“It’s an exciting time for festivals to show challenging films,” Rob Rice told us as we sat down with him and actor Jack Dylan Grazer to discuss Ponderosa, premiering at the 25th edition of the Tribeca Festival.
Generational conflict is explored in the film Ponderosa directed and written by Rob Rice, premiering at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival, and starring Jack Dylan Grazer, Bill Camp, and Alexis Bledel. This is Rice’s follow-up feature film after he previously directed Way Out Ahead of Us (2022). Ponderosa follows Zeke (Grazer), whose mother, Sandra (Bledel), receives the news that she will lose her job at Ponderosa Steakhouse as the restaurant closes. A wealthy customer, George (Camp), has a desire to be part of their lives and pursues a father-son relationship, which turns into a dark, deep, and unhealthy obsession.
In the interview, Rice discusses his fascination with growing tensions between older and younger generations, and Grazer immediately signs on after being captivated by the screenplay, and both praise their time working with Camp. More is discussed in the exclusive interview as both Grazer expressed their enthusiasm about Ponderosa.
Generations like those that are desperate, fragile, and violent need to reproduce themselves or to get validation that the world they built is good. (Rob Rice)
Kristin Ciliberto: What a strange and fun ride with this project. It’s a great movie that blends comedy, drama, and horror. I can’t wait for more people to see this, and I can’t wait to discuss this movie with more people. But Rob, I really have to ask you right away, what made you want to tell this story, and why is it a story that audiences need to see right now?
Rob Rice: I think the movie’s about generational conflict between boomers and Gen Zers. I think I wanted to tell it because I feel I live between them. It’s like I’m in a household where they’re fighting all the time, and I’m supposed to be the middle child mediator. I think my allegiances are more with the vision that I have, at least of this kind of Gen Zers. There’s another darker Gen Zer who’s taking up the mantle of those ideas, which I’m worried about. But the way, it’s frustrating for George, Bill’s character, to get nothing from Zeke, Jack’s character, but it is very satisfying for me to see. I think it’s cathartic, and it reminds us that we don’t have to accept all of that. I think the world’s living in that same house with those two fighting constantly, or that generations like those that are desperate, fragile, and violent need to reproduce themselves or to get validation that the world they built is good, and not getting it, and getting even more aggravated. We’re around those people all the time, and they’re freaky.
KC: Jack, you’re an executive producer on this. How did you get hold of the script, and what makes Zeke stand out among all the other characters that you have played?
Jack Dylan Grazer: The script came upon me as I just- it was a read, and I read it, and then on the same day that I read it, I talked to Rob, and I was in a funny place. I was in San Jose, and I was reading it, and I was awkward in a lobby surrounded by people that I was going to interact with later. I was doing a convention for fans, and they’d be like, what are you doing? I’m like, I’m reading this script that’s really taking me for a ride. I finished the script, and I was kind of in a pissy mood and feeling sort of argumentative and like an anarchist or something, not that, but something. Then I got on the phone with Rob, and I felt like being challenged, and I felt like prodding or something. I got only answers that made me smile and feel catharsis or nostalgia or strange, like a warmed-up belly or like I have fire in my nostrils, sort of thing where it’s like I can’t control it. I’m captivated, and I would love to see this through. Zeke stands out to me. I’ve never played a character like Zeke before. I don’t know if I ever will again. I wouldn’t know how, and it was just such a wonderful, cerebral, and spiritual challenge.
KC: It’s so different from what you have played and very different from all the films that I’ve seen so far to be selected for Tribeca. Then there’s Bill Camp, who is on a whole other level here. What was it like working with him?
RR: Yeah, I think part of the fun was seeing everybody doing things that they hadn’t done before. And Bill is always like a kind of heavy, or he’s a judge, or he’s like coherent, but he’s never like off his leash, and he’s never messy. I thought, you know, he’s so solid and in this like molten and mushed up and off his rocker. I thought, I don’t know, he was so funny, he was so inherently funny! There’s something like pathetic in a loving way about the character, and it was very nice, because that’s part of the catharsis of seeing that generation get challenged in the same way. Bill is this guy who’s always a judge, who’s always so powerful and flailing. He was just up for it. You know, like a lot of actors of that generation, I think I would have had a hard time being up for it, but willingness implied that the capacity for the performance was in there.
JDG: Yeah, Bill Camp is like, I was daunted by him when I first met him because he’s like a class act, New York theater, great, great, like golden legend. And he’s like a, you’re right. He’s always like the heavy; he’s like a Walter Matthau. I’m not going to say he’s like Walter Matthau because that’s kind of, I love Walter Matthau. Anyway, I don’t know, he’s awesome. He’s not like anybody else. I met him, and he was like this big behemoth of an actor. I just kind of wanted to make his, not his life easier or anything, but I wanted everything to feel cohesive. I wanted him to feel like the story had the same kind of prosody. I kind of wanted him to feel like when I looked at him, I looked at him like this, and I could fit under his wing. And then maybe I played up some naivete, but maybe that’s not true. Maybe I was just naive, and that’s all good too.
You don’t have to be passive in your inheritance from previous generations. (Rob Rice)
KC: You shot the film, some of the film in Michigan at Ponderosa Steakhouse. What made that the perfect location?
RR: The film’s about these like layers of nostalgia, and Bill’s generation is trying to hang on to these things. That’s actually one of the 10 or so remaining operating Ponderosas in the country. In the 90s, there were like almost 600, and now there are 10. It’s one representative of the end of the cultural legacy of the 20th century, and Bill’s world is so in charge of it, and you know that. Just the nostalgia for that time and the restaurant also represents another kind of nostalgia because it was started by an actor from Bonanza, the 60s Western show, which is about the Civil War and the era of Western expansion. There are all these layers of nostalgia within the restaurant. It’s like a restaurant started by an actor from the show in the 50s that was big in the 90s. The show was about the 1850s, and all that reproduction is in there. It’s kind of like this thing is dying, and with it, the whole cultural purchase that all those ideas are dying. It’s so representative of all that, and Bill’s character, George, is someone who has some control over building what the landscape looks like that we live in. He’s a developer, and he’s making all of these suburban developments that are even more sterilized than the chains I grew up with. Just perfectly symbolic about that restaurant, which I also had in my hometown growing up, was a kind of freaky place on the outskirts that always had a kind of charged energy for me.
KC: So, what do you hope audiences take away after watching your film?
RR: I hope that they know that certain kinds of common sense are up for debate, and you don’t have to be passive in your inheritance from previous generations. What they tell you like there’s a common idiom that the older generation likes to say that like, if you’re a, if you’re not a progressive in your twenties, you have no heart. And if you’re not a conservative in your thirties, you have no brain. And they say that kind of thing, like it’s just common sense or it’s inevitable. And it’s like, what? No, no, you know, and I think there’s something satisfying about telling people that it’s not all settled science, and it’s not all inevitable.
KC: I do have to ask: since Film Fest Report specializes in film festivals, what does it mean to have your film shown at Tribeca?
RR: It’s very exciting. It’s New York! I think the American festival landscape is all up for grabs right now. I think, you know, independent films and festivals are all in a state of change as how films are exhibited is changing. Theaters and dreamers, and I think it’s an exciting time for festivals to show challenging films. I feel like we’re collaborating with the festival in looking towards what the future of the whole American landscape is. I hope they’re happy to have us, but we’re happy to have them for sure.
Our team is on site for the 25th Tribeca Film Festival, from June 3 to 14, 2026.
