Adam Driver's Quicksand Scene In 65 Brought Back Childhood Memories
Adam Driver gets caught in more than a few dangerous situations in "65." The sci-fi thriller follows Driver's Mills, a work-for-hire spaceship pilot from a distant planet, after he crash-lands on a prehistoric version of Earth. As he and his ship's sole surviving passenger, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), try desperately to get off the planet together before they're killed by one of its many dangerous prehistoric creatures, Mills is forced to repeatedly fight for his life.
At one point, the character even finds himself slowly being consumed by a dangerous patch of quicksand. The sequence doesn't just deliver the kind of stressful tension that so much of "65" is designed to produce, though. Apparently, it also reminded Driver of many of the genre movies and TV shows that he used to watch when he was young. "I remember when I was a kid, everybody got trapped in quicksand. I'd watch reruns of 'Zorro' and I feel like Zorro was [always] trapped in quicksand. There was a lot of quicksand. It went through a phase," the actor recalled in an interview with The Wrap.
According to the "Star Wars" and "Marriage Story" star, the prevalence of quicksand in the genre entertainment of his youth actually made him nervous about the possibility of stepping into a patch of it. "I had a terror actually when I was a kid because I'd seen so many people in quicksand," Driver admitted. "I was like, 'Oh f***, is this a problem I'm going to have to face in life?'"
65's classic sci-fi roots appealed to Adam Driver
His character in "65" isn't the only sci-fi role Adam Driver has been drawn to over the course of his career. That said, Driver has been open about the aspects of "65" that most appealed to him — namely, the film's analog, classic sci-fi aesthetic. In his interview with The Wrap, the "65" star also noted that he was impressed by the film's combination of spectacle and emotion.
Indeed, when he was asked what it was about the project that interested him, Driver told the outlet, "Lots of things — dinosaurs, laser guns, prehistoric earth, and that it was big and had a massive spectacle and it was a family movie where everybody could go see it." The actor added, "It didn't wimp out in terms of being a character-driven movie."
Unfortunately, not everyone has been as easily won over as Driver by the film's story and style. So far, the critical and financial response to "65" has been tepid at best. In its first weekend in theaters, the film raked in just a little over $12 million at the domestic box office. Additionally, while casual viewers seem to be generally happy with "65," critics haven't necessarily embraced it with open arms. (As of this writing, the film currently holds only a 38% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes.)
Regardless of how it ultimately performs, though, it's clear that Adam Driver knew all along what it was that appealed to him about "65," including its numerous connections to the action and sci-fi classics of the past.