Kristen Vauriohas worked on documentaries about everything from Scientology to theNational Enquirerto Robin Williams.
They all genuinely loved her.
June is this glue that holds all of country music together.
A still of June Carter Cash featured in June, streaming on Paramount+ 2024. Photo Credit: Don Hunstein/Sony Music Entertainment/Paramount+
(Her acting prowess would shine on screen years later opposite Robert Duvall inThe Apostle.)
Vogue:June Carter Cash clearly has a very compelling story.
How much did you know of her before you embarked on this project?
A still of June Carter Cash featured in June, streaming on Paramount+ 2024. Photo Credit: Courtesy of John R. Cash Revocable Trust/Paramount+
Kristen Vaurio:I probably knew as much as most people, maybe a little more.
And it just instantly grabbed me.
But even though she has this serious country lineage, June herself still feels underrated and unappreciated.
I think about the celestial-body metaphor where its all bright stars.
And her mother is an unbelievable guitar pioneer.
It was a really uphill time.
Everybody exists, but theyre also in a time and a place.
She had to go back to the drawing board so many times.
Her work ethic and her ability to constantly forge ahead was pretty astounding.
Honestly, she never saw anything different.
She first saw all the women around her working, and they were the stars and breadwinners.
It was something her mother and sisters very much did.
And her father was also a big piece of it.
He was extraordinarily bright, a self-taught engineer, and he played classical music all the time.
It was a radical feminist work written by this woman who started the first journalism school in Ohio.
That was probably Junes fathers manual for raising three girls.
Junes son, John, shared so many incredible details about his parents lives.
From the beginning, I was fortunate that Carlene Carter and John Carter wanted to tell the full story.
And they were not afraid to go to some of these darker places.
Did you want to peel back some of those layers?
With so many stories about romance, we see that the main struggle is for people to get together.
And thats howWalk the Lineends basically.
And if were talking about a marriage, thats the easy part; that isnt the story.
And these more complex stories, like theirs, are so much more interesting.
I think thats a far more compelling story than happily ever after.
June was so multidimensional, and she always lived her life as herself.
When Mary said that during our interview, it was really unexpected and wonderful.
Because its a different world now for girls, but its also similar in a lot of ways.
Its a super-valuable lesson for everybody to carry with them.
I love to think about how many people will know so much more about June thanks to this film.
I dont want anybody to have that answer anymore.
