ words, it all started with a script that was too good to ignore and a creative team that gave them the confidence to explore.

“I think the script, when I read it, was one of the top three scripts I had ever read,” Colman said. “I was excited to play the part, excited at how it all worked, and really amazed at what Weta did with the wicker suit. [Alexander Skarsgård’s] voice coming out of this breathtaking, mountainous, beautiful wicker man was great.”

Dinklage agreed, explaining that all great genre films sound crazy on paper, but that allowing yourself to sincerely buy into a fantastic world is one of the great joys of cinema.

“It just reminded me of when I was a kid and seeing C3P0 for the first time. You don’t question ‘What is that? How did that come to be?’ You just accept it. And Alex and Eleanor have done the same thing,” Dinklage said. “They’ve created a world, and when you’re in trusted hands like that you go anywhere and you believe anything. A man made of wicker? Okay, I’m on that course with you! And that’s the real beauty of great cinema.”

Debicki agreed, adding that the specific rules of the world and the production team’s meticulous attention to detail made it easy to immerse herself in the “Wicker” village.

“It had this kind of magic to it,” Debicki said. “It feels like a fairy tale, but it also has this gritty reality in terms of the politics of the place. It is a study of patriarchy in this magic, real world. The world was incredibly built by our wonderful crew. Everything was just realized with such detail and so much imagination… it was a gift.”

Watch our complete conversation with the cast and directors of “Wicker” in the video above.