The poetic western film Ain’t Them Bodies Saints explores the lives of an outlaw couple that has been torn apart. Directed by David Lowery and co-starring Ben Foster, the film is an ode to great western love stories of the past. “I really just wanted to play around in a genre and in a story telling tradition that I was a big fan of. So it was really a chance to delve into material that I already knew I liked,” Lowery told Uinterview exclusively.

Foster’s character is a man of little backstory, which gave him the opportunity to explore his character in a more personal way. “His wedding ring was the key for me,” Foster said. “It’s always a different door, getting your head around the character, and David and I were talking about him. What’s so beautiful about this script and this film is that a lot is left unsaid and the film is really celebrating the space between.”

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Q: David, as a director what drew you to tell this story? - Uinterview

It was really a matter of liking stories that occupy the same wheelhouse. I really just wanted to play around in a genre and in a story telling tradition that I was a big fan of. So it was really a chance to delve into material that I already knew I liked. And the story itself is very simple, and I think it’s a really time-honored, traditional story, and it wasn’t so much about the story itself it was the way in which we told it that mattered to me. I wanted to find a new approach to telling the story while still honoring exactly what it was and all the stories it resembled in the past.

Q: Ben, what’s the key to understanding your character Patrick? - Uinterview

Yeah, his wedding ring was the key for me. It’s always a different door, getting your head around the character, and David and I were talking about him. What’s so beautiful about this script and this film is that a lot is left unsaid, and the film is really celebrating the space between. We talked on our own of what Patrick Wheeler's life was beforehand and a lot of that just lived in the ring, and it's never brought up.

Q: What scene was most challenging for you? - Uinterview

DAVID: There’re the challenging scenes that are hard for technical reasons and those often involve baby kittens and children. And then there are the ones that are emotionally difficult which are often the ones that are the most satisfying to pull off because you are trying to handle something that is incredibly delicate and incredibly personal and finding the right tone and the right way into that scene can be a challenge but when you get there its incredibly satisfying and those are the scenes I look back on as my favorites. BEN: A film is a bit of architecture so, you have these pillars that hold up the story - it's the smaller fragments which actually I find the trickiest because your building to the longer scenes, the big scenes of greater reveal and connection or disconnect between characters. It can be something as simple as driving up in a car and walking, and the way that behavior has to exist and tell part of the story can be the most complex actually.