If you haven’t kept close tabs on Kyle Gallner’s recent work, you’re missing out on one of the most quietly compelling runs in independent film. 

With standout turns in Strange Darling, Dinner in America, The Passenger and Adam Carter Rehmeier’s new crime romance, Carolina Caroline, opposite Samara Weaving, the former child actor turned “scream king” continues to build a body of impressive leading man roles. Whether it’s a charismatic hustler or an unhinged punk rocker, the Pennsylvania native makes it all look effortless. So why haven’t the major studios given the 39-year-old a proper shot atop the call sheet at this particular stage in his career?

Gallner admits that his latter-day stretch of independent opportunities haven’t come easy either. For Carolina Caroline, Rehmeier — who formed a deep bond with him by way of their cult classic, Dinner in America, the first of their multiple collaborations — had to fight to cast him as Oliver Anderson, the charming, traveling con man who falls in love with Caroline Daniels (Weaving) during his pit stop in her small Texas hometown. Together, they hit the road as a double act, beginning with small-scale confidence games that evolve into a full-blown bank robbery.

“[Rehmeier] brought my name up from the jump. But the way Hollywood works, it doesn’t always go that way. So there were actually a few [casting] iterations before I came on board,” Gallner tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Carolina Caroline’s June 5 theatrical release. “Adam kept pushing for me, and once the role opened up again, he pushed for me again. Producers are going to do what they have to do, but with patience and luck, the role finally came my way.”

Rehmeier, who’s already shot an unannounced third film with Gallner, considers his performance in the nearly unanimously praised Caroline to be reminiscent of Paul Newman or Steve McQueen. The filmmaker’s last three films — Dinner in America, Snack Shack and Carolina Caroline — are not only united by their shared “Americana” quality, but also their critical adoration. Thus, Gallner fears that his days as Rehmeier’s go-to guy are coming to an end. 

“He’s let me do roles and step into shoes that other people normally wouldn’t let me do. With Dinner in America and then Carolina Caroline, those are the kind of roles where producers go, ‘No, no, no, not him.’ But Adam has always stood up and said, ‘No, he can do anything,’” Gallner shares. “So it is a little heartbreaking because I know he’s going to blow up and I know I’m not always going to be right. I know I’m not always going to be there. I may not be able to be hired on the movies that he’s about to direct, and I have to share him with the world now.”

Next to Rehmeier, Gallner’s Strange Darling writer-director, JT Mollner, is his other greatest champion. Case in point, he just cast him in his Brie Larson-led and JJ Abrams-produced creature feature, Skeletons, for Sony Pictures. “JT has always had my back. It’s incredibly satisfying to know that I have these people who believe in me and fight for me and push for me to be in their films. They really put their money where their mouth is,” Gallner says.

Time will tell if Carolina Caroline will reposition Gallner for major studio-level lead roles. In the meantime, he’ll keep going through the doors that open. For example, he and his Smile co-star Sosie Bacon are reuniting on the big screen at the June 5 Tribeca premiere of their addiction drama, Cotton Fever. Bacon, Strange Darling’s Willa Fitzgerald and Caroline’s Weaving all speak glowingly of their scene partner, with the latter recently telling THR: “I just adore [Kyle]. I could do a million movies with him. It’s just so easy to go to work every day when it’s with someone you love. When it’s with someone who’s a bloody ding-a-ling, it makes it feel like work.”

Below, during a conversation with THR, Gallner also discusses the code of his con man character in Caroline. Then he looks back on Mollner’s battle to preserve the soul of Strange Darling.

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You and Samara Weaving are a really smart pairing in Carolina Caroline because you’ve both become ubiquitous figures across indie and genre cinema. You’re counterparts in a lot of ways. Did you guys ever talk about your similar careers? 

Yeah, we talked about it a little bit on set. We’ve both done a bunch of horror films, but it’s that tricky thing where, as an actor, you’re always looking to expand. So when Carolina Caroline came along, it was really exciting for both of us because it’s something that neither of us had ever really gotten to do before.

