A Good Reason to Be a Coward: Jim Cummings on The Last Stop in Yuma County

The premise for Francis Gallupi’s directorial debut, “The Last Stop in Yuma County,” feels like it’s setting up a long-winded joke: a traveling knife salesman, two bank robbers, a traveling elderly couple, and two wannabe criminals walk into a diner while waiting for a fuel truck to arrive. Although some characters wear their menace on their sleeve, what keeps the film so unsettling is how little we know about each person who comes into the diner. The presence of the bank robbers’ money in proximity to individuals desperate for reinvention only increases the stakes. What ensues is a tense and bloody stand-off of the highest order, and Gallupi masterfully knows when to build on the tension he’s established in this chamber piece and when to release it through colorful and brutal spurts of violence.  Actor Jim Cummings plays the conniving and unnamed knife salesman. It’s a brilliant balancing act where he is the audience’s eyes and anchor in the midst of the carnage. But there are inklings of belligerence that simmer just below the surface, adding to the long tradition of “cinematic dipshits” (as a Letterboxd member put it) he has played, from “Thunder Road” to “The Wolf of Snow Hollow.”  Put more eloquently, Cummings has carved a lane by deconstructing the powerful and privileged characters he portrays; we can laugh at them rather than with them. Cummings believes that laughing at despicable characters is one of cinema’s greatest gifts. “When you laugh, you subvert the status quo of power dynamics of who is in charge,” he shared.  He spoke with RogerEbert over Zoom about the role of humor in challenging authority, what the animals in “The Last Stop in Yuma County” ultimately symbolize, and his excitement and hopes for Gallupi’s take on the “Evil Dead” franchise. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. I keep telling people that The Last Stop in Yuma County is going to give Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga a run for its money as the desert movie to dominate May. Jim Cummings: (Laughs) That’s lovely. Thank you.   The film is also playing in Chicago as part of the 11th Chicago Critics Film Festival. That’s right! Over at the Music Box! I already know Midwesterners will feel very seen by the inclusion of rhubarb pie in the film. I love that line in the movie where they’re selling how good the rhubarb pie is and Sierra McCormick’s character goes, “It’s not that great.” Had you heard of or eaten rhubarb pie before? Oh yeah. The way your character fumbled his way through the pronunciation convinced me that you’d never heard of it.  (Laughs) Yeah, I’m from New Orleans, Louisiana, and I grew up with a bunch of bakers, so I'm well versed in rhubarb. You’ll have to give me good New Orleans recs if I ever go down there. Oh yeah, I’ll send you a map. I have a map I send to friends, on which I tell them where the great places are and which ones are too touristy. I would love that. I heard that Francis wrote letters to the people in the cast that he wanted to be in the project. What did he write in your letter, and how did this story and project come to you? He wrote a very respectful letter about me influencing him to get off the couch and make things. His background was in music. He played drums for a band called Guttermouth for many years, and then he transitioned into directing music videos, commercials, and short films of his own. When I met him, he was gearing up to do this first feature. I've met many people in that camp who are going from short-form storytelling to long-form storytelling. He was very confident, ambitious, and certain of his abilities. He’s very good at ensembles in a way that I am not. He talked me through how the knife salesman character would talk to these different characters as if they were real. He wasn’t talking about [Richard Brake’s bank robber character] Beau as if it was Richard. He would say, “Beau is this person who is dangerous.” I saw that as so seasoned and sophisticated, and I just bought into it. He’s very susceptible and very hypnotic. He’s like that hypnotist kid from “Cure.” After he had written that letter to me, he came to my backyard, and we talked about "South Park" for four hours. Then we had coffee and discussed the script and how it would move. I was going to try and make it work with my schedule … I thought I couldn’t, but at the very last minute, I could. You talk about allure and hypnosis. One striking part about the rich characters is that we don’t get a lot of backstories, but we also know that they’re not all who they seem. Did you craft any backstory for your character when you played him?  (Laughs) I did. A lot of that was handed to me by Francis. He had a backstory for people and then was showing off the tip of the iceberg to us. We wanted my character just to be the knife salesman… that was a creative decision from Francis. But there was a lot of backstory. There was a lot about my relationship with my daughter and what this money could mean for our