Paul Schrader’s crime drama The Card Counter is out now in theaters. The film stars Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Willem Dafoe, and Tye Sheridan, the latter of which ComingSoon got the chance to speak to.
“Redemption is the long game in Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter,” says the official synopsis.”Told with Schrader’s trademark cinematic intensity, the revenge thriller tells the story of an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by the ghosts of his past decisions, and features riveting performances from stars Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, and Willem Dafoe.”
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ComingSoon’s Sabina Graves spoke with The Card Counter star Tye Sheridan about his character of Cirk and working with Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish.
Sabina Graves: Congrats on the film. It definitely felt that The Card Counter was a sort of portrait of America that we’re kind of seeing in the past few decades. I wanna talk a bit about Cirk, who kind of defines the sort of the disenfranchised youth that have been a part of like many generations. Can you talk a bit about creating that character with Paul?
Tye Sheridan: First off, I think the film is really clever and the sense of what it explores and how it uses poker. Some of the poker terms I think translate those things into action and past action. I think specifically with this character, he’s still plagued by the events of his past and this past trauma that he’s experienced is it’s the same trauma that is the connective tissue between him and Oscar Isaac’s character. So, it was kind of a fun dynamic between the two characters. I think that there’s a naivety that my character carries, in the sense of, when something’s still pulling you back from your past, how you think that if you just get revenge, maybe you can overcome it. I think that’s largely what the core of my character is in the film.
I love the character work you did with the relationships that were built between Bill and Tiffany Haddish in the film. Can you talk a bit about working with Oscar and Tiffany on creating that found family in the film?
I think each of the characters kind of has a bit of a broken past or maybe you say they come from a broken home. So they’re almost like just this strange little family like you say. I think that all three of them are, at some point [were] completely engaged in what the dynamic is between them and are really loving it and I think benefiting from it. Then I think, for my character at least, reality starts to dawn in and, and he’s reminded of things from his past and where he goes from there I can’t really say people just have to watch the movie, but working with Oscar and Tiffany was great.
I’ve worked with Oscar once before. So we were familiar with each other and obviously, he’s such a phenomenal actor. I love working with him and learning from him. He’s also a great guy, just super fun being around him. So yeah, that was super fun. Then getting to work with Tiffany, I’d never met her before. So meeting her and working with her was the first time on this project and she is just hilarious. Just always cracking jokes and having a lot of fun always. So that was cool.