With you and horror, do you think “Headphone Kid’s Brother” put you on a list because you were approved by Wes Craven? Did Red Eye open the flood gates?

(Laughs.) I don’t know if Headphone Kid’s Brother put me on any kind of list. When you’re younger and you’re cutting your teeth, horror movies are some of the only things you could really get a lead in where you weren’t playing somebody’s son or a smaller role. So I was really lucky to be able to jump from movie to movie, starting from Headphone Kid’s Brother all the way up to where I am now.

“Well, there goes your pen, dude.”

(Laughs.) I still have not seen [Red Eye]. I don’t know why.

You should check it. It’s pretty good. 

That’s what I’ve heard.

Samara told me that the two of you bonded over the fact that Radio Silence killed you both in Scream movies. Didn’t the two of you text those guys a picture promising payback?

Probably. If she said it, then yes. My memory is out the window, but that sounds about right.

You previously worked with Adam Carter Rehmeier on the 2020 cult classic Dinner in America, but you didn’t reteam for Snack Shack. Were you busy during that one? 

No, I wasn’t busy. There was a role in there that Adam had brought me up for, but things just don’t always work out for any number of reasons. I forget what it was. I was maybe a little old to play the role, but Adam and I are always scheming and looking to see what else we can do together.

Adam landed Caroline while prepping Snack Shack, so did he gauge your interest pretty early on in the process?

Well, Carolina Caroline was pretty interesting. When the movie came across his desk, he brought my name up from the jump. He was like, “This would be a great movie for me and Kyle.” But the way Hollywood works, it doesn’t always go that way. So there were actually a few [casting] iterations before I came on board. Adam kept pushing for me, and once the role opened up again, he pushed for me again. People are going to do what they have to do, and producers are going to do what they have to do. They made their offers and did their thing, but with patience and luck, the role finally came my way.

Oliver Anderson is a nomadic con man from Orange County, and while Caroline calls him out for the con job he pulled at her filling station, she quickly becomes enamored with him and his lifestyle. Do you think he’d always been a solo act until  he met Caroline?

Maybe he wasn’t always a solo act, but the reason I don’t think he’s had other Carolines is because the way he feels about her is very genuine. They really do fall in love, and they really are very ride-or-die for each other. So even if there were other people along the way, there was never anybody like her for him.

If you had to pull off a real-life con, do you think your acting chops would serve you well? Or would the fear of arrest cause you to buckle under the pressure? 

That’s a good question. I guess it depends on the situation. If I had no choice and didn’t have to worry about the threat of arrest, I would like to hope that I could pull it off. I do wonder if I would crumble or if I would be able to swing it.

In a way, isn’t acting just conning an audience into believing the story, world and character you’re presenting?

Yeah, a little bit. You’re making things up, you’re telling stories and you’re trying to be as truthful as you can. So I have to imagine it would help.

Oliver ignores the following question in the movie, so now you have to answer it. 

Oh God.

Do you think Oliver is a good person pretending to be bad? Or is he a bad person pretending to be good?

(Laughs.) I think Oliver believes in what he says and what he does. He stands by his approach to things. He looks at the world a certain way, and he believes the things that he believes. I don’t think he sees himself as a bad guy. It’s almost like that Robin Hood thing. He thinks he’s taking from people that it doesn’t really hurt. Granted, there are victims who are probably not bad people and get the short end of the stick. But he’s only taking $20, $40, $60 from them. I’m not saying that’s a great thing, but the big cons are from people [or entities] that he genuinely thinks won’t consider it a problem.

For a while, Oliver and Caroline had a pretty clean system going where they were doing small-scale cons and enjoying a nice lifestyle. But then she wanted to up the stakes to armed bank robbery. Do you liken their pursuit of bigger cons to drug addiction? Are they chasing greater and greater highs?

I have to imagine there’s a part of that there. It’s exciting, and it fuels something in you. It does hit a reckless point when she’s in a darker place because of her mom, and everything gets pushed further and further. Oliver is willing to do anything for her, so he steps it up to do these other things. But he knows what he’s doing. He’s clearly done this before, and he understands the dangers behind it. So I have to imagine that there is definitely a bit of an intoxicating element to pulling off these robberies and cons.

