Local actors Colton Gantt (background left) and Carlos McFarland (under the arm of Leonardo DiCaprio) in a scene from Paul Thomas Anderson’s upcoming film One Battle After Another. | Screenshot via YouTube.

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Growing up in Los Angeles, Tisha Sloan always dreamed of acting in film. She got involved in theater at age 12 and went on to earn her Associate of Arts degree from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, a Method-focused school where instructors encourage students to pull from their own life experiences.

Sloan realized that she was a bit short on those and, yearning to get out of L.A., she decided to move to Humboldt County, where she earned two more degrees in theater from Humboldt State University. She and the family she’d begun settled in to the slower rural lifestyle. 

“I wanted to raise my kids here with rivers and trees and cows instead of concrete, how I grew up,” Sloan told the Outpost in a recent interview.

But she stayed involved in acting, working as a company member and production manager for Dell’Arte for in the early 2000s and landing roles in the occasional community theater production or local TV commercial. (You might recognize her as the long-suffering housewife in a series of spots for Barry Smith Construction.)

So it wasn’t too surprising when, a couple of years ago, Sloan was contacted by Cassandra Hesseltine, the film commissioner for Humboldt and Del Norte counties, saying a film would soon be shooting in our region and the crew was looking to cast some locals. Hesseltine told the Outpost that she was directing a play at the time, and the production’s casting director reached out to ask whether she knew anyone who’d be right for a specific role. Sloan was Hesseltine’s understudy in the play.

“She was the only one I thought of, and then she nailed it, you know?” Hesseltine said. “I was like, ‘No way. That’s amazing.’”

Sloan still didn’t know what she was in for. “[Hesseltine] had me send my headshot and resume to the casting director, who then got back to me and sent me a couple pages of script,” Sloan said. “And we did a Zoom reading, and she really liked it.”

That casting director, Hollywood veteran Cassandra Kulukundis, then forwarded Sloan’s recorded audition to “the director,” who turned out to be renowned auteur and 11-time Oscar nominee Paul Thomas Anderson, though Sloan wasn’t aware of that fact at the time. 

As film commissioner, Hesseltine did know who was behind the production, of course, and when the two women bumped into each other at an event and Sloan mentioned that she’d soon be “doing a read” with the film’s lead actor, Hesseltine couldn’t hide her excitement.

“She started freaking out,” Sloan said. “So that was my first clue that this was actually something pretty big.”

Tisha Sloan at a recent cast and crew screening of One Battle After Another on the Warner Bros. lot in Hollywood. | Submitted.

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The film, of course, would wind up being One Battle After Another, Anderson’s star-studded, ~$150 million action comedy, scheduled for nationwide release a week from Friday. Loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, the movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Teyana Taylor and Regina Hall. Rave reviews are rolling in, with several critics hailing it as a masterpiece.

Hesseltine said her first meeting for the film was way back in April of 2019. Anderson, director of such films as Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood, had already made several trips to Humboldt County, searching for locations and using what he saw to help him write the script, she said. 

The production, like so many others, was delayed by the pandemic. But in early 2024, the crew spent 11 days here in Humboldt County, filming at a variety of locations, including the Cutten Murphy’s Market, the streets of Trinidad and Arcata and the campus of Eureka High School, before going on to shoot scenes in Sacramento, El Paso, Texas, and Pinewood Studios in the United Kingtom.

Eureka resident Carlos McFarland was a Eureka High senior in 2023 when he heard through the school’s theater club that there was an online casting call for bit parts and background actors. 

“I had to reach out to the casting agent and ask if I could have an audition,” McFarland said in a recent phone interview. “I got emailed a little script and a few months later I got to audition.”

Like Sloan, he auditioned via Zoom, reading lines with the casting director. Also like Sloan, he initially had no idea how big this project would be or who was behind it. He wasn’t even sure he’d been cast until it was nearly go time.

“I heard back the week that they were in town, in Eureka,” he said. “I got a text from the casting agent to be at base camp by six in the morning.” 

Fellow Eureka resident Colton Gantt, now 24, saw the casting call for this mysterious 2024 production posted on Facebook. He had previously worked as a background actor for the 2022 coming-of-age movie The Sky Is Everywhere, which also filmed in Humboldt County, and figured he’d try to do it again.

Colton Gantt at a cast and crew screening in Hollywood last weekend.

“I had applied for just a background [role], and then later on they asked for a picture of me,” Gantt said. After sending one in he was told that he might be good for a small speaking part, and after auditioning via Zoom with the casting director, he landed the role. 

As with McFarland, he was kept in the dark until the production crew arrived here in Humboldt.

“They basically told me that it was a Warner Bros. production,” Gantt said. “They didn’t really tell me much at first, but once I got onto set they were like, ‘Oh, we’re going to introduce you to somebody.’ And that ended up being Leo.”

