In “Place of Bones,” Heather Graham talks about sharpshooting and the desire for more female-led westerns.
“Boogie Nights” star Heather Graham trades her roller skates for a gun in her new gritty, genre-bending Western, premiering Friday, August 23. Combining horror and suspense elements on a remote California ranch in 1876, “Place of Bones” is a bloody battle for survival as cruel outlaws and fierce protectors fight to be the last man – or woman – standing.
Heather Graham as Pandora in horror/thriller“Place of Bones,” a The Avenue release.
The Wild West thriller begins with widow and mother Pandora (Heather Graham) and her daughter Hester (Brielle Robillard) spending time in their remote desert home. Trouble arrives in the form of Calhoun (Corin Nemec), an injured outlaw who stumbles into Pandora’s home with a fatal gunshot wound. While tending to the outlaw, the two women discover that he is carrying a large pile of cash – a pile too large to obtain honestly. After Calhoun reveals that he has double-crossed a gang of other outlaws to claim the money and that they are pursuing him, Pandora prepares to defend her daughter and her home with nothing but a gun and her wits. The film builds to a classic showdown with a gruesome twist.
Place of Bones is director Audrey Cummings’ first foray into the Western genre. She is best known for her work in the thriller genre, but has previously directed films such as Tormented (2014), Darken (2017) and She Never Died (2019). Cummings brings her talent for horror to the Wild West, trading haunted corridors for desolate hills filled with colorful characters. Heather Graham, whose resume includes Westerns and Western-like films such as The Ballad of Little Jo (1993), Desert Winds (1995) and The Last Son (2021), takes on a band of outlaws played by Tom Hopper (The Umbrella Academy), David Lipper (The Curse of Wolf Mountain) and former professional boxer Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone.
(From left to right) Zachary Keller as Little Pete, Tom Hopper as Bear John and Cowboy Cerrone as Minor Wilson in Place of Bones.”
Following her second self-written and directed film, Chosen Family, Graham was excited to work with a female director on this female-led western. She told C&I, “The director really understands that female perspective and I think we both really connected with the character. I just loved that it was a female-dominated western. I don’t think I can remember a film I’ve ever seen where a woman played the lead. I just loved that the character was so interesting and fierce and intelligent.”
Graham has long been an advocate for gender equality in film. She wrote and directed her first film, Half Magic (2018), in response to the lack of complex female roles in Hollywood. “Just being in the business and feeling like most stories are told from a male perspective with a male star and a male protagonist,” she said of her motivation to write and direct her own project. “I just wanted to see more stories told by women. As a viewer, I thought it would be fun to tell a story that meant something to me. And it’s so much fun to get behind the camera and be part of the storytelling process in a different way.”
The film’s protagonist is full of complexities. Pandora is a fiercely protective widow and mother with a strained relationship with her teenage daughter. Graham handles every twist the script throws at her with strength, wit and intelligence. “I loved that the script, which was actually written by a man, had so many juicy details and I’m grateful to him for writing us such good characters,” she told C&I. “Pandora has a lot of problems and big fears and she doesn’t want the horrible things that happened to her to happen to her daughter. I think her whole motivation is to help her daughter have a better life than she did.”
Heather Graham and Brielle Robillard plays mother and daughter in “Place of bones.”
The film culminates in a thrilling shootout that requires Graham to use her marksmanship skills. Graham is more than used to learning new skills for her roles. She did swing dancing for “Swingers” (1996) and roller skating for “Boogie Nights” (1997), to name a few. “Luckily, we had great stunt people to help me. It was fun running around with a gun, shooting and falling. I did a lot of my own stunts,” she told C&I. “I’m very lucky as an actress to be able to learn all these things. It’s a great education. You get to live all these different lives. That’s one of the beautiful things about being an actor.”
How does the cult actress deal with her nervousness when she takes on a new role? “I get nervous with every job I do. The best thing for me is when I read that people like Steven Spielberg or Meryl Streep were nervous on the first day of their job. Then I think to myself, ‘Okay, maybe everyone feels like that.'”
It’s clear that Graham has caught the Western bug. In early 2025, she is set to star alongside Nicolas Cage in “The Gunslingers,” a western written and directed by Brian Skiba (“Dead Man’s Hand”). Graham previewed the upcoming film, saying, “It was so cool to be in a movie with Nicolas Cage. (“The Gunslingers”) is more of a traditional Western, but it’s a cool, fun, action-packed story.”
Graham is also behind the camera for another project – this time a television series – currently in early development. “Right now I’m working on a television series with my boyfriend that’s not necessarily a western. It’s based on a book by Liane Moriarty, a great writer.” She assured C&I that a western written by Heather Graham is not out of the question. “You make me even more excited to do another western.”
Heather Graham visited the C&I Studio to talk about “Place of Bones” and provide further information about her upcoming projects.
Watch C&I’s full interview with Heather Graham below.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy of The Avenue
