BFI Flare: Noah Parker, Liza Weil and Nick Butler on the making of Lunar Sway
On Sunday, writer-director Nick Butler and his cast – Noah Parker, Liza Weil, Kaden Connors and Douglas Smith – celebrated the world premiere of their new movie, Lunar Sway, at the BFI Flare film festival in London.
Lunar Sway is a quirky coming-of-age story set in the desert town of Mooncrest. It follows a bored and directionless queer man named Cliff (Parker) who is looking for love in all the wrong places. When his birth mother, Marg (Weil), unexpectedly shows up out of the blue, Cliff ends up on an unpredictable adventure.
Butler started working on Lunar Sway days after wrapping production on his 2024 feature, The Legacy of Cloudy Falls, and they shot the movie in Cache Creek, Canada in 20 days in September 2024. Butler spent a year in post-production and has been ready to release his film to the world since September last year.
On the morning of their world premiere, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Butler, Parker and Weil at the Sea Containers hotel in London to discuss their project.
First of all, what does it mean to you to have a queer film premiering at an LGBTQ festival like Flare?
Nick: It means a lot, especially (as it’s) the 40th anniversary. Like I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the fact that 40 years ago, it was so brave and bold for anyone to be making and screening queer films. It was such a different time, so everyone who was screening movies 40 years ago here were such trailblazers and kind of allowed people like me to make movies… so yeah it means a lot, I’ve been thinking a lot about that.
Liz: I concur with that. It feels like a really lovely fit to have a film here that’s sort of about identity and maybe having to dismantle an idea of yourself that’s false, you know, trying to rebuild that and BFI has always been telling those stories and they get it.
Nick, take me back to the beginning. When did you start writing the script and how did it fit in with your previous film, The Legacy of Cloudy Falls?
Nick: It’s funny ’cause the two features ended up happening basically back to back by pure luck in a way. But I had just finished Cloudy Falls, it was a great experience. There felt like there was a sense of momentum where I really wanted to work with that crew again really badly and just recreate that experience. But beyond that, I’ve been so focused on that movie for years and I’m very monogamous with my ideas so I’d just been thinking about that movie non-stop.
And then, it surprised me that just a few days after we wrapped shooting, this new idea just kind of came out of nowhere and it just started flowing out. But I had the basic premise for years in the back of my mind but I’d always pictured a very different kind of movie and it wasn’t one that I thought was mine to tell. But then I was sort of in an unrequited love situation at the time and this idea kept kind of, something about it kept speaking to me. And so I started from scratch and came up with new characters and a new setting and then I got really inspired to tell it. But it was basically this central idea of this character looking for love in all the wrong places. I could really relate to it at that time so it became a way for me to work through those emotions, I guess.
And how did you both get involved with the project?
Noah: Kind of the typical process where you do a tape and then a callback and then you meet with Nick. What I wanted to say is that when Nick first sent me the script, I think it was the first time I read a script where I felt so immersed in that world, and that’s what really drew me to it. I could picture myself, I could picture that world, and it’s like nothing else that I’ve ever read before. It’s funny, the first time I read it, I was so into Cliff’s story that I didn’t really catch the comedy, and then it’s after reading it a couple of times that it finally stood out to me. It was a really brilliant script and we had a blast shooting it.
Nick: It’s funny, I remember the first time we Zoomed, you’re like, ‘Oh, I just read it a second time, I noticed there’s a lot of comedy in it.’ The comedy is just like sprinkled in very subtly; it’s very dry.
Noah: And I think the first time you read a script, you never really fully understand it. I was too concentrated on Cliff’s story and not the whole…
Nick: You just want to digest the whole thing.
And what about you, Liza? How did you get involved?
Liza: It was like a typical audition story, but again, yeah, reading it, I was just very struck by just how refreshing it was. Nick seemed so adept at building a world and all of these characters seemed very familiar and sort of dreamy. I also think he was really saying something in a very unique way about loneliness and connection that I just found very intriguing, so I was very happy to take a swing.
Did you two get to meet each other before?
Noah and Liza: No, we didn’t.
Liza: No, we met in the parking lot of where we were staying.
Noah: In the hotel, yeah.
Liza: Nick spliced our auditions together… it was really cool. I had never (seen that). That was such an ingenious thing to do.
Nick: What’s funny, I did that because I had no intention other than I was just impatient to see the movie and I had these two scenes separately, so I was like, ‘I want to see them together, I can’t wait.’ So it was just for my own amusement, but then it worked so well together, even though they recorded them separately and obviously had never met… I shared it with their agents. I was like, ‘I hope they don’t mind because people don’t love sharing auditions always’ but you guys were so excited about it.
