Nearly a decade ago, actors and screenwriters Rachel Noll James (The Storyteller) and Austin Highsmith Garces (Dolphin Tale) began working on a story that has now become Inheritance, the second feature-length movie from Emergence Films. The new project began filming at the start of October 2023 in Washington, thanks to an interim SAG-AFTRA agreement, with Emily Moss Wilson (Christmas in Tune) directing. James and Garces crafted the story concept together, James completed the screenplay, and now the duo are starring in the project as estranged sisters Lucy Kemp and Paige Forester respectively.

The movie follows the sisters as they reunite to bury their recently deceased dad, becoming entangled in a complicated web from their past that forces them to realize they have inherited more than mere money from their father. Inheritance also stars Star Trek: Picard mainstay Michelle Hurd, as their next-best-thing to a mother, Lorraine, and Wes Brown as Luke Kemp. The family drama displayed onscreen is enhanced by the fact that the crew feels like a family off-set, as well. Not only are James and Garces longtime friends, but Wilson, Hurd, and Brown have each worked with Garces on previous projects.

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Though the tight-knit cast and crew are already hard at work in Bainbridge Island making Inheritance, they took time out of their schedule to discuss the magic of independent filmmaking with Screen Rant. Garces and James shared how the script and characters have evolved in the decade since they first coined the idea, while Hurd explained how close she felt to her character and how energizing it was to work on a movie outside of studio influence. Check out their answers along with some exclusive photos from the set below:

Austin Highsmith Garces, Rachel Noll James & Michelle Hurd Talk Inheritance

Screen Rant: Rachel, I know that you wrote the script for Inheritance, Austin was also part of working on the story. How did that come about?

Austin Highsmith Garces: Rachel and I came up with this idea in acting class sitting next to each other almost 10 years ago.

Rachel Noll James: I feel like it's the same with every project. You have ideas about the timing but, ultimately, things happen when they're meant to. We had several iterations of Inheritance, and we brought it to our director Emily Moss Wilson about only a few months after we'd written the first draft. She got on board, we shot some sample scenes, and we started pitching it around. We had some close calls and almost made it into a series at one point, but that fell through.

It just kept almost happening, but not quite happening. What Austin and I were discussing last week is that the version of this that we wrote in our mid-to-late 20s is a very different journey than these women being in their late 30s or early 40s. To us, that actually makes it a lot richer and more interesting; it just brings more depth to the story. I'm really happy that it's happened exactly at the right time.

Austin Highsmith Garces: I just met Michelle a little over a year and a half ago, and being able to have her on board as the pivotal character of Lorraine is wonderful.

Speaking of Lorraine, was your previous work with Austin one of the factors that made you want to jump on board? What did you think of Lorraine in the script when you first met her?

Michelle Hurd: Yes, yes, and yes. There's a real truth to being an artist, and you know I've been doing this for a few decades now. When you get to a certain time maybe in your life, it really becomes important to have a little bit of choice in who you work with. I no longer feel the need to say yes to everything, or to just go and be on a project with people who I don't really gel with or feel safe with.

This is a big thing for actors because we often are very vulnerable. We say yes, we try to do it, and we put our best foot forward. And sometimes we find ourselves in situations where the project that we thought we were signing on to is not it. But having worked with Austin, having met Austin, and having fallen in love with Austin — I'm more than happy to work with her. I love how creative, how intelligent, and how ridiculously talented she is. Rachel as well, I'm speaking to the choir here.

I didn't get any scenes, really, with Austin on our last project. But I really enjoyed her, and I really enjoyed what I was getting from her and her energy and all that. So, when I looked at this, I was like, "I speak, then she speaks? That sounds good to me," and I jumped at the opportunity.

It's kind of interesting because everything happens for a reason. I've been in negotiations for months with strikes now, and all I think about is contracts and negotiations. I literally was just saying to my husband that I had forgotten what it feels like to be an actor. "I want to use my highlighter. I want to highlight my lines in a script." [Laughs] So, the moment Austin called, it was absolutely perfect. I said, "Yes, let's do it."

Now I'm here in the beautiful Bainbridge, Washington, and meeting Emily and Rachel and our DP Dan. The group is very positive and creative and collaborative. You learn really quickly, when you walk on a set, how to gauge it. I used to jokingly say, "This is a Kindle set," or not a Kindle set. When there's a lot of toxic toxicity, then it's Kindle set, where I just read my Kindle, and go when I'm called to set. Inheritance is not a Kindle set. This is a heart set.

You only started filming last week, but it sounds like you've already built a camaraderie. Are there any memorable moments from the project that you can discuss?

Austin Highsmith Garces: There are just so many inside jokes flying around. Emily Moss Wilson, who's our director, was a bridesmaid in my wedding. We go way back, and this is my fifth project with her. This is also my fifth project with one of our producers. Daniel Lewis, and my third project with Wes Brown, who plays Luke. Rachel and I have known each other for almost 20 years, so it's really just the ultimate dream. We would watch Adam Sandler make movie after movie after movie with all of his friends, and I was like, "I want to do that," and now we are! I mean, this is what everyone strives to do as artists; make movies with their friends. That's literally what we're doing, and it's like we're having one big sleepover.

Rachel Noll James: Meeting Michelle for the first time, too! I love it when this happens. I was writing the script, and I had this idea of Lorraine and what this character meant to the story. Then Michelle walked in for a scene where I was literally sleeping the entire time and had no lines, but just being in her presence and being in that scene with her made me understand Lorraine better now. I'm already rethinking other scenes with her because of this energy Michelle brought.

I think that's what's so incredible about this process. You go in with a plan, but then if you're open to it, so much magic happens in the moment. A human walks in with an energy that just pivots everything, and if you're willing to pivot with it, there's so much magic there.

