“It’s not that different than how I worked on my previous films,” Zhao, who will next make the leap to the big-budget Marvel film “The Eternals,” says of her approach with nonprofessional actors. I am fiercely independent and seldom ever ask others to help me, so it was exceedingly difficult to act like I needed Fern’s help. “However, my ex-husband died of brain cancer, so that made me emotional during filming. “I myself have never had cancer,” Swankie says. In the film, Swankie has cancer, an invented plot device. Her unobtrusive approach allowed the nonactors to avoid becoming overly self-conscious, even when sharing vulnerable moments, as when Wells speaks of the death of his son.īut Zhao did take a few liberties. In weaving the real-life nomads into the film as characters alongside fictional ones played by actors McDormand and David Strathairn, Zhao adopted a loose, intimate directing style, allowing the dialogue to flow organically. “I had been on the road living in the boonies for over 10 years,” Swankie says, “and movies were not high on my list.” She told Zhao the only thing she could focus on at the moment was the shoulder replacement surgery she desperately needed: “I had a lot on my mind and just wanted her to go away.” Anyway, she’d never heard of the actress who was set to star in the movie, Frances McDormand, and figured it would be “some little camcorder-type homemade film.” So when director Chloé Zhao approached her in 2018 about playing herself in a movie she was making called “Nomadland,” Swankie was deeply skeptical. Despite the hardships of living off the grid - from mechanical problems with her van to health issues - Swankie, a loner by nature, found the freedom of the nomadic lifestyle suited her. In her wildest dreams, Charlene Swankie never imagined that Hollywood would come calling - or even know how to find her.Īt age 64, struggling to make her rent, Swankie had moved into her van and joined a growing nomadic tribe of largely older Americans who, finding themselves adrift from the American economy, have taken to the road and move from place to place seeking seasonal work for generally low wages.

Author of nomadland