In the folklore that has grown up around the Coen brothers over the past 40 years, there are two siblings, Ethan and Joel, and Joel’s wife, actor Frances McDormand, who has been a regular since their first film, Blood Simple, and bagged an Oscar for her unforgettable performance as the pregnant policewoman in Fargo. Ultra-swotty groupies may remember that Ethan’s son, Buster, was credited as Matt Damon’s abs double on True Grit, though Buster was barely into his teens and Damon never displayed his abs.
But unbeknown to most, on seven of the Coens’ films, up until 2001’s The Man Who Wasn’t There, a fourth member of the clan was working away behind the scenes. Tricia Cooke joined the team as an assistant editor on Miller’s Crossing, which was filmed in New Orleans, rising to become their regular film editor. “At the time, I really didn’t know who Joel and Ethan were. I hadn’t seen Blood Simple or Raising Arizona, but I really wanted to go to New Orleans,” says Cooke. She and Ethan quickly hit it off, but there was just one problem: “He asked me out on a date, and I told him I was a lesbian.”
