A version of this story about Brian Tyree Henry and “Causeway” first appeared in the Award Preview Number from TheWrap Awards Magazine.
Of all the indelible couples in 2022 movies: Sammy Fabelman and his mom, Elvis and the Colonel, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey to Weinstein’s beat, Pádraic and Colm in Inisherin, Maverick and his jet in “Top Gun,” the More poignant I might be the pair of wounded souls played by Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry in Lila Neugebauer’s soft drama “Causeway.”
Lynsey is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan recovering from a traumatic brain injury; James is an auto repairman racked with guilt over a car accident in which he lost a leg and a family member. And with calm, measured steps, they move cautiously toward some form of healing and understanding. (But no, it’s not romance, save that for a less witty, more predictable movie.)
“James was like no one I’d ever read before, and that terrified the hell out of me,” said Tyree Henry, who appeared on “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “Widows” and was an Emmy nominee for the TV series “Atlanta . ” However, his doubts about playing the part were outweighed by his desire to work with Neugebauer, a stage manager he had known for years, and Lawrence. “I never thought I’d get the chance to collaborate with Jennifer Lawrence, but when the universe said, ‘Okay, great, let’s try this,’ I had to,” he said.
Still, he worried about the places he would have to go to play James.
“I think the reservations came from a place where I wanted to play it in a way that was first and foremost honest,” he said. “I was dealing with a man who was responsible for the death of someone very important to him, and a man who lives his life alone because no one has chosen to stay with him. And also a man who asks for forgiveness and seeks friendship and a true connection. To reproduce that, you have to sort of focus on why that scares you.”
The actor added that part of his connection to the role stemmed from his own experience with grief.
“I think a lot of it was because I too have been dealing with the kind of guilt and loss and grief that James had been dealing with,” Tyree Henry said. “And sharing your pain with people is scary, you know? There is nothing scarier than when people can see through your pain, because then there is nowhere to hide.
One clue, he added, was that James was comfortable pretending everything was fine and shutting himself away, refusing the crutches or ramps that might make his life easier. “But with the introduction of Lynsey into her life, you start to see this glimpse of not just what her life could be, but a reminder of who she was and what she can really come back to. Friendship reminds him of the possibilities.”
But the richness of the relationship, which grows deeper and more revealing as the film progresses, didn’t come without work. The script originally focused on Lawrence’s character rather than friendship; James was there primarily to help Lynsey heal. It wasn’t until the film was shut down during the pandemic in 2020 that Tyree Henry and Lawrence began to push for a different approach.
“When we went through the pandemic, communicating or connecting with another person was dangerous,” said Tyree Henry. “I remember that Jennifer, Lila and I would communicate and have conversations and we knew that this opportunity that we had to enter each other’s lives would not leave us. I think the chemistry that was going on between Jennifer and I persisted, and we wanted to figure out how to really show it. So when we came back, we dove a little deeper.”
Tyree Henry paused. “It’s easy to become a fortress when you’re dealing with grief and loss,” he said, reflecting on the loss of his own mother in 2016. “Humans do this weird balancing act of acting like we’ve got it all under control. control. . But pretending to be okay isn’t good for us anymore, especially after what we’ve all endured in these last two years, heck, in the last decade.
“There is a beauty in making a connection that allows you to address that you survived and that you long for something more,” he concluded. “We wanted the characters to feel like there was a way for them, so we had to go back and really unpack what it looked like.”
Read more of the awards preview here.
