‘The Cow’ Director Eli Horowitz and Cast

The Cow co-writer/director Eli Horowitz joined stars Dermot Mulroney, Owen Teague and Brianne Tju to discuss the film at Deadline’s SXSW Studio.

Winona Ryder stars as Kath, who goes on a getaway with her boyfriend to a remote cabin in the redwoods, only to find a young couple already staying there. When her boyfriend supposedly runs off with the young woman, Kath seeks out the truth behind his disappearance.

“Dermot and Winona are both these iconic figures that in some ways we grew up with,” says Horowitz. “In some ways this movie is about this passage of time, and seeing people that we grew up with kind of makes you also think about yourself growing up and aging and the inevitable march towards death that we are all on, and fun stuff like that.”

“The best part of this movie, and the experience of watching it,” says Tju, “is that you have no idea what’s going on and we give you hints and pieces, also out of order, and so it’s like this puzzle you put together while watching it.”

“There’s so many turns and twists in the plot, that it even makes it difficult to speak about the characters,” says Mulroney, “but what I loved about the script is these aged tiers that [Horowitz] built into it. So there’s this youngest, and then John Gallagher Jr. comes into play as the slightly younger boyfriend to Kath, our lead heroine in the story, and then one older is me, so that you get a version of yourself that sort of twists around in that way.”

“A thing with the script that got me,” says Teague, “is these characters all start out as one thing and then they become completely different things by the end of the movie. You get to unpeel these people as the film goes on, which is always fun.”

Click the video above to watch the full discussion.