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How much of the Camino de Santiago did you walk?

EE: We walked about 350 to 400 kilometers and we did it in sequence. We started at St James and finished at the ocean, which is 900 kilometers away. The vans would pull the actors out and the steadicam guy would jump out and then the van would go to the other side of town and pick us up after we walked through it. So we wanted it to feel authentic and it to be zero impact on the environment. It is a very green movie as a result of that. We also didn’t get into the way of any other pilgrims on the journey.

MS: All of the people you saw on pilgrimage that weren’t speaking were real pilgrims. They signed off – we kept forms in every language.

What was it like working with the natural environment, and not shooting on an enclosed set?

EE: We were warned about shooting in the North of Spain, because it rains there quite a bit and anybody who has done the Camino will tell you that it rains more than not. So while we were prepping, they said, “Look, you guys can go in September, that’s great. It’s not the best time to film, in May or June there is less rain, but you will never make your 40-day schedule.” So we said okay, and decided to give it a shot anyway. We started September 21st, we ended November 6th. It rained twice. And both of those days we were shooting an interior (both laugh).

Martin, your character is coming out of a very dark place in this movie. But that’s not clear most of the time, being very bottled up. So I was curious how you approached that in us seeing just a heavily grieving man who is at the same time, just closed off.

MS: This is a guy who lived in his bubble. He belonged to the country club, he was a doctor, he didn’t serve anybody but himself, and his idea of a great foursome is on the golf course. He is a widower and is estranged from his son, so he leads a very isolated life. He is very conservative. Emilio had composed the piece, so that there had to be a growth – dealing with the brokenness, then the healing, then community – so that he became a father by the end. He never was a father to his son, and he becomes a father to those knuckleheads on the Camino (laughs).

But it was beautifully constructed. I didn’t quite get it, because he’ll tell you that I’m somewhat gregarious and I like to say hello to everybody. Emilio said, “Wait a minute, that’s not this character, that’s you. This guy would never have voted for Jed Bartlet, is that a clue?” And I said, “Ohhh, okay.” He doesn’t speak Spanish; he isn’t interested in speaking Spanish.

It’s a decision he made at the spur of the moment. He realized that he could finish this walk and make it up for his son and become what he wasn’t in life. But in the scene with the cop where he asks why are you doing it, he responds, “You do it for yourself.” That’s interesting.

ES: That’s the first lesson and there are others along the way. Like any road movie, which this is, the hero, the protagonist, has to learn the lessons. It’s Homer’s The Odyssey, it’s Apocalypse Now. So the first lesson is that you do it for yourself. He doesn’t get that. The second lesson is…

MS: (cutting in) Don’t sleep in shelters! (laughs)

ES: When his character asks the woman if she has ever done the Camino, she says, “When I was young I was too busy and now that I’m old I’m too tired.” Okay, he doesn’t get that. But it starts to peel the layers of the onion away. The next one is with the guy with the cape – the bullfighter who was the innkeeper says, “My father wanted me to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a bullfighter.” So again, it’s these lives unfulfilled, but his son, before he decided to go out, was living the life his father wanted him to have until he said, “Enough of that, I’m going to go out and see the world.”

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