People have been saying for years that Westerns are dead, but that's not true at all. Although they're not being cranked out of Hollywood en-masse like the High Noon days of Gary Cooper or the True Grit era of John Wayne, Westerns always find their way back to the big screen. The latest Western to ride into town, which goes wide in theaters on October 3, is from the saddle of Ed Harris, who pulls double duty as director and co-star of Appaloosa, with Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger, and Jeremy Irons.

This past week at the Toronto Film Festival, Ed Harris rounded up his creative posse for the official Appaloosa press conference where he was joined by Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger, Jeremy Irons, co-writer Robert Knott, and executive producer Michael London to talk about the story of two friends who arrive in the small town of Appaloosa only to run up against an evil rancher and an unfamiliar young widow.

Somebody wise once said all good Westerns are really love stories between men. Why do you think women in the Western genre are considered a threat to the male relationships in these films?

ED HARRIS: I guess because in terms of the day-to-day life of ­-- especially the main characters in a Western are usually lawmen or else criminals, outlaws of some kind. You know, there’s really no room for a woman. In other words there’s no real place for her. Where does she fit in, in terms of this kind of rugged country, lawless land? So I guess that’s maybe what he meant. In other words these are not domesticated men, necessarily. These are men who are traveling, who are traveling horseback, in this case, itinerant lawmen, really. They don’t really have a home. Their home is wherever they are. They’ve been traveling together for years. A certain bond has developed between the men in terms of trusting one another, relying on one another for their very survival. And so, where does a woman fit into that? Does that make sense?

Can you comment on the female story line and her character? Years ago in Westerns she was either a whore or a schoolmarm. And today, 2008, she doesn’t seem to have made any progress, especially when we have a female on the presidential ticket.

HARRIS: I don’t think the woman in this film is either a whore or a schoolmarm, I thought she’s a very interesting woman.

Let’s start over. In the film, Ed’s character talks about her, stating that she plays the piano, she’s not a whore, talking about who she was and what she meant to him in very simplistic terms.

ZELLWEGER: I think her situation is much more complicated.

HARRIS: He says, "She’s this - she dresses fine, she’s pretty, she chews her food nice, she plays the piano, but she’ll f**k anything that ain’t gelded." I don’t know what your question is.

First of all, I liked the film...

HARRIS: I’m not arguing with you, I just don’t know what you¹re asking.

RENEE ZELLWEGER: I understood your comment about saying that women are portrayed -- ­that she’s much more simple. I think in fact she’s really complicated because her options are so limited. That she has to resort to things that even I would never consider in terms of how we would define the list of things you do to take care of yourself. In that respect, I think she’s so complicated and not simple at all. And in terms of her dynamic with the gentlemen, one of the things that I love so much about it is that, well for me anyway, I always felt for Ally it was an "us" situation. She wasn’t, I think, deciding one way or another that this was her unit, her safe place. You and I would look at relationships much more differently. She’s creating a family and a safe haven for herself between these two men. Very complicated.

What kind of source material did you read or research to find out what life was like during that time period of 1882?

ROBERT KNOTT: I think like anyone would do when you jump into an era, you read everything you can, which is what we did. We had tons of books on the looks of towns, the look of the territory. And then - plus we obviously had a great novel, Robert Parker’s novel, which gave us sort of a license to really have a look at the landscape, and that’s what we wanted to do with this film, is open it up and see the country, see the vastness of the country. They did a great job with that - anamorphic setting.

HARRIS: You read a lot of photos, you know, from that era - at least from the 1880’s. Keith Walters, who was the prop guy, was really well versed in the weaponry of the time. And of course we’ve done our own research. And Waldemar Kalinowski was the production designer, did a fantastic job in terms of the look of the town and all the set dressings, set decorations and texture of things. David Robinson, who did costumes, who also worked on Pollack with me, obviously did a ton of research himself. One of the things I do like about the film is it’s very detailed. There’s a lot to see in there. The more you watch it, the more you’ll see how much attention was paid to detail actually in all aspects of the production.

For Jeremy Irons. Did you ever think growing up in England that you’d end up doing a Western? And what do westerns mean to you?

JEREMY IRONS: Well, I was, like many kids, brought up watching Westerns; Spaghetti Westerns, John Ford Westerns, John Wayne Westerns, and no I never thought that I’d be in one. I never thought I’d be in the movies. Life for me has been a constant surprise, day by day. One of the joys of this business is when I get surprised by requests. And when Ed asked me to do this, this was a very pleasurable surprise.

Renee, what was it about the project that got you interested?

HARRIS: It was the money. [laughs]

ZELLWEGER: [laughs] You’re being modest. It required very little consideration. Ed called, working on little hints. It was exactly the kind of thing, as Jeremy said, that it was just such a nice surprise, exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for, a very raw and quiet experience. It was pretty intense and the environment was gorgeous and challenging. And because these guys worked so hard, the experience was very authentic. It wasn’t hard to imagine being this women and living at that time. I mean, these guys are kind of fun sometimes. Especially when they’re not riding around on horses and chaps. You know what I mean? [laughs] Chaps and hats...

