a river runs through it

A nice segment from an interview with Brenda Blethyn, who played Brad’s mother in A River Runs Through It

What was it like working with Robert Redford, who directed A River Runs Through It?
When I turned up on set in the US we went inside his trailer to talk about my character. He said: ‘Your character is a very hard-working lady. When things get tough she just, erm, she just, er…’ And I said: ‘Gets on with it.’ He said: ‘Excuse me?’ He thought I’d told him get on with it! My character was a Scottish Presbyterian, so I’d boned up on the Scottish accent, but he told me she wasn’t Scottish and that her accent was Middle American. I had three weeks before filming began so I spent all the time in a small town in Montana and just got into conversation with local people until I learnt it.

You were Brad Pitt’s mum in that film, weren’t you?
This was in 1992 before he was a star. We had a water pistol fight one day but he cheated because he filled two!

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