With the Film Independent Spirit Awards just announcing our nominees, we thought it was a good time to focus our Member Lens series on a Member who is a past winner as well.

Dale Dickey is a has always loved acting. She started at age 9 in a university sponsored performance of The Sound of Music, then went on to New York, then eventually working on films like Sean Penn’s The Pledge and TV shows like My Name Is Earl.

In 2010, Debra Granik’s Winters Bone was a smash hit and indie darling. It was nominated for seven Spirit Awards and won two, including Best Supporting Female for Dickey’s performance as the dangerous Merab.

Since then, she’s been a staple in both indie films, TV shows and everything in between. In the last few years, she’s shifted from playing supporting roles to leading films, with her first lead performance, in 2022’s A Love Song, nabbing her another Spirt Award nomination.

As a Member, of course, she could vote the winners of the Spirit Awards, and yes, we do find out if she voted for herself.

You can vote for this year’s nominees as well, as long as you become a member by December 18^th. (That’s today!)

 

Let’s start with your background. You started acting when you were really young, I read at nine years old. What drew you to acting at that age?

Well, my mother and my grandparents had always taken me to the theater and to the ballet and to films. I sang, I would sing in the chorus and stuff, and I took dance lessons. The university where I grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee had a tremendous theater program, and they had an outdoor amphitheater where they did summer stock. They were doing ‘Sound of Music’ when I was nine years old and all my friends in the neighborhood were going to audition and I just said, well, why not? They cast me and I just never looked back.

I continued to work with the university about three or four times a year as a kid because my mom didn’t mind. She would drive me to rehearsal, they’d call and say, can Dale come be in the crowd of this big Shakespeare production we’re doing?

I got a lot of really good training and experience as a kid and it was just what I always wanted to do. And I couldn’t do anything else. So, I just ended up going to school there to study officially.

As a kid from a split household, it was a little dysfunctional, a little chaotic, it was really the best thing for me to be in a safe and nurturing environment where I could get attention and learn and be loved and supported. And so, it was a saving grace for me as a kid.

The arts are really awesome for that. And it’s definitely helped me out in my life, too.

Lately, you’ve been taking some more leading roles, like in The G and A Love Song. Tell me about that journey from doing supporting roles to trying to get more leads.

Well, it’s an interesting journey. I figured I would continue the career I’ve had, which I’m very happy with and grateful for, in doing supporting character roles. I’ve done lots of leads in theater on stage. I still do theater.

But when A Love Song came along, it was my first opportunity at a lead role. And I jumped on it. I loved the script.

And then The G just came like a year and a half after that. Hopefully, The G is going to be released next year sometime in the States. We did a lot of festivals, but they were all foreign festivals because it’s a Canadian film. I’m the only American attached. But completely different, completely opposite kinds of roles, but two leads, nonetheless.

I learned I was terrified, particularly with A Love Song, my first, because I didn’t know if I could if I could carry a film, and a film like that is was so quiet and silent, so much unspoken. And it really challenged me. And I was lucky I had a terrific director with Max Walker-Silverman and great crew. And the same with The G, Karl Hearne was the director, a great crew. I just dove in and trusted.

I learned years ago, the director was like, just trust me, trust yourself. I trust you. We’re going to be fine. And that’s really all you can do is show up, be prepared and be ready to work.

After A Love Song, when it finally came out and I had this huge responsibility, ‘Oh, please don’t let me have fucked up Max’s film, please, please, please.’ And once I saw that the reviews were positive and people got the film, it was a little bit of a relief that, OK, it worked. And, you know, it’s not all about me.

But when you’re the lead of the film and carrying it, it is a completely different responsibility that I had never had before, which I’m still learning how to manage that. Hopefully some more leads will come along, but I’m very happy with the wonderful supporting characters that come my way as well.

I just like to work. I know that sounds so lame and trite, but I do. We all want to work.

I loved how A Love Song dealt with subtext. Just like you said, there’s not a lot of dialogue. It’s sparse. It’s softly played, but it really comes across.

What did you do to prepare with director Max Walker-Silverman and then your costar Wes Stuti to create like the inner lives of your character? Tell me about the prep process for a role like that.

When I first read the script, I was a little nervous because the dialogue was so sparse. And of course, once I got there and Max and I started working together, I understood the meaning behind that. This woman is isolated and alone and removed from society for a reason.

It was just a wonderful stroke of luck that he got Wes Stuti involved. Wes was a wonderful partner. And Max had told us at one point that Wes and I had both spent our careers playing such rough, scarred up, you know, downtrodden people, gritty, rough people that he wanted to see a kinder side and it was it was just a beautiful experience.

I was there by myself. It was my first job during Covid. We filmed the fall of 2020. And even though we were outdoors, we still had to be masked. It was a tiny crew.

But Max and I talked a lot on the phone before I got there. And then we went into quite a lot of detail about Faye’s background and where she had been up until now and the relationship with the husband, which was always centered around music, which is such an important part of the film, that she pushed away from her life.

When Wes came in, we made the decision to not discuss too much about our relationship, because the three of us, Max, Wes and I, wanted to keep it real and organic as if we were just picking up from where we left off so many years ago. And that awkwardness of someone you once had a crush on and all of a sudden meeting them at a whole different time of your life.

We’d both been married and we had known each other’s partners in the past, but not closely. So, there was really very little we knew about each other’s lives. And we left it that way. We talked more about what our relationship was in high school, you know, just lightly, and why it was important to reconnect.

