Joan Allen in Bonneville Courtesy of SenArt Films

On making a road trip film
JESSICA LANGE: Yeah. I mean I'd always wanted to do a road trip film. I mean I love that genre. If you look back at like the great road trip movies like Badlands or Five Easy Pieces, they're classics. And I always wanted to do one. So when this came up that was the first thing that drew me to the story.

On taking road trips
JOAN ALLEN: I did the cross-country journey once many years ago before my daughter was [born]. I was pregnant with my daughter actually so it's like fifteen years ago, from L.A. to New York. And we took our time, driving five or six hours a day and stopping in whatever state we landed in to just kind of be there from three of four p.m. through the night and for breakfast, and just do whatever was kind of around. So I have done that.

JESSICA LANGE: And I've spent a lot of time on the road. A lot, actually! In the beginning, in the late 60's, early 70's, I lived in the back of an Econoline van with two dogs, a cat and a couple of parakeets. And we actually just lived on the road off and on for a couple of years. And now I'm with a man [husband Sam Shepard] who doesn't fly so I'm on the road a lot. So yes, I have criss-crossed this country more times than I could even imagine.

On what music would be playing in the car
JESSICA LANGE: I would probably listen to the same thing I always listen to: Bob Dylan, The Band. Great traveling music.

JOAN ALLEN: Well, I'm just a pop music kid. I just always have been. That's always the music that's meant the most to me. I know more about current music because of my daughter. And what I'm listening to at the gym at the moment would be probably what I would put in: The Gym Class Heroes [and] I like The Killers. Dave Matthews. And those would be some of my choices.

On the film's locations
JESSICA: We were moving around a fair amount. We were centralized in Salt Lake City and so a lot of the early sequences—before we got to the Salt Flats—were [filmed] maybe forty-five minutes to an hour outside of Salt Lake. Then we went to Lake Powell and we were there a few nights and we hit Bryce Canyon for one night. We were doing some picking up and moving around. But the crew was really terrific and we had a great DP [Director of Photography]. We all just kind of were in it together and enjoyed it that way.

JOAN ALLEN: It's fun to be on the road with a whole movie crew. There's something great about it because you're all thrown together and you're out there and you're like moving from one location to another. It feels like a troupe of actors, kind of a gypsy encampment that's on the move. And I loved that part of it.

On comparisons with Thelma & Louise
JESSICA LANGE: It doesn't bear much in common with Thelma & Louise, with their characters, or their story, or the journey that they're on. I don't think there's much similarity between the two films. To some degree it's a very humorous film. It's a very quiet film. And it's a very kind of intimate portrait. There are no great events that happen to them on their way. If you're comparing it to Thelma & Louise, there's nothing of that magnitude that happens to these women; nothing that dramatic. But I think this film succeeds mostly on the level of kind of portraits. I think they're very complete portraits of these three women and of their friendship together…with a lot of lightness and humor and a lot of emotion too.