Will Poulter and Noah Centineo appear in 'Union County' by Adam Meeks, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Stefan Weinberger Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Adam Meeks is living a dream Sundance experience - long before he arrived in Utah. The Brooklyn-based writer-director and graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts made his feature directorial debut on the indie drama Union County and promptly received what could be the best news of his career thus far: He got into the final Sundance Film Festival in Park City. Union County is adapted from his own short film of the same name (which had a world premiere in Berlin) and follows a young man, Cody Parsons, through a county-mandated drug court program in rural Ohio as he walks a winding path of recovery amid the opioid epidemic. Related Stories Movies Charli xcx Officially Kicks Off Her Acting Era at Sundance With 'The Moment': "I Want 'Brat' to Stop and Pivot" Movies 'I Want Your Sex' Review: Gregg Araki Is Back in Vintage Form, Throwing a Deliciously Paired Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman Into Sub/Dom Jeopardy Addiction, and the opioid crisis, has been well-documented on screen but Meeks and his Union County team bring something fresh to the genre courtesy of the real-life participants of the Ohio drug court and its presiding judge, all of whom appear throughout. He's also got something new in Will Poulter, who stars as Cody opposite Noah Centineo and a cast of many first-timers and non-actors. Poulter isn't exactly new to the genre, however, as he starred in Hulu's critically-acclaimed Dopesick, but Union County finds him hopping the fence from playing a Big Pharma executive in the former to a man struggling to stay on the straight and narrow in the latter. Ahead of Sunday's Sundance world premiere of Union County, Meeks and Poulter joined The Hollywood Reporter on Zoom for a joint interview to discuss the process of embedding in the drug court program, the bond they formed while filming and how they both struggle to receive compliments. Adam, your debut got into Sundance for the final festival in Park City. That's got to feel good ... MEEKS It feels amazing. We've talked about this as a best case scenario for this movie before we started shooting, so it's a dream come true for sure. What it was like to get the call or email? POULTER It was a call. I knew that we would get a call on a certain day but I missed the call because I was in a meeting. Then I got a text from someone that said, "Hey, I'm at Sundance. Call me." I called him back knowing what it would be but I wanted to confirm. I put him on speakerphone and my fiancé was listening. As soon as we got confirmation, I looked over and saw her jumping up and down in the kitchen. It was a very surreal, special day. Will, when did he call to tell you the good news? POULTER We had a FaceTime and I was in Chicago at the time. It was just wonderful. Adam and I had spoken about Sundance as a North Star or best case scenario for the movie. I'm super proud of him and everyone who came together to make it. You're a producer on this movie, too. Why did you take on that role and what did you learn about yourself as a producer? POULTER I will say that I was really fortunate to be allowed a space or a role of that nature in the making of the film, having had little to no experience of producing in the formal sense. One of the biggest things I learned was what good, collaborative, encouraging, thoughtful producing looks like from the producers who were already on board. That includes Ley Line Entertainment, Seaview Productions and all the individual producers [Brad Becker-Parton, Martha Gregory, Stephanie Roush, Faye Tsakas, Sean Weiner, Tim Headington, Theresa Steele Page, Ellyn Daniels and Will O'Connor]. We really had a really wonderful group of people shepherding this thing. I came on at a point when the project had already lived a certain life and had an impact that went beyond its size as a short film. The short Adam made really is what stole my heart and inspired me to want to be involved as an actor and producer. Let's talk about that. This project started as a short and it really got traction when you moved back to Ohio where you came from. What happened? MEEKS I'm from Central Ohio, and my immediate family left when I was six. For all of my formative years - as a teenager and through college and after - I didn't really know the place beyond going back for family reunions every year or two. When my grandmother got sick in 2016, that's when I started hearing through friends and family about how people were struggling with addiction amid an opioid epidemic in the area where I'm from. Everybody knows everybody around there, and through my uncle, I got int