I think it worked, not talking about it too much, not planning it out too much, but just sort of letting it fall where it may as we sort of reintroduced ourselves to each other.

And you can see it because the whole dynamic between the two of you was like that. You’re feeling each other out. To have that as actors, it translates. 

I want to talk about your relationship with indie film. Walker-Silverman was a first-time director for that film. What drew you to working with him? And what drives you to working with the filmmaker in general?

 It’s always the story first, the script and story. With the invention of Zoom, the way I’ve met, I met Max for the first time and just get a good feeling about someone and where your sensibilities lie. Max reminded me so much of the wonderful Debra Granik, who I’ve been honored to work with twice.

I also want to know if I feel our sensibilities are the same and that we can communicate well, because I like a strong director. I come with some insecurities that are quickly nipped in the bud. But I like to know that we speak the same language so that I’m going to be in good hands, and they know that they’re going to be in good hands with me.

Max is very cerebral, very smart. He’s very gentle. He did some acting years ago in college, but that was not his main thing. But he knows how to speak to actors. And I just I loved him. He went to film school in New York, and he brought his whole crew that they all did each other’s films there. And I think that’s lovely. And I want to be a part of young filmmaker stories.

And then just a couple of months ago, I went to Colorado and did another film with director Ramzi Bashour. That time, Max was the producer.

Ramzi was Max’s roommate in college and was a producer on A Love Song, he did the music. He caught my crawfish, the jack of all trades.

Ramzi wrote and directed this beautiful script. He’s Lebanese and it’s a story of a Lebanese mother and son traveling cross country. And there was a small, really lovely role of this hippie, a free-spirited woman that helps them make a turn in their lives. And they asked me to do it. And I knew it was going to be that same great crew. And I’m so thrilled that I got to do it.

And I hope I continue to get to work with that that group of people down the line. I love those ensembles where you they work with the same sort of teams of people. It’s very much family oriented.

That’s fantastic. Yeah. Like a work family.

 It’s like you said, everybody knows where each other is coming from. And that trust builds creativity.

And it saves time and money, particularly with indie film. That’s important.

I want to talk to you a little bit about the Film Independent Spirit Awards.

 We’ve got them coming up again on February 22^nd, and we’re all really excited about it here. You are a winner for your great work in Winter’s Bone. And just tell me a little about your experience with that.

Well, Winter’s Bone was the real turning point for me.

When I went to the audition, Kerry Barden and Paul Schnee, they were casting directors that had been on my radar, and I’d never been able to get into their office, so I was excited when I got cast in the film.I think not only was it just tremendous experience with Deborah and Jennifer and John, everybody.

And then particularly with the Spirit Awards, they embraced Winter’s Bone, which was so lovely. We knew we had a lot of love in the room.

I didn’t expect to win. It was the first award of the night. I’m very nervous at those. It was my first event like that, you know. So, it was a big deal for me.

It really opened doors for me as an actress in terms of exposure with casting directors and directors, because the film was widely seen. And even though I’d been around for a long time, nobody really knew of me, which is fine.

I could see the wheels turning in terms of, it leading to more work, particularly with some really strong scripts for indie films and some strong television series, which some of the writing there is quite good as well. And it was all very exciting and wonderful.

And also, with Film Independent, I was sort of on the outskirts of the film world. I lived in New York for 12 years before I came out here because I studied theater, and I’ve always loved art house films. But Film Independent being a part of the Spirit Awards really introduced me to the incredible, vast breadth of work out there. There’s just so many wonderful, talented people.

And they asked me the next two years after that, I was asked to come and be a juror for Film Independent, which I just loved. You’re in a room with people from every discipline and it’s like a family and collaboration. And I learned so much about how you do cinematography, how you view this discipline and that. And it was a fascinating learning experience.

I just love indie film, and I don’t think I would have found that world had Winter’s Bone not come around and had I not had that opportunity to be introduced into it that way. And now I just can’t get enough of it.

Was the nomination how you first became aware of Film Independent or were you a Member beforehand?

I knew of Film Independent, but I didn’t really know how to be a part of it or what to do. And then Winter’s Bone just sort of thrust me in there. And then I never looked back because it’s such a wonderful organization.

What has been the thing that that you’ve enjoyed the most being part of the organization?

Probably the screeners, the abundance of films that you get to watch and enjoy.

With A Love Song, I was nominated that year for Spirit Award. It was the first year I think they combined male and female, so it was the top 10 performances.

I remember going to that, that ceremony, it’s like Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh and Paul Mescal and all these people. And it was a real kick and an honor to be in that list.

When I voted for Film Independent when I was nominated, somebody asked, ‘You didn’t vote for yourself, did you?’ And I said, ‘No, I wasn’t the best performance. I’m not voting for myself!’

And I voted for Mia Goth in Pearl, who didn’t win, but I was so blown away by her performance. So many tremendous performances, but her bravery and commitment won me over.

But I think screeners and watching other people’s work and realizing that again, the breadth of talent out there and the diversity.  I love that.

Thank you so much for taking the time, and it was really great to chat with you!

 

 

Remember to tune in to the 40th Film Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday, February 22, 2025, which will be helmed by returning host and Saturday Night Live alum Aidy Bryant. The show, taking place at the beach in Santa Monica, will be streamed live on the IMDb and Film Independent YouTube channels, and across our social platforms.

Want to vote for the winners of the 2025 Spirit Awards? Easy: just Become a Member today and you’ll be able to watch screeners of the nominees and vote for the winners, plus you’ll get year-round access to a plethora of virtual and in-person screenings, special events, education, workshops and more.

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