1 00:00:15,349 --> 00:00:20,062 - So my name's Paul Greengrass. - And my name is Matt Damon. 2 00:00:22,105 --> 00:00:27,152 Well, Green Zone started for me when we were doing, 3 00:00:27,236 --> 00:00:31,782 or towards the end of when we were making Bourne Supremacy. 4 00:00:31,865 --> 00:00:34,451 - Ultimatum? - No, Supremacy. 5 00:00:36,870 --> 00:00:41,458 After it came out, I sat down with Universal, 6 00:00:41,542 --> 00:00:42,796 and they said, "Well, what do you wanna do next?" 7 00:00:42,876 --> 00:00:48,131 And I said I wanted to do 9/11 and the war in Iraq, 8 00:00:48,215 --> 00:00:52,386 because they were the two great events that seemed to me 9 00:00:52,469 --> 00:00:55,931 to be driving the world we were living in. 10 00:00:56,014 --> 00:01:01,395 And I thought, at that time, it was gonna be one film, but in fact it turned out to be two. 11 00:01:01,478 --> 00:01:05,232 The first one, obviously, United 93, then we did Ultimatum, 12 00:01:05,315 --> 00:01:09,987 and then we started what became Green Zone. 13 00:01:13,699 --> 00:01:16,034 And I think, for me, what was interesting 14 00:01:16,118 --> 00:01:18,996 when we were doing the Bourne films, and particularly Ultimatum, 15 00:01:19,079 --> 00:01:23,500 was that sense that there was a huge audience that loved those films 16 00:01:23,584 --> 00:01:29,965 that came to the Bourne films and loved the attitude of the films, 17 00:01:30,048 --> 00:01:33,468 and the fact that it was Bourne world, 18 00:01:33,552 --> 00:01:38,056 but it seemed to draw on the real world and what was going on, 19 00:01:38,140 --> 00:01:40,350 and the kind of paranoia and the mistrust. 20 00:01:40,434 --> 00:01:45,772 And so when I look back now at Green Zone, it feels to me 21 00:01:45,856 --> 00:01:51,862 like we were really asking that audience to take one more step, 22 00:01:51,945 --> 00:01:55,324 and that would be the step back to the real world, 23 00:01:55,407 --> 00:02:00,912 to really go back to the moment when all this paranoia and mistrust began. 24 00:02:01,121 --> 00:02:06,877 And that, I think, was the circumstances that surrounded the decision 25 00:02:06,960 --> 00:02:10,380 to go to war and the start of the war in Baghdad. 26 00:02:10,464 --> 00:02:14,384 And, I think, all of us, whatever you think of that conflict, 27 00:02:14,468 --> 00:02:18,347 whatever point of view you have about what happened, 28 00:02:18,430 --> 00:02:23,310 know that those events in 2003 29 00:02:24,353 --> 00:02:27,189 were very profound in shaping our world. 30 00:02:29,566 --> 00:02:34,571 As we look at a beautiful effects shot by Peter Chiang. One of many. 31 00:02:35,364 --> 00:02:36,490 Yeah. 32 00:02:48,126 --> 00:02:51,505 Approaching target site three-five-niner. 33 00:02:54,383 --> 00:02:59,054 Really, the first idea that we discussed 34 00:02:59,137 --> 00:03:05,811 was to make us a film about a US soldier 35 00:03:06,645 --> 00:03:08,980 involved in the hunt for WMD. 36 00:03:09,940 --> 00:03:13,568 And I think what drew us both, really, 37 00:03:13,652 --> 00:03:18,281 was the idea that you could have an ordinary guy, 38 00:03:20,117 --> 00:03:22,411 a hero at the heart of the story, 39 00:03:22,494 --> 00:03:27,582 who comes to Iraq to do a straightforward job. 40 00:03:27,666 --> 00:03:31,712 He comes because he's told that there are WMD there, and he's gonna find them. 41 00:03:40,679 --> 00:03:44,599 Very much, actually, like the story of Monty Gonzales, 42 00:03:44,683 --> 00:03:48,437 who was our technical advisor, 43 00:03:48,520 --> 00:03:51,606 and who this character is loosely based on. 44 00:03:53,024 --> 00:03:54,864 What the fuck are all these looters doing here? 45 00:03:55,527 --> 00:03:57,404 Monty believed very much 46 00:03:57,487 --> 00:04:00,866 that they would find weapons when he went looking for them. 47 00:04:01,116 --> 00:04:02,784 We got a sniper in this tower right here. 48 00:04:02,868 --> 00:04:04,790 - In the big tower on the back? - In the big tower on the back. 49 00:04:04,870 --> 00:04:08,832 I think I say in the movie that this is the third site or the fourth site that we've hit, 50 00:04:08,915 --> 00:04:11,376 but Monty, in fact, told me he knew after the very first site 51 00:04:11,460 --> 00:04:13,628 that there was nothing there. 52 00:04:14,087 --> 00:04:15,926 I don't know what these people are carrying out right now. 53 00:04:16,006 --> 00:04:20,177 And so, for people like Monty, who were absolute believers 54 00:04:20,260 --> 00:04:22,596 and career military people, it was a really 55 00:04:27,768 --> 00:04:30,729 particularly tough experience. 56 00:04:30,812 --> 00:04:32,814 Here's Where we are right now. 57 00:04:32,898 --> 00:04:39,738 I mean, this first section here, when Miller takes the guys into the Diwaniya site, 58 00:04:39,821 --> 00:04:46,578 I mean, in a way, he's on the same journey that we all were on. 59 00:04:46,661 --> 00:04:51,541 I mean, certainly, I remember it. We all, in a sense, went to Iraq 60 00:04:51,625 --> 00:04:54,669 expecting that they would find the weapons of mass destruction. 61 00:04:54,753 --> 00:04:57,756 Certainly I did. I assumed that within a matter of days 62 00:04:57,839 --> 00:05:03,011 they'd be holding a massive press conference 63 00:05:03,094 --> 00:05:07,432 having found some horrendous weapons stash. 64 00:05:10,977 --> 00:05:13,522 And really, this first section is to 65 00:05:14,648 --> 00:05:17,067 take the central character on that same journey. 66 00:05:17,442 --> 00:05:19,114 - They will take you in. - Roger that, Chief. 67 00:05:19,194 --> 00:05:20,407 - All right. We ready? - Yes, sir! 68 00:05:20,487 --> 00:05:21,530 Let's go. Go! 69 00:05:21,613 --> 00:05:27,494 As well, obviously, as to start the film, pitching you into the conflict straightaway. 