USA Today is carrying two articles about True Grit. They’re only short interviews with 13 year-old, star in the making, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jeff Bridges but they contain some interesting comments.

Steinfeld:

“I actually started what I called the Bad Boy Jar. If they were to curse, they had to pay, because they did that pretty often. The f-word was $5, and every other word was $1,” she says cheerfully. “They would say the f-word, and then realize they’d said it, and then they would say the s-word. So I’d be like, ‘OK, that’s $6!’ The guys all looked at me and said, ‘OK, this is not fair. We have to designate you a word now.’ So I was not allowed to say ‘like’ or else it was 50 cents.

“It is a heavy movie, and you get on set and it’s, like, the mood is still (intense), from whatever we just did. But like at lunchtime and after lunch, it was a really, like, relaxed set.

“My goal when I was filming was she would never be happy. She’s trying to be as tough as she can be. A father would be the one to help her out of it, but she doesn’t have one. The entire time, she’s testing to see if he [Bridges' Rooster Cogburn] can be like a father,”

Bridges;

“Talking about ‘innocent girl’and so forth, I’d say we both have complex characters. The girl might seem innocent, but she’s quite intellectual and quite savvy about a lot of things,” Bridges says. “On the other hand, Rooster’s innocence and naïveté are brought to light, even through his grizzledness.

“The basic premise is this young girl is looking for somebody to go after the killer of her father. She asks, ‘Who is the best bounty hunter?’ And a bunch of guys are good, but Rooster is the badass merciless one. You don’t want to mess with him.”

You can see the articles here and here.

Thanks to Jack for emailing it in.