Swining and dining
Right: Nicolas Cage’s Rob on the hunt in a very atmospheric Portland forest.
Below right: Rob. He’s looking for... his pig.
CONFLICTS ON MOVIE shoots are not uncommon. But the set of Pig, this year’s lauded drama starring Nicolas Cage and a truffle-hunting oinker, may be the only one that’s nearly seen war break out over bacon.
“I tried to decree, ‘We shouldn’t have any pork on set the days that the pig is there,’” recalls writer-director Michael Sarnoski. “And basically the line producer and DP said, ‘We like the sentiment of that, but we can tell you that if you don’t have bacon for breakfast, the crew will mutiny.’”
Sarnoski lost that fight. But he won many, many others, including over the ending of the film, which, when a producer told him it was upsetting, doubled down on his decision to keep it. Pig, the end result, is an unorthodox gem, not the ‘Taken with bacon’ that many anticipated but something far quieter, smarter and, well, tastier. Here, Sarnoski talks us through the epic quest that Rob Feld (Cage) embarks on to find his lost hog.