When we spoke, neither Gantt nor McFarland were sure how much they were allowed to say about their roles or the plot. But we know that DiCaprio plays a paranoid and washed-up revolutionary named Bob; newcomer Chase Infiniti plays Bob’s daughter; and McFarland and Gantt play the daughter’s close friends. You can see them both in this TV spot for One Battle After Another:

That’s Gantt behind the wheel (and front door) of his grandma’s red Toyota Yaris at the start of the clip, and McFarland being manhandled by DiCaprio. 

McFarland recalled eating a catered breakfast at the production basecamp on his first day and then being driven out to location near Freshwater. That’s when he found out who he’d be acting with.

“I realized when we pulled up to the set ‘cause I saw Leo there, which was really cool,” he said. “I did not know it was going to be with him.”

McFarland admitted to being only a “mild” Leo fan and said he wasn’t nervous about performing alongside DiCaprio.

“He was super nice. At one point he said I was doing a good job,” McFarland recalled. “I honestly just wanted to do my best and remember my lines.”

Gantt, on the other hand, was a fan.

“It was really incredible to work with [DiCaprio],” he said. “He’s somebody that I’ve admired for a long time, and to share a set with him was surreal.”

Sloan, meanwhile, deduced the identity of her screen partner from the very excited Hesseltine, who couldn’t resist offering hints once she learned that Sloan would be reading scenes with him.

“She said, ‘You’re going to be acting with someone of Titanic proportion,” Sloan recalled. She’d been following industry buzz and quickly figured out that this was a Paul Thomas Anderson production, “which I was really excited about,” she said. “He’s one of my favorites. … I really couldn’t believe it was happening.”

Sloan spent the two weeks ahead of her Leo read-through watching as many of his films as she could find — “just to, like, get used to his face,” she said. “And it kind of worked!”

When she found herself performing opposite one of the world’s biggest movie stars, Sloan felt dissociated from herself. “It was all so unreal,” she said. But she found the crew to be exceedingly generous. “They were really kind and calm and very accommodating. I think they were well aware of how overwhelming this whole thing could be to someone new to it.”

About a week after the reading, Sloan got a call from Kulukundis, the casting director, who started talking to her about costume fittings.

“And I said, ‘Whoa, wait. Does that mean I got it?’” Sloan recalled. “And she said, ‘Oh, they didn’t tell you?’”

Like her young local costars, Sloan had nothing but praise for her time with DiCaprio.

“He was so very kind and welcoming at the audition in person that I felt pretty okay going in [to the film set], honestly,” she said. “And I have been acting since I was 12, so I understood the concept of getting into character and being in character and being professional in the scene.”

DiCaprio was also “a bit in character” when she arrived onset for her day of shooting at a Eureka High location. Sloan didn’t offer too many details about that day or the scene they filmed, but she said her character interacts with DiCaprio’s. Filming the scene took a long time, she said, with Anderson trying multiple camera angles and lenses across multiple takes. 

“After we’d been doing it for a while — a couple hours at that point — I think I felt comfortable enough to actually take a look around the room, because I was being so focused on who I was and where I was and what was supposed to be happening,” Sloan said. 

So she looked around, taking in the set and finally noticing all of the surrounding people with their lights and camera equipment. 

“And when I came back to facing Leo, he was looking right at me,” Sloan said. “And he said, ‘Stay in it,’ like a warning almost. Like, you know, ‘Stay ready.’ And the best part, though, is I, so, okay.” Sloan paused, excited as she remembered this moment. “I looked down, I got myself back into character, and I looked back up at him, and he kind of nodded, like, he could see it — that I got back into character. And that meant more than anything.”

A functioning movie theater on the Warner Bros. lot in Hollywood was converted to VistaVision for a cast and crew screening earlier this month. | Photo courtesy Colton Gantt.

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Both Sloan and Gantt were invited to attend a cast and crew screening last weekend on the Warner Bros. studio lot in Hollywood. 

“I jumped on the opportunity to go do that,” Sloan said. “And that’s the best part, honestly.” Her childhood dreams of being a movie actor had finally come true. “Getting onto the Warner Bros. studio lot, getting through that guard station with my ID, and [hearing], “Yes, your name’s on a list. Come on in.’ That was huge.”

Gantt said it was great seeing members of the cast and crew that he’d last seen up here in Humboldt, including Anderson. After seeing himself on the (very) big VistaVision screen, he said he’s still wrapping his head around the whole experience. 

“It was really surreal being a part of it, being surrounded by so many big names in the industry,” he said. “[There were] just a lot of people that I grew up watching, and to share a set with them was actually really cool.”

One Battle After Another opens Friday, Sept. 26, nationwide, including at Eureka’s Broadway Cinema, and it’s coming soon to The Minor Theatre in Arcata.

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