Before they left Caroline’s dad’s house in Texas, he (John Gries) said to Oliver, “Remember what I told you.” Did you actually shoot that scene? Or was it always a quick way to tell the audience that her dad gave the two his blessing?

Yeah, we never really had a scene where he and Oliver had a longer conversation.

I first watched the movie before its TIFF premiere last year, and I had to pause a few times to figure out the movie’s recurring cash register con. Sam said she never truly figured it out. What about you? 

I don’t even know if I really do understand it; it’s just something that works. If you understand the rhythm of it and you understand what it’s supposed to be, it just works. It’s meant to be confusing. It’s a con that you’re supposed to pull in a crowded bar or store where the person working the register is a little distracted. That way, they get confused by what’s happening. The math is confusing. Even now, I still have a hard time understanding it. The first day we shot it in the filling station where Oliver meets Caroline, we were running it, and I had to stop. At one point, there were six people standing around all trying to figure out how it works. We got to the point where we were like, “Okay, we’ve got to just shoot it.” It does work, but it just breaks your brain a little bit.

Strange Darling director JT Mollner is following in Adam’s footsteps because he just called you for his next movie, Skeletons, alongside Brie Larson and producer JJ Abrams. It’s got to be flattering to have two talented filmmakers championing you.

It’s a really good feeling. It’s the best thing in the world to make movies with your friends — people that you love and trust. Adam and JT have just been so incredibly supportive of me. Adam and I have now made three movies together, and [Skeletons] will be the second one that I do with JT after Strange Darling. JT has always had my back. So it’s incredibly satisfying to know that I have these people who believe in me and fight for me and push for me to be in their films. They really put their money where their mouth is. They’re like, “I want to work with you again,” and they make it happen. It’s cool. I’m very, very fortunate to have found two guys like that, and I hope I can make ten more movies with them.

Parker Finn could’ve been the third one, but he just had to kill off your character in the first eight minutes of Smile 2.

I know! Parker and I still talk. I would love to work with him again. I have a feeling we will cross paths again, for sure.

I remember giving him a little bit of a hard time about it because you were popping off at the time with Strange Darling.

(Laughs.) Parker was cool about it. There was always the possibility of Smile 2 following my character Joel, but he called me and said, “Look, dude, the movie is not going to be about Joel, but we’re going to take you out with a real bang.” Then he explained the scene to me, and I was just like, “Yeah, let’s go shoot that. That’ll be fun.”

When Strange Darling came your way, were you able to read the script and have the experience that viewers had? Were the surprises still intact? 

Yeah, the script was written nonlinearly like the movie, so reading it was exciting because I had no clue where it was going to go. There was all this stuff in the beginning that we never got to shoot. For a while, I thought the movie was going to have no dialogue. Nobody talked for 25 or 30 pages because there was a whole action sequence at the front of the movie we didn’t get to shoot.

The river sequence?

Yeah, the river sequence. When you read a script or a story that’s so stylized like that, you just don’t know what the final product is going to be. So even though I knew what was going to happen, I genuinely had no idea what the movie was going to look like or feel like — or how the chapters would work and flow. And once I got to see the movie, it was still really surprising to me even though I knew what was going to happen.

I’m glad Strange Darling worked out for JT because that sounded like a really rough production. 

It was insane. He fought tooth and nail to make sure he was able to tell the story he wanted to tell in the way he wanted to tell it. That dude went to absolute war for that movie, and I’m glad he won in the end. [Writer’s Note: Two Miramax execs shut down the production on day two due to dissatisfaction with dailies, while also arguing to recast Willa Fitzgerald. Producers Roy Lee and Steven Schneider persuaded the powers that be to resume filming as is, but the nearly week-long pause forced Mollner to scrap the major river set piece. Then, in post, Miramax quietly hired another editor to recut the film linearly. Mollner loathed that version so much he threatened to Alan Smithee the piece if it was released. Mollner’s director’s cut ultimately tested through the roof, prompting then-Miramax CEO Bill Block to offer him final cut as an apology.]

