Why Will Poulter Loved Being the ‘Most Inauthentic Thing’ About ‘Union County’

Adam Meeks didn’t grow up in central Ohio.

The writer and director was born in the part of the state where his new film, “Union County,” is set, but his family moved away when he was only 6 years old. When Meeks moved back to be with his sick grandmother in 2016, he felt like he was “falling in love with where I’m from” for the first time.

“What you see in the movie mirrors my experience of being reintroduced to the place after having lived in New York and Los Angeles and being so taken by the beauty of the landscapes and the beauty of the people,” Meeks told TheWrap’s Casey Loving at Sundance Film Festival. “Any kind of mission statement around shedding a new light on this place followed the real love that emerged for me.”

Meeks’ new film, “Union County,” premiered at Sundance 2026. The movie, starring Will Poulter and Noah Centineo, is a feature-length adaptation of Meeks’ 2020 short film of the same name. The film follows a court recovery program helping residents in Union County amid the opioid epidemic.

“Ultimately, I was drawn to this idea that the story of ‘Union County’ was one that really drew attention to the progress that was being made and that celebrated this incredible program that is predicated on really, really hard work, both from service providers and the participants in this sober support program,” Poulter said. “In that respect, it did offer something of a counter to the prevailing narrative around addiction and recovery, which often is weighted on the side of the struggle — which this film doesn’t try to escape from entirely — but it is actually weighted more so on the progress and the wins and the ways in which people are working so hard in order to improve their lives.”

Though Meeks tapped some big-name talent in Poulter and Centineo, he also brought a lot of non-actors into the fold for this deeply personal story. Aside from his two leads and Elise Kibler (who plays Anna in the film), Meeks noted that the rest of the film uses “folks from the community who showed up and contributed their stories.”

TheWrap’s Chase Hutchinson praised a “never-better Will Poulter” for his performance, writing, “even when Poulter’s character is saying few if any words, you feel his guilt, his pain, his joy and his determination to find his way back to himself, no matter how long it takes.”

“It was probably easier to connect with the authenticity, because everything around me was so authentic — actually, I was the most inauthentic thing about it,” Poulter said. “I was just really fortunate that the waters were made really welcoming and warm by Adam, by Annette (Deao) and by everyone in the community.”

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