A short two years after his film “Snack Shack,” director Adam Rehmeier is returning to the big screen with “Carolina Caroline,” which will be released in U.S. theaters Friday. The film follows a couple (Kyle Gallner and Samara Weaving) traveling across the American South, robbing small banks while simultaneously experiencing a metaphorical journey of self-identity and exploration. 

The Daily spoke with Rehmeier about the filming process, working with Gallner on a second film and the film’s soundtrack. 

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

The Daily: How did the idea for this film come about? Did you draw inspiration from other films? 

Rehmeier: I did not draft the first draft of this script. It was written by a guy named Tom Dean, and Tom’s script came to me through Tim and Trevor White at Star Thrower (Entertainment), two of the producers on the film. I really dug the script, but in the original draft, Oliver — he’s described kind of as a Kennedy. He wears a suit. He’s got a Rolex. He drove a Mercedes. And I was like, ‘That part didn’t resonate as much with me.’ I wanted to overhaul and change it more to like a classic ’70s type of trope, like we’re talking ‘Badlands,’ or we’re talking ‘Thelma & Louise,’ that type of thing where it feels like you’ve got a hot guy, a hot girl, a gun and a muscle car type of movie.  

And it already wants to be a road movie. It already wants to do that. So let’s kind of package it like a ’70s style road movie. And that car really keeps it this sort of iconography of a ’70s movie, even though it’s moving through like an early aughts space. I thought that framing it pre-9/11 was super important because after 9/11, you have CCTV, cameras are everywhere. I would say that bank robbing has gone down quite a bit since 9/11, just based on how many cameras (there are now).

The Daily: Two of your previous films are set in the Midwest. This film takes place in the South. What was it like filming there?

Rehmeier: To be honest, it was a lot like shooting in the Midwest. Kentucky was versatile in that we could kind of cheat Texas. We could cheat Arkansas. We could cheat Georgia, South Carolina, and give them enough of a little nuance to each of them. Florida, too. The last shot of her driving was like tobacco fields that we’d found and stuff like that, and put the Florida sign up. We were trying to be as thrifty as possible. This is like a 25-day shoot in almost 100 locations, so it’s like if you know anything about production, that’s the kind of thing where a line producer throws himself out of a window, you know? Nightmare sauce. You wake up with heart palpitations on a movie like this, like I did. You wake up, it’s just a series of nightmares with locations dropping out, and yeah, it’s crazy. (A) 25-day shoot is no fun.

The Daily: The soundtrack features a lot of classic country and popular country artists, like Loretta Lynn and Chris Stapleton. What was the song selection process like? 

Rehmeier: My editor, Justin Krohn, he curated the entire soundtrack. Basically, I had commissioned ‘Carolina Caroline’ in a couple places in the movie, but we ended up putting it at the very end over the credits. Justin had, as we were editing the film, he has a really, really good ear, and he knows country music very well, so he curated the soundtrack and at least presented me with the options. I would pick one or the other, you know, off of (multiple) things, but I didn’t do any of the digging. Usually in my films, I do a lot of the sound, but this one, I was kind of more hands-off because Justin was just knocking it out of the park.

The Daily: Were there any songs you wanted in the film that didn’t make the cut?  

Rehmeier: It really comes down to budget. It was ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ by The Rolling Stones. I think it was just way, way, way too out of our price range. So we had it when she was robbing the first bank, and when she walks in, it’s kind of a slow-motion shot, but we found a suitable replacement, and I love that in there now.

The Daily: You previously worked with Kyle Gallner on your film ‘Dinner in America.’ What was it like working with him again?

Rehmeier: Kyle’s the absolute best. I mean, we had just the same crazy time on ‘Dinner in America,’ and he’s like a brother to me now. After the craziness around that film, like how things went down with the sort of lackluster distribution and then the explosion on TikTok and the film taking on a whole new life, we’ve had years to talk in between shooting that and then, you know, ultimately shooting ‘Carolina (Caroline).’

He’s just one of my closest friends, and I love working (with him). I know that he can do anything, and he’s got my back, and I’ve got his. So sort of like a ‘Put me in coach.’ If I say jump, Kyle’s like, ‘How high?’ So it’s a good relationship, and now, I write with him in mind for a project or a part or whatever that I have going on. I just want to keep working with him.

The Daily: The film’s ending is open-ended. What influenced that decision?

Rehmeier: My thought process on the ending was we just had sort of a tragedy happen, and I wanted to bounce it back so the audience felt like we had circled back to the beginning where it was. You know, there was tragedy. I want to send them away on a smoother upturn than on a downer. So, the idea that she would attempt the quick change scam with the woman at the ticket counter. It’s just like a little thing that makes the audience giggle or laugh. Now, it’s just good closure.

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