70 00:05:27,577 --> 00:05:28,620 Where is he? 71 00:05:28,703 --> 00:05:30,625 He's right up there, but we can't get down the alley. 72 00:05:30,705 --> 00:05:36,795 I mean, the interesting thing, from my point of view, when we first started, 73 00:05:38,713 --> 00:05:43,552 was that for the longest time, I was 74 00:05:45,637 --> 00:05:50,684 trying to develop a story that would be about a character 75 00:05:50,767 --> 00:05:56,398 who became, obviously, Miller, who was involved in the hunt for WMD. 76 00:05:56,481 --> 00:05:59,693 But it always seemed, to me, to get so far. 77 00:05:59,776 --> 00:06:04,030 He'd be a character who'd find that the weapons weren't there, 78 00:06:04,114 --> 00:06:05,907 and then he would start to ask questions, 79 00:06:05,991 --> 00:06:10,912 and that would start to sort of pitch you into, basically, a conspiracy thriller. 80 00:06:10,996 --> 00:06:15,292 But it always felt to me about halfway through, 81 00:06:15,375 --> 00:06:17,836 this is in the early stages of developing the piece, 82 00:06:17,919 --> 00:06:20,755 that it ran out of steam. 83 00:06:22,215 --> 00:06:28,221 And that was when I read a book that had a very big impact on me, 84 00:06:28,305 --> 00:06:32,976 Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv. 85 00:06:34,644 --> 00:06:40,817 And that book really described the world of the Green Zone 86 00:06:42,068 --> 00:06:46,281 and the kind of absolute mismatch 87 00:06:46,364 --> 00:06:50,702 between what was being planned in Washington and London 88 00:06:50,785 --> 00:06:54,873 and what was actually happening on the ground in the heart of Baghdad. 89 00:06:54,956 --> 00:06:59,711 And that's really where, for me, the film started to take root, 90 00:06:59,794 --> 00:07:03,548 because you could see that Miller would have to travel to the Green Zone, 91 00:07:03,632 --> 00:07:06,051 and there he'd find his answers, 92 00:07:06,134 --> 00:07:12,682 and that gave, in my imagination, something to aim at. 93 00:07:12,766 --> 00:07:15,727 And obviously, Brian Helgeland, who wrote the screenplay... 94 00:07:15,810 --> 00:07:21,816 It's not an adaptation of the book. Far from it. It's Brian's story. 95 00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:26,196 But it was those two elements coming together, 96 00:07:26,279 --> 00:07:29,866 the hunt for WMD, a man on a noble mission believing that they're there, 97 00:07:29,950 --> 00:07:32,118 finding they're not there, asking questions, 98 00:07:32,202 --> 00:07:35,372 and then being propelled into the Green Zone, 99 00:07:35,455 --> 00:07:37,791 that's really the story. 100 00:07:37,874 --> 00:07:40,034 Now you heard Chief. Get ready. Roll those seals tight. 101 00:07:42,087 --> 00:07:44,172 Yeah, I just love the energy of this opening, too, 102 00:07:44,255 --> 00:07:46,967 and it kind of drives home that point. 103 00:07:47,467 --> 00:07:52,764 The military will go where you tell them to go and take these incredible risks 104 00:07:52,847 --> 00:07:57,060 and do it together in a very courageous way, 105 00:07:57,143 --> 00:08:03,984 and so you gotta make sure you're sending them to the right place for the right reason. 106 00:08:05,694 --> 00:08:10,907 I mean, I think we were all, weren't we, very lucky in this film 107 00:08:10,991 --> 00:08:14,202 - to have all these soldiers that you can see. - Yeah. 108 00:08:14,285 --> 00:08:19,416 They were all Iraqi vets, and in some cases, continuing to serve. 109 00:08:19,499 --> 00:08:22,627 As an actor, that was the big thing. 110 00:08:22,711 --> 00:08:25,005 I mean, normally, we get one technical adviser. 111 00:08:25,088 --> 00:08:28,174 We had 30 of them there, because these guys had all just come back. 112 00:08:28,258 --> 00:08:30,719 Some of them had seen some pretty heavy combat. 113 00:08:30,802 --> 00:08:34,681 And to talk to them about all of the procedural stuff, 114 00:08:34,764 --> 00:08:38,935 to play a chief warrant officer and he, basically, directing these guys 115 00:08:39,019 --> 00:08:42,022 was, at first, very intimidating, because they were the real thing, 116 00:08:42,105 --> 00:08:47,235 and I felt like a dippy actor trying to... I didn't feel comfortable giving them orders. 117 00:08:47,318 --> 00:08:52,949 It was really them who pushed me to get comfortable doing that. 118 00:08:53,033 --> 00:08:58,204 The piece was gonna fall apart if we all didn't believe who we were, 119 00:08:58,288 --> 00:08:59,873 and they were just incredibly helpful 120 00:08:59,956 --> 00:09:05,462 in making me create something that felt, I hope, authentic. 121 00:09:06,421 --> 00:09:07,464 Yeah. 122 00:09:07,547 --> 00:09:13,595 I mean, all those guys had themselves been part of MET units. 123 00:09:13,678 --> 00:09:16,139 These MET units were the units 124 00:09:16,222 --> 00:09:20,643 that were tasked to go across the border in the first days after the war 125 00:09:20,727 --> 00:09:24,981 and secure sites where they believed WMD were held, 126 00:09:25,065 --> 00:09:29,319 and they'd all taken part in exactly these kinds of missions. 127 00:09:30,070 --> 00:09:33,865 And when you make any film... 128 00:09:35,116 --> 00:09:39,329 I think people watching this DVD kind of assume 129 00:09:39,412 --> 00:09:43,500 that the process is actually a lot more linear than it actually is. 130 00:09:43,583 --> 00:09:48,046 You know, that you have an idea, you write a screenplay, you shoot the screenplay, 131 00:09:48,129 --> 00:09:50,924 you cut the film, it comes out. 132 00:09:51,007 --> 00:09:54,511 But the truth is, it's actually a series 133 00:09:55,970 --> 00:10:02,894 of growing a project by degrees with people who share the vision of it. 134 00:10:02,977 --> 00:10:05,814 And those people, those soldiers, 135 00:10:05,897 --> 00:10:10,443 were absolutely crucial in anchoring the project 136 00:10:10,527 --> 00:10:13,863 in, firstly, a kind of a reality, 137 00:10:13,947 --> 00:10:19,619 but secondly, that its moral thrust, that what it really was about 138 00:10:20,203 --> 00:10:25,708 was allowing the soldiers' point of view of that conflict 139 00:10:26,584 --> 00:10:28,837 to come out, you know? 140 00:10:30,588 --> 00:10:34,926 - I think, don't you? - Yeah, definitely. Definitely. 141 00:10:36,719 --> 00:10:42,142 And now we're at Baghdad Airport, which was actually shot in Morocco. 142 00:10:45,562 --> 00:10:50,483 Any time you see a spare bit of sky, Peter Chiang has put a helicopter in there. 143 00:10:51,276 --> 00:10:57,490 0-130. It's really incredible how big the movie feels, given where we were, 144 00:10:58,575 --> 00:11:01,703 where we actually shot a lot of this stuff. 145 00:11:02,745 --> 00:11:07,834 It really is a testament to Peter, 146 00:11:07,917 --> 00:11:10,879 and also to where the movie business is going, 147 00:11:10,962 --> 00:11:15,008 where you're able to do a lot of things 148 00:11:16,009 --> 00:11:19,262 with effects now that are completely seamless 149 00:11:20,471 --> 00:11:25,268 and really do augment your movie in a great way. 150 00:11:25,476 --> 00:11:30,982 Yeah. And it was always absolutely fundamental to this film 151 00:11:31,065 --> 00:11:35,612 that we would inhabit Baghdad. 152 00:11:35,695 --> 00:11:39,199 It's an environment that you see a lot on the news. 153 00:11:40,825 --> 00:11:46,706 But until you actually see it and experience it on a big screen, 154 00:11:46,789 --> 00:11:50,126 it's hard to really grasp what it's like. 155 00:11:50,210 --> 00:11:52,629 But one of the things I'm most proud of in this film 156 00:11:52,712 --> 00:11:57,217 is that I think it authentically brings you to Baghdad. 157 00:11:57,300 --> 00:12:01,721 And the amount of detail in mapping the exact contours 158 00:12:01,804 --> 00:12:03,973 of Baghdad and these exact locations, 159 00:12:04,057 --> 00:12:09,270 I mean, the care that Peter and his team took was absolutely incredible, I think. 160 00:12:09,354 --> 00:12:10,396 Yeah. 161 00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:16,027 And to convey the sense of a blasted kind of landscape, 162 00:12:16,152 --> 00:12:18,488 days after the invasion. 163 00:12:27,580 --> 00:12:29,165 I want a squad list, now! 164 00:12:30,208 --> 00:12:32,794 So our story's starting to unfold now. 165 00:12:32,877 --> 00:12:37,006 We've met Poundstone, Greg Kinnear's character, 166 00:12:38,007 --> 00:12:41,177 and Lawrie Dayne, Amy Ryan's character. 167 00:12:41,261 --> 00:12:46,683 And that's got the whole story going of a source, 168 00:12:46,766 --> 00:12:49,644 there's a source out there that's not been disclosed. 169 00:12:49,727 --> 00:12:52,605 And now we come back to Miller's side of the story, 170 00:12:52,689 --> 00:12:57,568 and he's still pursuing the "Where are the WMD?" issue. 171 00:12:57,694 --> 00:13:03,366 I always very much liked this scene, 'cause I think it takes an audience 172 00:13:03,449 --> 00:13:06,995 back to those days immediately after the invasion 173 00:13:07,078 --> 00:13:10,123 where there was great confidence that this was all gonna be sorted out. 174 00:13:10,206 --> 00:13:15,211 Nobody knew at that time what was gonna happen. 175 00:13:15,295 --> 00:13:18,798 And also, in terms of a straight thriller here, 176 00:13:18,881 --> 00:13:24,929 you want that moment when your hero is knocked back. 177 00:13:25,054 --> 00:13:29,225 He asks a straightforward question, and he's knocked back. 178 00:13:29,309 --> 00:13:31,894 And that, in a way, is kind of... 179 00:13:33,396 --> 00:13:36,399 It starts to drive the character from then on, 180 00:13:36,482 --> 00:13:38,901 'cause you know that he's not gonna take "no" for an answer. 181 00:13:38,985 --> 00:13:42,363 Today we're going to be briefing you on WMD operations due to take place 182 00:13:42,447 --> 00:13:44,407 in and around the Baghdad area. 183 00:13:44,741 --> 00:13:48,411 A lot of these scenes we shot longer. For instance, we ran this press conference... 184 00:13:48,494 --> 00:13:52,415 This is our introduction of our CIA guy, Brendan. 185 00:13:53,624 --> 00:13:59,005 But this, we ran as a real press conference. 186 00:14:03,593 --> 00:14:05,345 A real meeting. These guys are all... 187 00:14:05,428 --> 00:14:08,598 There's Paul Rieckhoff over in the corner. 188 00:14:09,599 --> 00:14:12,810 This is kind of how these things really do run. 189 00:14:15,605 --> 00:14:18,483 It was probably a 15-minute improvisation 190 00:14:18,608 --> 00:14:22,111 for a lot of the questions and answers and back and forth 191 00:14:23,279 --> 00:14:26,949 that Paul and Chris cut back 192 00:14:27,450 --> 00:14:31,162 to exactly what you need to jump-start your plot. 193 00:14:33,456 --> 00:14:36,125 Chief, how about we do this? Let's talk offline. 194 00:14:36,292 --> 00:14:40,296 Yeah, it has a sort of sense of reality, 195 00:14:40,838 --> 00:14:46,886 and it's that thing where, if you can introduce actors... 196 00:14:46,969 --> 00:14:48,725 - I mean, there's Mike. - Yeah, Michael's great. 197 00:14:48,805 --> 00:14:52,141 And Patrick there, and you... 198 00:14:52,225 --> 00:14:56,646 There are professional actors in there, interacting 199 00:14:57,647 --> 00:15:02,652 with professional military people. 200 00:15:02,735 --> 00:15:08,491 It's something a lot of directors do. I like to do it. 201 00:15:08,574 --> 00:15:13,663 Because when you get it right, and you don't always get it right, as you know, 202 00:15:13,746 --> 00:15:18,459 but what you want is, essentially, 203 00:15:18,543 --> 00:15:24,382 it can encourage and assist the process whereby the professional actor doesn't act, 204 00:15:24,507 --> 00:15:28,970 and it assists, profoundly, the professional person to start to act. 205 00:15:29,053 --> 00:15:30,096 Right. Right. 206 00:15:30,179 --> 00:15:33,307 And where the two kind of meet, 207 00:15:33,391 --> 00:15:39,772 you get a sweet spot where it feels powerfully performed but utterly real. 208 00:15:39,856 --> 00:15:43,109 Yeah, and that really is going back to, I mean, using all these real guys. 209 00:15:43,192 --> 00:15:49,574 It really just, from my perspective, just puts me right in there. 210 00:15:49,699 --> 00:15:54,162 So we've come out of the JMOC, and now I've caught the eye of Brendan, 211 00:15:54,245 --> 00:15:58,499 who realizes that I'm not somebody who's gonna kind of toe the company line. 212 00:15:58,583 --> 00:16:02,920 I'm realizing that these things are empty, and there's a problem with the intel. 213 00:16:03,045 --> 00:16:09,969 And so he tries to establish a connection with me. 214 00:16:11,387 --> 00:16:14,515 Give me the card, and the plot moves forward. 215 00:16:14,599 --> 00:16:20,396 Yeah, and it goes back to that opening thing. 216 00:16:23,232 --> 00:16:27,236 Yeah, you have a choice when you're dealing with this material. 217 00:16:28,237 --> 00:16:32,116 I always wanted... Well, I think we both did, didn't we? 218 00:16:32,241 --> 00:16:39,040 You want to make a film about this material that, hopefully, people will see. 219 00:16:39,123 --> 00:16:40,208 Yeah. 220 00:16:40,291 --> 00:16:44,212 So, obviously, if you're gonna do that, 221 00:16:44,295 --> 00:16:47,882 you have to inhabit, at some level, genre. 222 00:16:47,965 --> 00:16:50,718 You've got to tell your story in a way 223 00:16:50,801 --> 00:16:54,222 that people are gonna instantly identify the type of story it is, 224 00:16:54,305 --> 00:16:59,977 and it's gonna carry the promise of being rewarding for them as an audience. 225 00:17:00,102 --> 00:17:04,148 A rewarding experience, which means it's gonna be a thriller, 226 00:17:04,273 --> 00:17:07,652 it's gonna have a driving narrative. 227 00:17:07,777 --> 00:17:12,073 It's gonna have the things that they would associate us with 228 00:17:12,156 --> 00:17:15,243 in terms of, yeah, economical storytelling, 229 00:17:15,326 --> 00:17:19,247 clarity, pace, a lot of dynamism, a lot of physicality. 230 00:17:19,330 --> 00:17:23,125 And I think that 231 00:17:25,711 --> 00:17:30,925 underlying all of that is this question that I think is so interesting in this film, 232 00:17:31,008 --> 00:17:36,013 which is, you've enjoyed this sort of experience in Bourne world, 233 00:17:37,473 --> 00:17:39,725 but take one more step back to the real world 234 00:17:39,809 --> 00:17:44,689 and see that, actually, this landscape 235 00:17:44,814 --> 00:17:50,236 gives you that same sense of intrigue, conspiracy, paranoia, 236 00:17:51,487 --> 00:17:55,908 and also, will lend itself to a character searching for the truth. 237 00:17:55,992 --> 00:17:57,493 - You know? - Yeah. 238 00:17:58,494 --> 00:18:03,165 This is all based on some real footage that CBS News had of a riot. 239 00:18:03,249 --> 00:18:05,418 People were... 240 00:18:06,335 --> 00:18:07,962 In our film, they want water. 241 00:18:08,045 --> 00:18:11,674 But I think, in actuality, they were out of gasoline. 242 00:18:12,341 --> 00:18:16,804 And I remember looking at the source material, 243 00:18:16,887 --> 00:18:20,641 and there was this soldier who was just being overwhelmed by a group of people, 244 00:18:20,725 --> 00:18:23,102 and he just screamed at them to get back. 245 00:18:23,185 --> 00:18:26,188 He said, "I'm trying to give you your freedom." 246 00:18:26,272 --> 00:18:31,152 These guys just are put in these really, really tricky situations 247 00:18:31,235 --> 00:18:34,530 as this infrastructure, as this country, is crumbling, 248 00:18:34,614 --> 00:18:38,534 and they're trying to manage these unmanageable situations. 249 00:18:40,328 --> 00:18:42,580 This is the Green Zone. 250 00:18:44,206 --> 00:18:46,334 Which is actually more like a brown zone in a way, 251 00:18:46,417 --> 00:18:50,963 'cause it's so hot, but it's down by the river, 252 00:18:51,047 --> 00:18:54,133 and then you get the Republican Palace, Saddam's former palace, 253 00:18:54,216 --> 00:18:57,595 which was the headquarters for the Coalition. 254 00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:03,392 This is a scene I always loved, because you get your different arguments 255 00:19:03,517 --> 00:19:08,606 from the DOD and from the CIA. 256 00:19:08,731 --> 00:19:15,029 And this lifer, who's a Middle East specialist 257 00:19:15,112 --> 00:19:18,115 who nobody's listening to, who has a pretty good read 258 00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:20,326 on what's gonna happen and what's gonna go wrong 259 00:19:20,409 --> 00:19:22,995 and understands the culture and speaks the language, 260 00:19:23,079 --> 00:19:28,125 versus the people who didn't really rate those guys, 261 00:19:28,250 --> 00:19:30,711 and felt like they... 262 00:19:32,254 --> 00:19:37,927 They were so glacial about their vetting that nothing ever got done. 263 00:19:40,096 --> 00:19:45,059 And that's who Kinnear represents, obviously, the neocon argument. 264 00:19:45,935 --> 00:19:48,396 And this is a sort of scene that... 265 00:19:49,939 --> 00:19:54,777 The book's chock-full of these sorts of encounters, isn't it, Rajiv's book? 266 00:19:56,112 --> 00:20:01,617 There's an intense amount of idealism in the Poundstone character, which was present. 267 00:20:01,742 --> 00:20:05,246 I don't think you can dismiss the quality of idealism 268 00:20:05,329 --> 00:20:09,542 that led people like Poundstone to really, truly believe 269 00:20:09,625 --> 00:20:12,628 that you could come to Iraq and transform the place. 270 00:20:12,753 --> 00:20:17,633 The goals, the ambitions were not themselves unworthy. 271 00:20:17,758 --> 00:20:21,095 The problem is they had fatally misunderstood 272 00:20:21,178 --> 00:20:27,101 or fatally underestimated the extent to which the country was absolutely destroyed. 273 00:20:27,184 --> 00:20:30,354 And also, as Brendan's character explains, 274 00:20:30,479 --> 00:20:34,442 the extent to which the simmering ethnic tensions 275 00:20:34,525 --> 00:20:38,654 under the surface of the country would, once Saddam was removed, 276 00:20:38,779 --> 00:20:42,742 come roaring to the surface and absolutely destroy it. 277 00:20:42,825 --> 00:20:49,290 And so around that absolute, central 278 00:20:52,168 --> 00:20:58,299 policy choice, whether to take a pragmatic decision, 279 00:20:58,382 --> 00:21:03,095 which is essentially what Brendan's character's suggesting, or not, 280 00:21:03,179 --> 00:21:05,848 - our story rests, doesn't it? - Yeah. 281 00:21:07,349 --> 00:21:09,939 And it looks like we're giving him a perfect argument, in hindsight, 282 00:21:10,019 --> 00:21:13,522 but the reality is that was those guys' argument. 283 00:21:14,523 --> 00:21:15,858 For sure. 284 00:21:38,714 --> 00:21:44,178 So this is Khalid Abdalla, just an absolutely fantastic young actor 285 00:21:45,763 --> 00:21:47,014 who's great in this movie. 286 00:21:47,097 --> 00:21:50,893 And his introduction here kind of kicks off... 287 00:21:52,770 --> 00:21:54,688 Really, really kicks it off. 288 00:21:54,772 --> 00:21:58,067 Here's Yigal coming in, who's, again, just a wonderful actor 289 00:21:58,192 --> 00:22:01,195 who plays General Al Rawi, 290 00:22:02,696 --> 00:22:05,491 who's a very complicated character, 291 00:22:05,574 --> 00:22:09,829 who we'll get to know better as the movie goes on. 292 00:22:09,912 --> 00:22:12,248 Yigal, Arabic is not his first language, 293 00:22:12,373 --> 00:22:17,169 and he actually, I think, very wisely chose to say less. 294 00:22:17,253 --> 00:22:20,214 - But he's got such a presence. - Fantastic, yeah. 295 00:22:20,297 --> 00:22:24,552 - -Power is a very hard thing to play, isn't it? - Yeah, yeah. 296 00:22:24,635 --> 00:22:26,555 - Unless you have it, and he just has it. - Yeah. 297 00:22:26,637 --> 00:22:29,265 Which you'll see. 298 00:22:29,390 --> 00:22:33,143 I remember, he said to me in this scene, actually, 299 00:22:33,269 --> 00:22:39,900 he said, "The key to playing power is that everybody else has gotta play the power." 300 00:22:39,984 --> 00:22:41,489 - Right. Right. - Do you know what I mean? 301 00:22:41,569 --> 00:22:44,613 Which I thought was a very, very wise thing to say. 302 00:22:44,738 --> 00:22:45,739 Right. 303 00:22:45,823 --> 00:22:49,243 And then you can just be. You're not playing it, you know? 304 00:22:49,326 --> 00:22:50,703 It's a kind of classic thing 305 00:22:50,786 --> 00:22:55,457 that you'd think it would be the reverse as an actor, wouldn't you? 306 00:22:55,583 --> 00:23:00,546 Now here's our hero, who we've established isn't too happy. 307 00:23:00,629 --> 00:23:02,256 He's been pushed back once. 308 00:23:02,339 --> 00:23:05,718 He's now digging at a soccer field in a public square. 309 00:23:05,801 --> 00:23:09,305 This is clearly not going anywhere. 310 00:23:11,974 --> 00:23:14,685 And there's a little scuffle going on. 311 00:23:15,936 --> 00:23:18,230 This is a very important moment in the film, I think, 312 00:23:18,314 --> 00:23:21,400 because we've by now established 313 00:23:21,483 --> 00:23:26,196 that Miller's got a noble mission, find the WMD. 314 00:23:26,322 --> 00:23:30,993 They're not there. He's not finding them. He's become frustrated. 315 00:23:31,118 --> 00:23:34,330 He's asked questions upstairs and got no answers. 316 00:23:34,997 --> 00:23:37,416 And now, of course, because this is a thriller, 317 00:23:37,499 --> 00:23:40,628 he's gonna start to make his own moves. 318 00:23:40,711 --> 00:23:46,842 This whole sequence, the arrival of Al Rawi at the generals' meeting, 319 00:23:46,967 --> 00:23:52,431 which I felt had a lovely sort of gangsters'-meeting-type flavor. 320 00:23:52,514 --> 00:23:55,434 And the arrival of Freddy with the information to Miller, 321 00:23:55,517 --> 00:23:58,854 that he's seen something happening a mile away, 322 00:24:00,147 --> 00:24:04,151 you just know he's gonna provoke a confrontation 323 00:24:04,234 --> 00:24:09,114 and the film's gonna step up to the next level of intensity 324 00:24:09,198 --> 00:24:14,244 and the next section of the story. 