MovieMaker
In ‘All That Remains,’ Cassidy Freeman Shares Her Family’s Open Secret
“All That Remains” — a stellar new short film about two siblings played by Cassidy Freeman and her real-life brother, Clark Freeman — ends with them making a stark discovery about their dad. And talking with Cassidy Freeman about the film yields another shock: The surprise ending is true.
The film plays Sunday at the Santa Fe International Film Festival, in a town where Freeman moved years ago while shooting the TV series Longmire in New Mexico. The Chicago native lives in Santa Fe when not traveling to Charleston, South Carolina to shoot The Righteous Gemstones, the masterful HBO comedy that just wrapped its fourth season and will return soon. She plays Amber Gemstone, the sharp, cautious wife of scheming church leader Jesse Gemstone (Danny McBride).
In “All That Remains,” a brother and sister dealing with a dying father’s Lewy body dementia reminisce about their childhood memories and their different relationships with their dad: She was always his favorite, and he and his father never saw eye-to-eye. Then they make an insane discovery.
Spoiler alert: The next six paragraphs contain some detail about that discovery.
What the siblings find is that their father, whose mountain home is filled with gorgeous paintings, is wanted overseas for smuggling massive quantities of art out of Eastern Europe.
In real life, the Freeman kids always knew that their father, an attorney, spent years helping Czechoslovakian artists smuggle their art to the safety of the United States after the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968. He didn’t do it for personal gain, but to help his artist friends.
“He was not taking any money from these,” Freeman explains. “He wanted to send the money back to the artists so that they could, in secret, continue to do their art, sometimes even sending back art supplies, because those things weren’t easily findable in Czechoslovakia at the time.”
Around the time of Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution against the Soviets in 1989, Freeman’s dad, Lee Freeman, would take his children on trips to the county, now known as the Czech Republic.
“So we were accomplices,” she laughs. “I don’t think it was ever a secret from us what was happening, because we always saw the art that we were bringing home. We obviously didn’t understand the heaviness or the reasoning behind it until we were older, but we’ve always sort of revered this story as a family story, and then realized what a great story it was.”
So her brother Clark wrote the short, “All That Remains,” and the two are also planning to develop it into a feature. They recently attended the Prague Film Festival, where Clark Freeman met with production companies, since the movie is partly set in Prague.
“So the next step is finding producing partners and then getting funding for it in the hopes that we can make something really cool,” she says.
End spoilers.
We talked with Cassidy Freeman during the Santa Fe International Film Festival about her dad’s notes on “All That Remains,” working with her brother, and reclaiming your family.
MovieMaker: You’ve done comedy, you’ve done drama, but “All That Remains” leans into hard drama. Did you want a break from comedy after Righteous Gemstones?
Cassidy Freeman: Comedy feels more like you’re at a summer camp, where you’re playing games — especially with Danny McBride and that whole Rough House world, which is just so encouraging of play and improvisation. You can do no wrong in a really cool way. And that, I think, sparks some magic and a freedom.
But drama, being able to really dive into your emotional body — it’s almost like a healing or a therapy that fulfills different things. And with this film in particular, it’s an easy place for me to go with my brother, because we both are actors. We’re the closest in age, and we’re telling a story that we grew up with. And so I think it’s close to the surface with all those emotions.
MovieMaker: How will the feature be different from the short?
Cassidy Freeman: The actual movie is really about the relationship between a son and his father. In the movie, Catherine, the daughter, has sort of always been the favorite child, or the one that’s gotten all the accolades or the the support, because she’s shown up and she’s the doer of all things. The son, Nate, is kind of a fuckup. He’s kind of the guy that plays in bands, gets drunk, is pushing his emotions.
They’ve lost their mother — which did happen to us — and so their dad is kind of all they have left. And when he gets diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, it’s now a race, because they go home to take care of him, and they find this box as they’re going through things, and now they have to get all the memories out before he loses them. But Catherine can’t stay in the way she always has, and she also, I think, sees this opportunity for her brother and her dad to finally make amends, because time’s running out.
MovieMaker: Was your father really diagnosed with Lewy body dementia?
Cassidy Freeman: No, he was not. He is in great health. He’s in great health, living in Montana, and has lots of funny notes for us about this script.
MovieMaker: What was it like working with your brother?
Cassidy Freeman: My brother and I have been working together since we were little kids, because we went to the same schools. We were in plays together. We went to same college, even although we’re five years apart, so we didn’t overlap at school, but people we knew overlapped, and it’s amazing working with him because of the shorthand.
We also have been best friends our whole life. So it’s really a familiar and comfy place at the same time. It can sometimes be tricky, especially when you’re working with stuff that is so close to home.
And we’ve realized too, that it’s interesting as siblings: Even though you had the same parents and you grew up in the same home, you have very different perspectives of your parents, not only because of the way they treat you, as is kind of exemplified in the film, but in how you see them and where they are in their parenting journey with you as a kid.
It’s a cool thing to navigate. I don’t think all siblings can do it. I feel really proud that Clark and I are able to do that, and it takes a lot of communication and a lot of benefit of the doubt.
MovieMaker: What notes have you received from your dad?
Cassidy Freeman: His notes are usually just corrections to facts, which is appreciated, especially since he’s the one that lived it. I have a running joke with my dad — I used to send out emails to my friends and family, like, “I did this short, or I did this thing,” or whatever. And one time I said, “I’m very anxious to share this with you.” And after this long email, my dad wrote back, within 45 seconds, and his email just said, “eager, not anxious.” And I was like, “OK, yeah, cool. Note taken. Thanks, Dad. I’m glad that’s what you gleaned from that.” [Laughs.]
My dad has not been in the process of making a film, even though he watches plenty of them, and I think he has great taste. Sometimes he’ll kind of be like, “Why do I have to have dementia?” Or there’s parts of the film that really aren’t true, that are maybe more harsh, or raise the stakes in a way for storytelling. And I think for someone who’s being talked about, and whose story is being talked about, it can get kind of sensitive.
But I think he also understands that we’re making a movie, and it’s not it’s not a documentary. It’s not something fact for fact. So I’m grateful for his patience through that process as well, because I bet it’s kind of scary to have someone telling your story, which is important to you.
MovieMaker: I should probably ask what you can say, if anything, about The Righteous Gemstones Season 4.
Cassidy Freeman: it’s funny. Danny always says that he likes to just one-up the epicnessof the season. We have really great guest stars this year. We do every year, and it always blows me away, who wants to come and be a part of our show. We have some really cool flashback stuff, which I think is going to wow people.
Every season is so different, and yet, I think at the heart of every season is like the reclaiming and the re-choosing of your family. And I think that’s kind of a cool arc and a cool way of doing it. Yeah, this season is unique, and it’s epic, and that’s probably all I can say. And we worked around two different hurricanes while filming it!
By Tim Molloy
