John C. Reilly Is Buffalo Bill in Cannes Film ‘Heads or Tails?,' a Deconstruction of Cowboys and Legends

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20-05-2025

John C. Reilly stars as Buffalo Bill in the surreal westerns- and heroes-deconstructing parable Heads or Tails? (Testa o croce?), the new feature from Italian writers-directors Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis (The Tale of King Crab), which world premieres in Cannes' Un Certain Regard section.
French-Finnish actress Nadia Tereszkiewicz (Red Island, The Crime Is Mine) and Italian actor Alessandro Borghi (Supersex, The Eight Mountains) lead the cast of the movie that dissects such themes as fame, myths, and storytelling.
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The story, which the creator duo wrote with Carlo Salsa, begins with a documented 1890 Italy trip by frontiersman Buffalo Bill to bring his popular 'Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show' to European audiences, and with it, the legend of U.S. frontier life.
At the show, Rosa (Tereszkiewicz), the young wife of a nobleman, falls in love with Santino (Borghi), an Italian cowboy, or buttero, who wins a contest against the crew of the legendary Buffalo Bill. 'When Rosa's husband is found dead, a bounty is placed on Santino's head,' notes the synopsis. Oh yeah, and Buffalo Bill ends up on their heels.
01 Distribution is releasing the buzzy title in Italian cinemas, while RAI Cinema International Distribution is handling sales elsewhere.
Rigo de Righi and Zoppis talked to THR about the inspiration for their new film, how its themes relate to our time, the gusto Reilly brought to his role, the connection of the new pope to Buffalo Bill, and the myth of America.
How much is a natural follow-up or continuation of some of the themes you explored in ?
Zoppis It is a continuation for sure. Our collaboration started with our interest in oral tales and legends, and we heard the story, since we were kids, of how Buffalo Bill came here, and there was this rodeo. The mother of my grandmother apparently went to the Wild West Show and saw him, so it's something that we always heard and were very interested in. I'm half-American. So, in a way, at least personally, I like the fact that [the film] had America coming to Italy and intertwining the two cultures.
Rigo de Righi I just read an interesting thing. The new pope's name is Leone XIV, Leo XIV. They choose a name to follow the path of a previous pope. And in this case, that was Leone XIII, who was the pope who received Buffalo Bill and the Native Americans when they came to Rome and Italy.
You mentioned your interest in tales and legends. In your new film, you two tell a story, but you also present a reflection on storytelling and how it works. And the movie constantly makes you wonder who i good and who is bad. In the social media age, it seems everybody tells a story slightly differently. How much does the movie reflect modern issues?
Rigo de Righi We believe that the story very much has something about the contemporary world we live in. It was our intent, when we built the script, to start the film with a classical setup, in which you have the male character, the good cowboy, the Italian cowboy who wins and seems to be the hero. And then slowly we deconstruct that throughout the film. Also this idea of fame and how that could change your life or perception is a contemporary feeling that you live through with Santino's character.
When we made the first film, we did it about a famous legend in the countryside of Rome. We were attracted by how the story would change from mouth to mouth. And so this sort of myth is created.
Zoppis We are from a generation that didn't have the internet, and then we had it at a certain point. And I remember how it affected us to be able to have access to information. Back then, we didn't have so much false news, and you didn't question reality so much. So this is part of us, it's part of what's happening. It's part of our society in general. Anybody who listened to stories as a kid will know this. We were fascinated by just standing there and listening to stories, and they did change. In another film, one of the characters says: Before, we used to sit in front of the fire and tell stories. There was no television back then. That's the point.
America is in the news a lot these days. How did you think about the myth of America that Buffalo Bill talks about, including his highlighting of freedom? And I found it funny that Rosa says she would like to go to America, but Santino doesn't even know where it is…
Zoppis We lived together in America, in New York. So for sure, there are some of the feelings we had living there. There is this dream of possibility, but then, reality is different. Those two things can be extremely, radically different. So, I think some of the things come from personal experience.
The fact that the character doesn't know where America is was just supposed to have the characters be as far apart as they can be. We wanted to portray this American cowboy stereotype and somehow deconstruct it. From the very start, he's supposed to be the hero. He didn't do anything, but gets claimed for something he didn't do, and he feeds upon it. And then you realize that the real hero is her. We worked with Alessandro Borghi to find the tone of his character, a very simple character who has some vanity in him and a lot of pride that is hidden, and some defects that are also hidden.
