VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Owen Teague On Working With Andrea Riseborough On ‘To Leslie’

Navigating through alcoholism, money and broken relationships are tough topics.

To Leslie addresses all of these themes.

The film tells the story of a woman who wins the lottery but squanders the money drinking. Leslie deals with the aftermath of her choices and has to navigate her relationship with her son, chosen family, two complete strangers, alcohol and even second chances.

Owen Teague, who plays Leslie’s son Ryan, tackled a big role as he portrayed a character loosely based on the film’s writer, Ryan Binaco. He detailed his preparation process going into working on the film in an exclusive with uInterview Founder Erik Meers at the South by Southwest 2022 film festival.

“At first when I got the script from (director) Michael (Morris), I was like ‘Okay, I’m playing Ryan essentially, so can I meet him? Do we want to do that? Do I want to get his input with this?'” said Teague. “We decided no, because it’s not the same story exactly and because the circumstances are different, it wouldn’t quite make sense to do that. What a lot of my preparation ended up being was my own imaginings of James’ life. Michael wrote me this lovely sort of history to work with. I focused on finding a way into my body and into his head and into what he’s been through and how that affects him.”

Teague gushed about reuniting with BAFTA nominee Andrea Riseborough, who plays Leslie.

“She is so extraordinary,” he said. “This is our second time playing mother and son. She’s so easy to work off of. She makes it real to me. When there are really difficult scenes, it’s really difficult, but it’s fun because she’s so good.”

The film premiered on March 12 at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival.