Charles Melton's roof scene in 'May December' explains all the Oscar buzz

Warning: This post contains spoilers for "May December."

Actor Charles Melton describes the day he shot the scene on the roof in "May December" as arduous — and he wanted it that way.

"That was a long day," Melton tells TODAY.com with a grin. "Todd had it early on in the first few takes, but I kept on asking for more takes and ended up doing 14 or 15 takes."

The scene marks a pivotal moment for Melton's character Joe — and is part of the reason Melton is garnering Oscar buzz for his role. In it, he smokes weed on the roof of his home, apparently for the first time at age 36, with his teenage son Charlie (Gabriel Chung).

Joe is a devoted husband to his wife Gracie (Julianne Moore), whom met when he was 12 and she was 36. He confronts the truth of who he is, and what happened to him as a teenager, when actor Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) comes to their quiet town on assignment to research his wife as she's set to portray her in an independent film.

Elizabeth begins speaking with those in Gracie's circle, trying to figure out why a married woman in her 30s would have an affair with a 12-year-old boy and pet store coworker, causing a tabloid frenzy 20 years earlier.

“As actors, we draw from different parts of humanity, whether it be our own lives or things outside of us. It really came to me, just looking at Joe and this immense responsibility given to him at such a young age and how he navigated that as this adaptive, adult child," Melton says. "This loving father who loved his wife and was doing the best he could to just give them everything before he gave anything to himself.”

While on the roof, Joe speaks to Charlie as he's about to go off to college, and begins to break down in tears.

It's hard to tell what he's truly crying over: The thought of missing his son? Realizing he never truly had his teenage years to learn how to roll a blunt? Becoming an empty nester with his wife Gracie, who is 23 years older than him?

"It's such a heartbreaking scene for Joe, and I learned that day that my job as the actor is to really tell the character's story, not so much mine," Melton says. "I kind of had this idea where I thought the scene should have went, but I still think to this day, I still have one more take in me."

"May December" costume designer April Napier tells TODAY.com she specifically picked an Abercrombie polo for Joe to wear in the scene to highlight his childlike mannerisms, even as he's trying to be an adult and a father.

"In that one scene specifically, he's really getting internal and he's kind of breaking down. This is where he can sort of, lean into his adolescence," Napier says. "We put him in a terrible Abercrombie and Fitch polo shirt, and washed the f--- out of it, like, really got it brown and old, like it's something that he had a long time — Joe's like, 'This is my comfort outfit.' Plus his washed out jeans and his New Balances."

As "May December" was shot on location in Savannah, Georgia in just 23 days, Melton says he spent weeks preparing for the role in Los Angeles before flying across the country. Melton recalls having conversations with the film's screenwriter Samy Burch about deepening Joe's character.

"She was talking to me about Joe, and how this idea she had of him — this purity, this innocence, and how he was affected by so many things that weren't in his control in his life," he says. "That just opened this exciting exploration as an actor to really dive into a process and try to research as much source material as I could find to tell Joe's story."

Melton also described how he gained more than 30 pounds for the role, grinning as he spoke of guzzling Fanta to help physically transform into Joe.

“It wasn’t so much, ‘Joe’s gonna look this way,’” Melton says of his conversations with the film’s director, Todd Haynes. “We just talked about who he was: being a suburban father, 36, has a job, he’s the provider, loving husband, three kids.”

"There’s really not so much time that he can have for himself where everything else comes before him. So we talked about what he would feel like. That work just translated into me making the informed decisions to eat whatever I wanted," he adds with a smile.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com