A Low Self-Esteem, Big Ego Kind Of Man” – Josh O’Connor Reflects On “The Mastermind

The Mastermind isn’t your typical art heist film, and JB Mooney isn’t your typical criminal; what drew you to the role?

I suppose, I mean, initially, the draw was Kelly Reichardt. I’d followed her films for a while; I really enjoy films that you can really sit in and have moments of pensiveness, almost mundane sometimes. And I think this movie is sort of like a mundane heist, almost.

So initially, it was Kelly really and just wanting to be a part of her world and the movies she makes. But then once I read the script, yeah, it just felt like a character I hadn’t played before. And in a period that I found really interesting. Just the year before that, I made this movie – La Chimera – and although that was the ‘80s in Italy, I think I really enjoyed inhabiting that time. And, you know, weirdly, it feels not that distant in our past. But if you think about how different it is, you know, it’s kind of extraordinary.

There are also a lot of similarities between then and now; there are lots of political tensions and generational shifts. We see James’ frustrations with his life and his career prospects. Did you resonate with any of that, in terms of living in the current climate and your own experiences?

I suppose if there was something that I thought was just as an observation, quite interesting is that, as you’ll know, in the backdrop of the film – and it’s really kind of just the backdrop – we don’t really go into it too much. It’s in the background on television, or we’re walking through a town, and there’s a protest. You know, the backdrop of the Vietnam War is significant because I think where Mooney is at the beginning of the film, the roles – the traditional roles of male and female or husband and wife in a marriage – were shifting.

And here’s a man who’s probably not providing very much for his family, and what does that do to someone’s self-esteem? Combine that with the idea of the man at that point – and still now – being extremely privileged, and therefore his ego is saying, “I should be a provider, I should be doing more.” And this is the thing of the kind of antithesis of this character, like, the low self-esteem, big ego, and how he kind of navigates that.

In terms of now, I mean, talking about the backdrop of politics, you know, you could argue that the ‘70s were sort of the beginning, the early murmurs of the post-truth era, you know, post-Watergate. So much cover-up, and like, do you believe what they’re telling you? Pitting the press against the people. So those sorts of similarities are quite interesting.