325 00:24:14,370 --> 00:24:20,834 We should probably talk at this stage about Chris Rouse, 326 00:24:22,378 --> 00:24:28,467 who's cut my last four, our three, films, 327 00:24:28,550 --> 00:24:31,303 and played a central role in all of them. 328 00:24:31,387 --> 00:24:37,977 The way that he choreographed these two stories, 329 00:24:38,060 --> 00:24:42,940 the story of the meeting, which is very important, thematically, 330 00:24:43,065 --> 00:24:48,153 and conveys that sort of atmosphere of a bunch of generals, 331 00:24:48,237 --> 00:24:53,283 still very powerful, still very dangerous, but, essentially, wanted men on the run, 332 00:24:53,409 --> 00:24:56,829 and the information reaching Miller, 333 00:24:56,912 --> 00:25:01,667 and Miller deciding to kind of drive his men into life, 334 00:25:01,750 --> 00:25:05,629 then this unfolding confrontation, gives you, 335 00:25:05,754 --> 00:25:09,008 I think, the thing that I love in movies, 336 00:25:09,091 --> 00:25:13,762 which is not one piece of action, 337 00:25:13,887 --> 00:25:19,893 but the sustained feeling for, hopefully, 10 or 15 minutes 338 00:25:19,977 --> 00:25:22,187 that the film's unfolding in real time 339 00:25:22,271 --> 00:25:28,360 and driving you onwards toward some kind of impending drama. 340 00:25:28,444 --> 00:25:34,241 That, I think, is very, very, very watchable, ultimately. 341 00:25:34,324 --> 00:25:37,036 This, on a personal note, was a huge day for me, 342 00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:40,372 because this was the first time 343 00:25:40,456 --> 00:25:44,501 I really stepped up with the guys. 344 00:25:44,626 --> 00:25:49,423 And this guy who just jumped off right there, Mike Dwyer, he's a Marine, 345 00:25:49,506 --> 00:25:53,635 saw, probably, the most stuff of any of the guys who were there. 346 00:25:53,761 --> 00:25:59,224 Two very, very active tours in Iraq. 347 00:25:59,308 --> 00:26:02,561 And in this sequence, 348 00:26:02,644 --> 00:26:03,729 Paul suggested that Adam, 349 00:26:03,812 --> 00:26:06,315 who was a sniper in the National Guard, question me. 350 00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:07,858 Adam's there in the foreground. 351 00:26:07,983 --> 00:26:10,235 "How do we know you're not leading us into an ambush?" 352 00:26:10,319 --> 00:26:13,447 "We don't. Get your fucking game face on," is what I say. 353 00:26:13,530 --> 00:26:17,409 And that was what Mike, in the background there, said to me. 354 00:26:17,493 --> 00:26:22,331 I saw him when Adam questioned me, I saw him get very uncomfortable. 355 00:26:22,456 --> 00:26:24,792 And I took him aside, and I said, "What is it?" 356 00:26:24,875 --> 00:26:29,588 And he said, in no uncertain terms, that, "That kind of insubordination 357 00:26:29,671 --> 00:26:33,425 "when we were out here is absolutely unacceptable." 358 00:26:33,509 --> 00:26:35,597 And he said, "If I have a problem with your leadership," 359 00:26:35,677 --> 00:26:37,717 "you're gonna hear about it before we get out here." 360 00:26:37,805 --> 00:26:43,560 "But once we're out here, I am 100% doing what you tell me to do." 361 00:26:43,685 --> 00:26:47,064 "And if anybody says differently, then they need to get their fucking game face on." 362 00:26:47,189 --> 00:26:49,441 And so that was a big moment for me, 363 00:26:49,525 --> 00:26:53,737 because I didn't tell Adam I was gonna say that to him. 364 00:26:53,862 --> 00:26:57,825 And I just said it, kind of sucked up my courage as an actor 365 00:26:57,908 --> 00:27:02,246 and said to this veteran to get his game face on, 366 00:27:02,371 --> 00:27:05,374 and his reaction was very honest, 367 00:27:05,499 --> 00:27:09,628 and he suddenly just looked like a soldier who was kind of being put back in line. 368 00:27:09,711 --> 00:27:12,673 So it was a big, very helpful... 369 00:27:12,756 --> 00:27:17,845 Again, when you have 30 technical advisers, you get some really great stuff. 370 00:27:18,053 --> 00:27:19,179 Yeah. 371 00:27:24,685 --> 00:27:27,437 I love the atmosphere in this meeting, and these. .. 372 00:27:29,064 --> 00:27:32,234 Quite a lot of these guys in this meeting 373 00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:36,238 were Iraqis in exile. 374 00:27:36,405 --> 00:27:38,699 This man here... 375 00:27:40,534 --> 00:27:42,202 What if they don't contact us? 376 00:27:42,286 --> 00:27:46,540 ...very fine Moroccan actor. 377 00:27:46,915 --> 00:27:48,750 ...We Will fight. 378 00:27:50,460 --> 00:27:53,213 And Said, of course, right there. He's terrific. 379 00:28:08,478 --> 00:28:10,814 So now we got some momentum. We got our guys. 380 00:28:11,565 --> 00:28:14,151 Chris Rouse is starting to just... 381 00:28:14,902 --> 00:28:17,446 Yeah, we talked about this a lot when we were cutting this film, 382 00:28:17,571 --> 00:28:23,076 that you didn't wanna let this unfold too fast. 383 00:28:23,493 --> 00:28:28,790 You know what I mean? It was a question of just steadily turning the screw. 384 00:28:28,957 --> 00:28:32,711 And I've always felt that from the soccer field, from Freddy coming up, it just... Yeah. 385 00:28:32,794 --> 00:28:35,172 It's exactly right. You're steadily turning the screw, 386 00:28:35,297 --> 00:28:38,091 all the way through the foot chase in the alley. 387 00:28:38,175 --> 00:28:43,972 It just really... You're short of breath through this whole thing. 388 00:28:44,264 --> 00:28:46,308 Now, these guys all... I remember working this day. 389 00:28:46,433 --> 00:28:49,353 Monty said to me, "You're gonna see what these guys really do." 390 00:28:49,478 --> 00:28:51,146 He said, "They've been trying to act. 391 00:28:52,022 --> 00:28:55,859 "If you wanna see 'em do what they do, watch 'em hit a house." 392 00:28:55,984 --> 00:28:59,988 And we worked very, very carefully on... 393 00:29:00,113 --> 00:29:04,034 Well, they worked with me on exactly what I would do, because I love that stuff. 394 00:29:05,118 --> 00:29:09,623 And every unit does it slightly differently. 395 00:29:10,666 --> 00:29:14,169 First guy goes left, second guy goes right, third guy goes long, that kind of thing. 396 00:29:15,963 --> 00:29:22,177 I just went to school, basically, and these guys showed me all this stuff, 397 00:29:23,303 --> 00:29:26,139 and it looks really, really good, I think. 