Werner Herzog Teary as ‘Bucking Fastard’ Starring Rooney and Kate Mara as Sisters in Sync Lifts Off

Werner Herzog lifted the veil on Bucking Fastard at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday as the Rooney and Kate Mara starrer had its world premiere inside Sala Grande. The iconic filmmaker wiped away tears at one point and repeatedly held his hand to his heart during the warm six-and-a-half-minute standing ovation. He looked emotional while soaking up the scene, even taking a moment to take a final bow before exiting the theater and blowing a kiss to his adoring audience.

Per the film’s official festival description, Bucking Fastard focuses on two sisters, Jean and Joan Holbrooke, who are so close to one another that they not only speak in unison but love the same man and share the same dreams. They come under fire after their lover, played by Orlando Bloom, ditches them for another woman and they turn to random acts of crime to win him back. Later, in search of the Orkneys, where they believe true love is possible, the sisters, who become tabloid sensations, start digging a tunnel through a cavernous mountain range. Domhnall Gleeson rounds out the cast as a government-issued social worker/mender intent on helping them adapt to modern life.

Herzog directed from his own screenplay and produced alongside Ariel Leon Isacovitch (Theater of Thought) and Agnes Chu (Spiderhead), with Kieran Corrigan, Emanuele Moretti and Andrea Bucko. HanWay Films is handling worldwide sales.

In an interview ahead of the festival while promoting her new show, Imperfect Women, Kate Mara said the script originally called for them to play identical twins, though that was later switched simply to sisters. She called the film, which was shot in Ireland, “quite beautiful and very unusual.” Being sisters in real life, Kate said their voices are so similar that it was “very easy” for them to be in unison at the same level and speaking in tandem.

During Thursday afternoon’s press conference, Rooney Mara said their sibling bond delivered much-needed synchronicity. “I think we found pretty quickly that having a lifetime together and all this history and a childhood of playing together. … There was just an unspoken world between us that we didn’t have to work very hard to create at all,” she said. “Once we really found our flow together, I’ve never laughed so much. We had so much fun. it was a very once-in-a-lifetime, unique experience.”

Added Kate: “Once we figured out the rhythm of our speaking in unison, it felt almost like a song. It was very musical and it happened quite naturally. Surprisingly, it came with a lot of a lot more ease than we were expecting.”

Because of that, the filmmaker said that, for the first time, he didn’t require a two-week rehearsal period with his actors. “They were so good instantly that I said, after five days, ‘We stop that. I’ll meet you in Ireland in front of my camera,’” he recalled. “It was complete confidence in them, and they took it with ease.”

The 83rd edition of the Venice Film Festival officially opened Wednesday night on the Lido with a ceremony that celebrated George Clooney with a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement, featuring a powerful speech and tribute by Laura Dern, and concluded with the world premiere of Danny Boyle’s Ink, starring Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, that wrote its way to a four-minute standing ovation. The festival concludes with an awards ceremony on Sept. 12.