Rigo de Righi The film starts with that setup and it gives you the the idea of this new thing. The Wild West Show, I think, contributed to the creation of the myth of the West. And so the idea of America is portrayed there at the beginning of the film, and it's a thing Rosa understands. She listens to Buffalo Bills, so she starts dreaming. But then throughout the course of the film, you understand how the narrative is built by Buffalo Bill.
You follow something with the character, and then we break that and it falls. And then you build it again, and then it breaks and falls again. That's what's interesting, because at the end you have your own conclusion.
Zoppis You were talking about good guys, bad guys. There's always you with a movie. You experience and follow a human experience. You're part of that. And there are always different sides of the coin.
You could say that the actors leap off the screen. How much did Nadia and Alessandro surprise you with what they brought to their characters?
Zoppis There's something that happens with the characters and the interpretation of the actors, because we work a lot with them, talking about the script and about references, about our ideas, their ideas, and also giving them, of course, a lot of freedom, With all of them, there was a big surprise when we actually went shooting and saw the characters for the first time. It's a little bit different from what you imagine, but still familiar somehow. But what happened with Buffalo Bill, I think, was even more surprising for us because we had the idea in mind, we knew how we wanted the tone to be, but John brought a lot of his irony and human aspect to the character.
How did John C. Reilly actually come on board?
Zoppis John was exactly the same age as Buffalo Bill during his second trip to Rome. We had never worked with an American actor before. So everything was new. When he read the script and we got to talk to him, he had this long beard, and he was already proposing stuff. I remember we hung up, and we were so excited to say: 'Man, this is Buffalo Bill.' It's incredible – we saw that right away. It was not only that he resembled our idea of Buffalo Bill, but he brought to it a human aspect, understanding the tone and playing with it, including the irony aspect of it.
How did you learn about Buffalo Bill and build that character and his voice?
Rigo de Righi We read many, many books to start with, and then we also read many dime novels. There are so many old dime novels, and that's what the little booklet [you see in the movie] stands for. That was our way to k pull in the old dime novels that were basically stories of great adventures. We also did much research on him, and then we started how he could actually be.
When John came on board, he was exactly what we were looking for, not only tonally. He also had some ideas and brought many insights into the character, including many ironic aspects, and what he could look like and what he could do. I remember John came up with how the character spoke. And he even proposed wearing the suit he wears in the second part of the film. So it was very interesting and wonderful.
Did you ever find any video footage of Buffalo Bill?
Rigo de Righi Yeah, there's footage. We even thought at the very beginning of using the footage. And then we said, no, this would become too historic. We wanted to focus on portraying the legend and how we imagined things. Rather than being historically accurate, we took liberties.
What was the footage you found like?
Rigo de Righi There's some old footage of Buffalo Bill crossing a river, and he's tracking somebody who doesn't exist. And there's somebody behind the camera, and Buffalo Bill is obviously acting. So tonally, when we saw it, we said this is exactly what we were looking for.
I need to ask you about Nadia and her character. How much did you think about making it a female empowerment story? I really found myself rooting for her.
Zoppis I'm happy that you say that, because it's actually what also happened to us. We were the directors and wanted to portray that character in a way that was a tricky task. Nadia played a huge role in that, because she brought a very intense performance and how do you say…
Rigo de Righi Layers. And also subtle changes. She's very subtle. She did some very subtle things that we were very enthusiastic about. With the script, we wanted mostly to start deconstructing what's supposed to be the hero of the cowboy, and to lead the way for her to become the heroine of the film.
How early did you know that the title would be for this one?
Zoppis We never changed it. There's something strange that happens with titles. At some point, there is that title, and then it doesn't change anymore. It's how th movie goes.
Rigo de Righi I think all the titles we have had in our films were there in a very early stage of the film.
Zoppis The film was about fate and how things go if you flip a coin. That was the whole thing – taking control of your desires.
Rigo de Righi It just resonated, this idea of the flip – not only the flip of the coin, the two faces of the same coin, but also the two characters. It just had a lot of the themes that we were trying to address.
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