398 00:29:26,306 --> 00:29:30,936 I think it looks good because they're all moving exactly as they would. 399 00:29:31,019 --> 00:29:33,689 And now we're going to get on the door. 400 00:29:38,151 --> 00:29:43,365 - It's beautifully cut, this section. - Yes. 401 00:29:43,490 --> 00:29:45,450 Just introducing the... 402 00:29:45,534 --> 00:29:49,538 - Now you've get children in there. - Yeah, raises the stakes of the encounter 403 00:29:50,497 --> 00:29:52,666 without feeling sentimental. 404 00:29:54,001 --> 00:29:55,043 There goes Dwyer. 405 00:29:57,754 --> 00:29:59,006 On the fucking ground, now! 406 00:29:59,089 --> 00:30:00,674 I'm third. I go long. 407 00:30:03,385 --> 00:30:06,722 I remember Dwyer would have butt-stroked that guy, remember that? 408 00:30:09,683 --> 00:30:11,184 Keating, on the stairs up! 409 00:30:14,730 --> 00:30:16,815 That's just great, his hand up there, did you see? 410 00:30:16,898 --> 00:30:19,067 His sign that the getaway car's coming. 411 00:30:22,070 --> 00:30:27,034 Because those guys are military people, you know, they're game guys. 412 00:30:27,117 --> 00:30:28,535 They know what they're doing. 413 00:30:29,703 --> 00:30:33,874 You just want that little moment, obviously, of eye lock between you and Al Rawi. 414 00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:41,214 Look out! 415 00:30:47,387 --> 00:30:49,264 - Get ready to hook right. - Hook right! 416 00:30:49,389 --> 00:30:53,685 It was interesting, this whole section, and it's a long, long section, 417 00:30:53,769 --> 00:30:56,438 it must be nearly 15 minutes of the movie, 418 00:30:56,563 --> 00:31:01,777 the section that begins with you at the soccer field, 419 00:31:02,778 --> 00:31:04,613 introduction of Freddy, 420 00:31:05,947 --> 00:31:11,495 the meeting at Al Rawi's, the confrontation in this section here 421 00:31:11,912 --> 00:31:16,416 and then afterwards at the soccer field. 422 00:31:17,918 --> 00:31:21,004 I remember when Brian wrote the first draft, 423 00:31:21,129 --> 00:31:26,510 that section, although we changed it in many ways 424 00:31:26,635 --> 00:31:29,388 in terms of the way we performed it... 425 00:31:29,471 --> 00:31:34,476 But essentially, that was... I remember reading that. 426 00:31:35,143 --> 00:31:37,354 I was actually out in Los Angeles finishing Ultimatum, 427 00:31:37,479 --> 00:31:42,818 "and I remember reading that 20 pages and going, "That's bang on. 428 00:31:42,943 --> 00:31:49,574 "That is tonally, and in terms of the moral ebb and flow..." 429 00:31:49,658 --> 00:31:52,911 Cause you're not... You know, this isn't a movie where you're saying, 430 00:31:52,994 --> 00:31:56,415 "Oh, look at those terrible American soldiers. Look what they're doing." 431 00:31:56,498 --> 00:31:57,624 You're not feeling that. 432 00:31:57,707 --> 00:32:00,919 You're feeling that they're engaged in a righteous cause, 433 00:32:01,002 --> 00:32:02,591 and they absolutely believe that they are, 434 00:32:02,671 --> 00:32:04,965 and they're behaving according to procedure, 435 00:32:05,048 --> 00:32:08,760 but the splintering in terms of what's happening on the other side, 436 00:32:08,844 --> 00:32:12,431 and Freddy's uncomfortable with what's happening, 437 00:32:12,514 --> 00:32:16,143 and Said there being questioned, and Al Rawi getting out the back door... 438 00:32:16,226 --> 00:32:19,604 So it's got elements of straight thriller. 439 00:32:19,688 --> 00:32:21,940 It's got elements of reportage. 440 00:32:22,023 --> 00:32:24,234 And I thought it was... 441 00:32:24,359 --> 00:32:26,236 But look at how he says his name there, too. 442 00:32:26,361 --> 00:32:30,157 I mean, it's got those elements of these cultures clashing, too. 443 00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:31,366 Yeah. 444 00:32:31,825 --> 00:32:36,621 You know, you've got the relationship between Freddy and Said there, 445 00:32:36,705 --> 00:32:39,207 clearly from two different classes. 446 00:32:39,332 --> 00:32:41,501 - One formerly in the master class... - Yeah. 447 00:32:41,585 --> 00:32:44,921 ...in the powerful class, 448 00:32:45,046 --> 00:32:47,799 who still has all that pride, 449 00:32:47,883 --> 00:32:52,304 and you see just the way he looks at Khalid, you know, it just... 450 00:32:52,387 --> 00:32:54,347 Hey, Michaels, do you have that deck of cards? 451 00:32:54,431 --> 00:32:56,892 - Yes. - Give me the Jack of Clubs. 452 00:32:57,350 --> 00:32:59,769 Is that the guy? Was that the guy that went out the back? 453 00:33:00,353 --> 00:33:04,107 It's tricky, normally, 'cause I do these... I've never done one with you, 454 00:33:04,232 --> 00:33:06,776 of this kind. 455 00:33:06,902 --> 00:33:11,823 But I must say, I thought you were fantastic in these scenes, 456 00:33:12,115 --> 00:33:18,997 because what it is, is, you're starting from a position in this film with Miller, 457 00:33:19,331 --> 00:33:22,250 where he's, in a sense, doing what he's told. 458 00:33:23,752 --> 00:33:30,467 And you've got to, in terms of building the character of Miller, 459 00:33:31,009 --> 00:33:33,762 make his steps feel believable 460 00:33:33,845 --> 00:33:38,350 as he moves off on what's essentially a conspiracy-thriller journey. 461 00:33:39,142 --> 00:33:44,105 And I thought that hinge, that encounter, all this stuff here, 462 00:33:45,190 --> 00:33:48,193 it was outstanding, 'cause you're utterly with Miller now. 463 00:33:48,276 --> 00:33:50,445 I think you feel him... 464 00:33:50,946 --> 00:33:52,614 Roger that, Chief. 