Liza: I thought it was a really cool thing and it was also unusual to not, because we didn’t read together, that that was enough for you to take a leap of faith with us was very special.
So would you rehearse before you shot it or shoot right away?
Nick: We didn’t rehearse at all. We basically just shot right away. A lot of that just comes from financial restraints, like we don’t have the budget to do a proper rehearsal schedule, everyone lives in different cities, so when we fly all together, it’s like such limited time. I don’t know if it’s just convincing myself, but I kind of lean into the spontaneity of… they’re going to discover the scene in the moment and Liza and Noah are both great at that, like they would always just be so focused and centred (from) take one. It didn’t feel like we had to do a ton of takes to get there; they were always there. So then it just became a question of going deeper, playing, letting them try new things, so it really worked. We didn’t get a chance to do any rehearsal other than on the day, during multiple takes and stuff like that.
And how did you find your location? It has such an unusual, distinct look!
Nick: I know, it’s funny, we were going to originally shoot in New Mexico but then we ended up shooting in this very remote town in Western Canada, and I’m so glad that happened because it was such a special place. We all fell in love with it. It looks gorgeous. It’s hard to describe but it feels very dreamy and surreal. It almost looks like we altered it or something, but we didn’t really. There are some shots where the clouds are hanging so low above the mountains and it just looks almost like a painting but that’s just what it looked like. Once I decided to shoot there, there was a local film commissioner named Terri Hadwin who was really helpful and she took me around one weekend to all these different towns, and as soon as I stepped out of her car into Cache Creek, the town we shot in, I just knew immediately it was the right fit. And she knew that, she took me there knowing that, and so she was a big help with that.
Did you stay there while you made the movie? What was it like?
Noah: That was great. It was awesome. I feel like it’s always good to stay in the location where you’re shooting because it just gives that much more. It makes you feel like the character a bit more. I’m not saying I’m method in any way, but it sprinkles a bit of (authenticity on top). And then the characters in that actual town, in Cache Creek, could have played in the movie. Even Tina, where we had our base camp, she owns the hotel, she has a small part in the movie. These people, they have their quirks and they’re so special and they’re very small-town-y but so interesting, and that was such a cool experience. I love Cache Creek, I kind of miss it.
Nick: Me too. We all talk about it.
Liza: I hope we get to go back. It would be nice.
Nick: We will. One day. Yeah, you loved Cache Creek too.
Liza: I really did. That landscape is really just so staggeringly beautiful. I always talk about the drive. We had like a 45-minute drive from where we were staying into the central town, where we would start every day. It was like feeling like you were on a different planet. It informed so much. It was a very, very special place.
Noah, I wanted to ask you about the portraits. There are a few different ones, so you have to sit for those? What was that like?
Noah: No, I didn’t have to sit for those. I think me and Nick talked about some images off my social media that we could use and then (Nick’s) friend painted me. Seeing those portraits for the first time was like… was it in that first scene in the movie when I see my portrait? I think I asked not to see that portrait so that my reaction when I first like… I don’t think I’d cry in real life but I did have kind of a strong reaction to it. I’d never seen myself painted in any way and it was something. And then the other portrait is a pretty good one too, the one where I’m naked, that’s funny too. No, I didn’t have to sit through any of that.
Did you get to keep any of them?
Noah: I thought about keeping it and I thought about gifting one of my portraits to my girlfriend as a joke but I didn’t. No, I didn’t do that.
Nick: It’s funny, they’re currently in storage in BC (British Columbia) but Noah’s mum watched a cut of the movie and when the portrait of his face came up, her note, her feedback, was, ‘Aww that painting!’ so I had been planning on secretly mailing it to her… but you can keep the other ones.
Noah: Maybe, I think it would be a great souvenir, but I think it would be a bit intense to have a self-portrait in my living room.
Liza, what I love about your character is that she’s such a shapeshifter and you never know whether she’s telling the truth or not. Did that appeal to you about playing Marg?
Liza: Most definitely. I don’t think I’ve encountered somebody as complicated as that and she is a very opaque person, but she’s also very specific in everything that she does. It was sort of challenging; I did sort of underestimate what it was going to feel like, the meta aspect of sort of always being performative and acting. It did make me feel uneasy, I think, also working opposite Noah, who is so present and so pure in every moment that I did sort of feel very exposed and fraudulent, which I think is what Marg is feeling for the first time too. But it was a very interesting experience.
And I loved the trajectory of your character as well, Noah, because he seems so passive and just goes with the flow at the start, and then he starts to discover what he wants for the first time. Is that something that drew you to your character?