What about your costumes?

ZELLWEGER: My costumes are gorgeous. And it’s too bad you that couldn’t actually see the construction of these things because it was intricate. They were exquisitely done. Not something I throw on everyday for comfort or anything but boy were they gorgeous, really.

Viggo and Renee, could you talk about your characters? It does seem to be a love story between two men and a woman here in 19th century terms.

VIGGO MORTENSEN: Ah, the "Jules et Jim" of the west or something. [laughs] I don’t know, I was given the book by Ed early on before he had written the script, and I really enjoyed working with him on The History of Violence when I read this book. I think, like Ed, like most of us, when you read the script, you just find that it was really well written, especially for a western. Most Westerns - there’s been a lot of them made, so a percentage of them from good to bad is pretty low. But I think most Westerns are pretty terrible as far as acting goes, and just art. If western movies could be said to be art.

This one was really well written. I liked the sparseness of it and how well written, the language that they use even though they can be pretty curt, pretty direct. There’s a polite sensibility that’s mostly gone, I think, that wasn’t just in the upper class, but it was predominant Victorian kind of manners in the way that we address each other, even when the circumstances are brutal or very basic. And the relationship with Ed for me, with Virgil Cole, the character he plays, between him and Everett Hitch, my character, I like the fact and I understood that they had been friends so long and worked so well together that there’s so much trust. I thought that the reason, as they sort of state in the movie, that they’ve been friends for so long and it’s a successful law enforcement business, was because I mind my own business and he minds his business, and we allow each other to do that.

Dramatically it’s really interesting what happens when their characters - when Jeremy’s and Renee’s, come into play. They have a different way of communicating. I think Bragg is trying to sort of get a handle in that really lovely scene where Jeremy and Ed are sitting cross from each other at a table in the bar, in the saloon, and there’s this sort of little feeling out going on. And Brag’s trying to figure out his way of speaking, communicating, and he doesn¹t really get very far in that scene (he laughs.) So he’s got a lot left to figure out. And when Renee’s character comes in, she’s quite direct. That’s why I was sort of like, "How can you say it’s simplistic?" And are you talking generally about Westerns? Better talk about this Western. And it is a Western if you’re wondering or thought if it wasn’t.

I think she’s very interesting and very mysterious. We don’t really ever know how much to believe in. We don’t know exactly - I’m not sure who Allison French is, still. She says she’s something. Ed’s character maybe knows a lot more. I mean, being the director he probably knows a lot more most of all. But I found her to be mysterious. And for a women, especially at that time, quite direct and quite determined and pretty brave coming out there on her own and then going after what she wants for whatever those reasons are. So I thought it was a very unusual character. It wasn’t the archetype women, is either a whore or a loyal wife or something in a lot of westerns. She’s very different. Likewise, I thought Katie, the prostitute played by Ariadna Gil, was very interesting. She’s kind of like the conscience, the voice of the town in a way. She’s the audience. She’s in Appaloosa before any of us get there and she sees things coming. She doesn’t seem to have a personal investment in what happens between Virgil and Ally like I do, obviously. It’s just a fact that she sees this thing coming and she has a feeling about her character and sort of points it out. It’s a small character, but it’s an interesting women’s character, as well. So I think they’re interesting.

HARRIS: Well, Virgil’s a pretty interesting fellow to me. You know, I think he really means it when he says that near the end he and Everett are walking and they know Bragg’s in town and he’s been given a pardon by Chester Arthur, and basically got this murderer in town but there’s nothing we can do because he’s a free man at the moment. And Everett’s contemplating maybe what to do about the situation and talks about the fact that he never really believed in the law so much as being a law man wasn’t the best way of being a gun man, that you get paid, you’re doing some work that you enjoy and you’re not digging the copper or mines or you’re not in soldier uniform; basically says the law never really meant that much to him.

And Cole says, "Well, it means a hell of a lot to me. What am I if I don’t believe it?" And I think Cole really sees himself as a lawman, as a man who upholds the law. Yes, he makes some of his own laws but there’s still a moral code that he’s driven by, that he tries to live by. I think that’s the thing that gives him purpose in life; and that’s the main thing. He really flips over this woman, I mean. The book itself is told from Hitch’s point of view. Robert [Knott] and I really want to be kind of faithful to that, and the film is pretty much told from Hitch’s point of view. You never see Cole and Ally alone together without Hitch seen. The only time you see Cole alone is one night when he’s on the porch, you know, at night for about twenty seconds. Otherwise everything’s taking place from where Hitch is witnessing, which...

And this is not really answering your question - but it leaves this relationship between Ally and Cole really up to the imagination. I mean, what do they do together? What do they like? The one thing that you don’t see, you don’t see them naked humping in bed together, and you don’t see the fact that Cole’s never been with a woman like this in his life. He talks about it. But you know, bottom line is there’s a lot of reasons he doesn’t want to let her go, and one of them is nobody’s business, you know what I mean? But that’s just the way the film’s told.

TIFF: Riding Into Appaloosa with Ed Harrs, Renee Zellweger, Viggo Mortensen, and Jeremy Irons Page 2