I know Lucy and Paige are sisters, but what can you tell me about Lorraine, Michelle? Aside from the fact that she's a very cool person.

Michelle Hurd: I love this because I almost want to say it was tactile. I could feel this. I come from a family of three sisters, so I know their situation. My father has passed, so I know that pain, that loss, and that jolt of changing your path in those moments. I have five goddaughters and two nephews, and I know the gift of the love you can receive from something that did not come from your body. It is priceless and humbling.

Lorraine is a person who has been gifted that experience with these two amazing creatures who have their journeys. It's an amazing thing to be privy to their paths with equal love because I want to hold them and keep them safe. It doesn't matter what they're going through, I see them as the children that I first loved. That, for me, is who Lorraine is. There's a maternal core to her; she feels them and wants to respond to them. She has experienced their pain as a person who viewed them with the biggest open heart she could. It's an interesting and familiar place to be in and something that I can tap into really naturally.

Again, having a relationship with Austin already lets me layer on top of that and lean in. It's funny, because a lot of times when you do shows or films, and there are relationships, a lot of questions are, "Did you guys chat about stuff? Did you do a history journal together?" All that stuff, and sometimes it's very applicable. Sometimes that happens, and it's a beautiful thing. But it's also really lovely when you can have that innately with somebody because you have a shorthand. I can look into Austin's eyes, and I will go where it takes me. I don't have to plan anything. Just like Rachel said, what's so lovely is that I don't have to plan with these two women — I just get to live in the scene. We get to breathe, see how it bounces, and find where we go. That's really yummy creativity.

Austin Highsmith Garces: I just get lost. We shot a really emotional scene earlier, and looking at Michelle, I was instantly drawn in. She's amazing; we have a heart connection already.

And for my character, I play Paige, who is 180 degrees away from who I am as a person. I normally play characters that let me ask, "What would Austin do if she were in this situation?" But there's just none of that because Paige is a highly functional alcoholic, who does not lead with her heart at all. She lives completely with walls up, and that's not me. I have never put up a wall in my life; I meet someone, and I'm like, "Do you want to be friends?" It's nothing like where I come from, or where I lead from. It has been terrifying, to be honest, but also really delicious, because I get to truly explore another human being's experience in this world.

And I think it's also extremely important the story that we're telling, as far as the script Rachel has written, that there are no protagonists or antagonists. There is no perfect person; everyone has flaws, everyone is working through something, and everyone has demons. It's really nice to be able to portray layered, real, actual people who have struggles that everyone's going to be able to relate to. We've all got that one person in the family who comes in like a hurricane, leaves like a hurricane, and just does not care about what's left in their path. Until she has that giant wake-up moment in the script, of course, so it's a very steep arc that I go on.

Rachel, what's it like creating your own character a decade ago and then finally stepping into her now?

Rachel Noll James: Amazing. I've written and acted before, so it's a familiar process for me, but I love when I have ideas and then things change as I step in to play. It's beautiful.

Unlike Austin's situation, Lucy has a lot of me. I would say she had some of the traits that I have worked on over the years, in terms of being a control freak and being anxious about things, and trying to carefully manage everything. She's trying to make sure everyone likes her and making sure everything's perfect and blah, blah, blah. It's been a lot of exploration of that side of me. Lucy's arc is interesting because Paige is very much a catalyst, whereas Lucy for a lot of the film just lets things happen to her. It's almost like waves are hitting her over and over and over until finally she lets go. It's something that I definitely think a lot about in my own life; just the power of surrendering and letting those things happen, instead of letting it get to the point where life has to smack you upside the head really hard for you to get that message — which is what happens in this script.

You're filming in Washington right now, which is not a usual filming location. What has been the most exciting thing about your experience so far?

Austin Highsmith Garces: How beautiful it is. The leaves are changing, and it's really phenomenal. Washington is actually really trying to build up their film community. Up until now, they've primarily had big commercial shoots come through, but they have really developed a film community up here and are trying to build up their crew base. They do have their tax incentives, and we were fortunate enough to get the Washington Filmworks incentive on this project, even though it's a lower-budget one.

Rachel is based here; she and her husband moved from Los Angeles to Bainbridge six or seven years ago. So, that's why we're here.

Rachel Noll James: It means a lot of favors, like our main house location was generously donated by an amazing friend who's just letting us take over his house for three weeks. We're hoping he gets a lovely little remodel out of it, and I think he'll be very happy with it when we're done.

Michelle Hurd: What's beautiful is that this is really what true independent filmmaking is supposed to be; a community coming together and figuring it out. We have strayed in the last decade or so, in terms of what independent films are. If you think about Sundance, it used to be a place where you could pitch something from a filmmaker that nobody knew, with a writer and maybe a couple of actors you knew in it. But you were able to put something together. It's sort of been bastardized into studios doing these independent, $20 - $30 million films.

Some of the lemonade out of the lemon of the SAG strike is that our interim agreements have really been able to boost up, amplify, and help our independent scene. I love that, because we need to get back to true collaborations, like what Rachel has done by reaching out to the community to make this film. This is the sacred art of storytelling, where you really get to immerse yourself in the story, be inspired by the vista and the people; the energy and rhythm of the sounds around you. It's very different from New York or LA, and it feeds the craft. That's a glorious thing with independent creation.

About Inheritance

Estranged sisters Paige (Highsmith Garces) and Lucy (Noll James) reunite to bury their father and become entangled in a complicated web from their past. They begin to realize that they have inherited more from their father than just money. The film also stars Chris Mulkey, Brian McNamara, and Cynthia Geary, and is directed by Emily Moss Wilson. It was produced by Rachel Noll James, Austin Highsmith Garces, Emily Moss Wilson, and Sienna Beckman.