Noah: I think so. It is kind of a coming-of-age story because he is finding himself through… the relationship with Marg is really what sets it off. For him, it’s like, ‘OK, you know what, maybe I should put myself first for the first time in my life.’ He hasn’t been taking care of himself. He’s been bouncing his exes and giving a lot of importance to what they feel about him and maybe that translates to what Nick was saying before, you know, you were in kind of a tricky love situation. Yeah, it’s kind of beautiful to see Cliff get out of that and finally find himself and ground himself. It is interesting, it’s a nice challenge, because you start from point A and go to point B and the whole trajectory was something really interesting for me too. Also, to play that type of character that goes through something and ends up better.
So when you look back on the shoot, is there like a memorable day or scene that sticks out in your mind?
Liza: Honestly, all of the days were special in some way. I guess the neon sign sequence and watching him (Noah) do that stuff. It was a very cool space to be in.
Nick: I was thinking of like the first time we shot in the exterior locations, it really struck us. There was one day where we did two exterior shoots back to back, it was the first time we were all with these panoramic views and yeah, a few of us just kind of stopped and were taking in the view. It really struck us. It just felt like we were making something more epic than we really were. It’s a little low-budget intimate movie and all of a sudden we’re in these sprawling landscapes, so it was really thrilling.
Noah: I feel like the whole shoot for me was just great. It’s very special. The fact of being on location with the crew every day, I just felt like I was somewhere else, I felt like I was somebody else, for that whole shoot, which is kind of really special. I don’t think you get that very often so it feels we lived a whole other life in that month.
Nick, you worked with Grace (Glowicki) before on your previous film, did you just like call her and be like, ‘Do you want to play Bailey?’
Nick: Basically, after that first shoot, we had talked about wanting to work together again. Grace is one of the most talented actors out there, brilliant filmmaker, so I’m just very, very lucky that she would even be open to that. So I didn’t question it, I’m like, ‘OK, I have to find a place for her in the script.’ And I was about halfway through writing the first draft and I looked at it and I’m like, ‘I don’t think there’s a character for Grace.’ And then I thought, ‘Wait, maybe Bailey?’ And from then, I just kind of had her in mind for that role. So that was sort of fated early on but I always know there’s a chance they might not be available so I was really nervous but I never auditioned anyone else for that part. And it all worked out… She’s great at taking these larger-than-life characters and making them feel somehow real or grounded, and that’s a skill.
Is there a scene or a sequence that you’re particularly proud of when you watch the movie back?
Nick: Good question, let me think. I love the first scene between Noah and Liza when they’re first bonding. It’s this real simple scene of the two of them interacting, they’re doing this jokey tarot card reading of each other, getting to know each other. So many people have commented on how captivating they are and I think it’s just their performances, like the way they’re locked into each other. There’s so much going on below the surface. It’s a very light conversation, but it’s an intense moment for these characters who are meeting for the first time. This guy reuniting with his birth mum. That is a scene that I really am happy with.
Noah: The audition scene.
What is the first scene that you actually filmed together?
Liza: You guys had a full week without me. I think it was like the egg thing. When he drops the egg.
Noah: Or the cake stuff? The car and the cake?
Liza: The cake was the first scene, yeah.
Nick: Which got totally cut.
I was going to say, I don’t remember a cake!
Nick: There was this whole scene where she gives him a birthday cake for all the birthdays she missed. It was a beautiful scene, a beautifully acted scene, but in terms of timing and pacing, we’re just like, ‘We’ve got to cut it’, unfortunately. But that was the first thing we shot.
Liza: Which was a beautiful first scene because it was in sprawling mountainside.
Noah: There was a cool turquoise Cadillac and an awesome white vanilla cherry cake. It just looked so good.
Nick: Writing the script, I’m like, ‘This is going to be my favourite shot of the movie.’ It’s an overheard (shot) of the cake, like this old-timey birthday cake with cherries on the hood of the Cadillac car. It was my favourite of my shot of the movie, but we had to cut it. You’ve got to kill your darlings sometimes.
Will you be watching your film with the audience today?
Nick: Yeah, we like to torture ourselves. We’ll be sitting twice through the movie and listening to everyone’s reactions and trying to read their minds while we watch it.
Are you planning to do more festivals with the movie? What is the plan for distribution?
Nick: So basically we have a US and UK distributor, so we’re coming to the UK in theatres in late spring/early summer, and then we’re coming to theatres in the US in the fall. And then we have a French distributor who’s going to take it to festivals for a while and release it early 2027. We’re going to have some steady releases, but we want to go to as many festivals as possible, so now that we have our world premiere, we’re kind of free to submit wherever we can, so we’re hoping to go to as many places as possible. We’re waiting to hear back from some exciting festivals, so we’ll see.
This interview has been edited for length, clarity and to remove spoilers.
Lunar Sway is currently showing at the BFI Flare festival. Check out my review here.