(Spoiler Warning for Strange Darling.) How did you initially react to the revelation that your character was not the serial killer?

It was just a cool moment. I read it, and I reacted the same way that people reacted to it in the theater: “Wait, what? ” I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

(Spoiler Warning for Strange Darling.) I asked JT if he ever directed you to pretend like you’re the serial killer in certain scenes such as the opening car chase, but he said he didn’t play any of those games. Did you ever play that game with yourself? 

No, I just played the truth of the movie. The movie was really, really well written and very smart in that way. If you play the truth of the moment, then the audience goes along with it. I never had to twist the mustache and be like, “Ooh, I’m the bad guy here.” Just playing the scenes the way they were supposed to be played was enough to guide the audience in the right direction.

(Spoiler Warning for Strange Darling.) R.C., as he calls himself, is married, but he’s probably made plenty of other trips to that motel. Do you think he ultimately had it coming? Do you think his fate was comeuppance? 

Honestly, I don’t know if he had made other trips at that point. He was in a loveless marriage. He was nervous. He was a guy who was unhappy with his life, and he didn’t know how to get out of it. He then made some poor choices and wound up in the absolute wrong place at the wrong time. So I don’t know if it was his comeuppance. Gray characters like that are interesting. What he’s doing is morally wrong. But then it flips over, and he tries to do something right by stopping her. So I like that movie because a lot of it really does live in the gray.

You and Parker didn’t have a full-fledged reunion on Smile 2, but you did have one with your Smile co-star Sosie Bacon. 

Yeah, we have a movie called Cotton Fever that’s going to Tribeca. I’m actually about to leave here and jump right to New York [for the June 5 premiere].

Did the two of you engineer it yourselves?

Sosie and I had been talking. We wanted to find something else to work on. We got along really, really well, and she’s an incredible actress. I have some producer friends that I’ve made a couple things with, and they reached out to me about this very, very small movie. It’s less than a shoestring budget, but it was just really cool. It’s very slice of life, almost docu-style. It’s super different from what Sosie and I got to do on Smile. So there was a really great role in it, and I reached out to her to say, “Look, it’s no money, it’s no nothing. It’s really just for the love of the game.” So she read it, she really liked the role and she ended up coming on board.

Decades from now, when you think back on the Caroline experience, what day will you likely recall first? 

Oh man. I don’t even know if there’s going to be one day. Certain movies just really stick out. Some are jobs, some are just work, but some of them just hit differently. Filming Caroline was a fever dream. It was summertime fun, and I got to work with some of my really good friends. It’s more that I’ll just be able to look back on it as a whole — as one of those really special ones that stand out over the course of a career.

Adam told me that you guys talk about other projects all the time. Has anything emerged as a potential frontrunner? 

We have another one, and it’s already done. 

Wait, you shot another film already?

Yeah, we shot it. 

How did I not know about this? 

I don’t know if I’m allowed to say anything. (Laughs.)

You mentioned earlier that you’ve made three films together, but I just thought you misspoke. 

Yeah, we do have another one. My heart breaks a little bit because Adam and I have become really close. We’re good friends, and he has always believed in me. He’s let me do roles and step into shoes that other people normally wouldn’t let me do. With Dinner in America and then Carolina Caroline, those are the kind of roles where producers or other people go, “No, no, no, not him.” They think of me a certain way or whatever. But Adam has always stood up and said, “No, he can do anything.” 

So it is a little heartbreaking because I know he’s going to blow up and I know I’m not always going to be right. I know I’m not always going to be there, and I know our paths may not always be on the same plane. I may not be able to be hired on the movies that he’s about to direct, and I have to share him with the world now. Again, it’s a little bittersweet because I just know he’s going to fucking take off. He’s just so good. He’s one of the best, most unique voices going right now. But we’ll always talk, and we’ll always fight to find stuff together. It just may not be as back to back as it’s been.

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Carolina Caroline opens in movie theaters nationwide on June 5.