465 00:33:53,114 --> 00:33:54,950 ...out of this landscape, starting to go, 466 00:33:55,033 --> 00:34:00,163 "Well, hang on a second, I've got my chance here of an answer, and I'm gonna take it." 467 00:34:01,164 --> 00:34:03,667 And in a way, it's a tricky thing for you all the time, 468 00:34:03,792 --> 00:34:08,129 'cause you were having to be in charge, but, in a sense, out of your depth, 469 00:34:08,213 --> 00:34:09,297 all at the same time. 470 00:34:09,381 --> 00:34:12,425 Do you know what I mean? Which is a very, very tricky thing to do 471 00:34:12,509 --> 00:34:16,972 when you're the central character in a movie, where you've got to be strong, obviously. 472 00:34:17,472 --> 00:34:22,143 I mean, it's true in any conspiracy thriller. How do you thread that needle? 473 00:34:22,477 --> 00:34:24,774 He say only General Mohammed Al Rawi, he know about these things. 474 00:34:24,854 --> 00:34:28,733 Well, for all the actors, the way that these scenes were constructed, 475 00:34:28,817 --> 00:34:31,194 we'd improvise 476 00:34:31,319 --> 00:34:36,032 or we would augment what was on the page, basically, 477 00:34:36,157 --> 00:34:37,659 and then you could cut it back. 478 00:34:37,742 --> 00:34:40,537 But what it did was, it gave us all the freedom 479 00:34:40,662 --> 00:34:43,456 having one camera down and when you roll out, picking it up, 480 00:34:43,540 --> 00:34:47,085 and so the scene never stops, so we could go for half an hour 481 00:34:47,544 --> 00:34:50,922 and do four or five takes in half an hour, and it'd be half a day's work, 482 00:34:51,006 --> 00:34:56,595 but we've got stuff where we can get in our own ways as actors 483 00:34:56,678 --> 00:34:59,598 by planning moments, 484 00:34:59,681 --> 00:35:04,185 and trying to indicate what... Try to help tell the story. 485 00:35:04,519 --> 00:35:08,607 But these were just playing these situations as authentically as possible 486 00:35:09,524 --> 00:35:12,027 with these incredibly high stakes. 487 00:35:12,944 --> 00:35:15,113 It's always the thing, people always sort of somehow 488 00:35:15,196 --> 00:35:16,865 view the writing process... 489 00:35:16,948 --> 00:35:20,952 I think, again, for people watching this DVD, somewhere there's a distinction 490 00:35:21,036 --> 00:35:24,581 between the writing process and, say, the improvisatory process, 491 00:35:24,706 --> 00:35:27,167 as somewhere that they're contradictory. 492 00:35:27,250 --> 00:35:30,920 And in fact, we've all worked on this. 493 00:35:31,046 --> 00:35:34,424 They're not... What you ideally want on a film, 494 00:35:34,549 --> 00:35:39,179 certainly on my films, anyway, is a team 495 00:35:39,262 --> 00:35:43,725 where the goal is to get to the finished film, 496 00:35:43,808 --> 00:35:49,314 and along the way, you're deploying various techniques 497 00:35:49,397 --> 00:35:51,608 to try and arrive at the truth of it. 498 00:35:51,733 --> 00:35:56,404 One of the techniques is the writing, the process of writing on the page. 499 00:35:56,821 --> 00:35:58,948 And that will give you certain elements. 500 00:35:59,074 --> 00:36:02,243 It may give you quite fully-formed scenes. 501 00:36:02,577 --> 00:36:05,997 It might give you fully-formed scenarios 502 00:36:06,081 --> 00:36:08,625 that you can then use to spin off and improvise, 503 00:36:08,750 --> 00:36:11,419 or it might give you something that doesn't quite work 504 00:36:11,503 --> 00:36:14,881 that on the day you can challenge and arrive at something else. 505 00:36:14,964 --> 00:36:17,842 But what you're looking for when you make a film 506 00:36:17,926 --> 00:36:23,723 is the engagement of all your creative stakeholders 507 00:36:23,807 --> 00:36:27,435 to try and find "it," whatever "it" is. 508 00:36:27,519 --> 00:36:29,729 And it's not one or the other, 509 00:36:29,813 --> 00:36:33,858 it's that the writer, as ever, has, 510 00:36:35,110 --> 00:36:38,446 in a sense, the heroic job of going first and alone, do you know what I mean? 511 00:36:38,530 --> 00:36:39,739 Down the tunnel. 512 00:36:39,823 --> 00:36:45,453 We all get to go later and can either build on that, use it, 513 00:36:45,995 --> 00:36:50,291 challenge it and often reinterpret it. 514 00:36:50,625 --> 00:36:52,168 It's not either/or. 515 00:36:53,962 --> 00:36:58,425 And, particularly in a situation where you have all these guys, 516 00:36:58,508 --> 00:37:02,595 - you can get to authenticity really quickly... - Yeah. 517 00:37:02,679 --> 00:37:06,850 ...with guys in a way that if you put me in a room for a year, 518 00:37:07,475 --> 00:37:11,521 I'd never be able to write some of the stuff that these guys do, 519 00:37:11,646 --> 00:37:13,777 just because of who they are and the experiences they've had, 520 00:37:13,857 --> 00:37:16,651 and they know how some of these things go. 521 00:37:19,487 --> 00:37:21,948 Here's Jason Isaacs, just, again, terrific. 522 00:37:22,031 --> 00:37:26,119 I really felt lucky to be in this movie with these actors. 523 00:37:26,202 --> 00:37:30,165 Every scene I had was with somebody terrific. 524 00:37:36,588 --> 00:37:43,052 Jason's an old friend of mine, and actually had a huge impact... 525 00:37:43,178 --> 00:37:44,307 I was talking about it the other day, actually. 526 00:37:44,387 --> 00:37:48,600 He actually had a huge impact on me as a director, Jason did. You know that? 527 00:37:48,683 --> 00:37:51,770 Because I worked with him in Britain many years ago on a television film, 528 00:37:51,853 --> 00:37:57,859 and he was really the first actor that I ever really felt comfortable enough 529 00:37:58,735 --> 00:38:05,033 to explain what the insecurities you feel as a director, 530 00:38:05,533 --> 00:38:08,787 particularly when you're a young director working with actors, and vice versa... 531 00:38:08,870 --> 00:38:12,999 And, in a way, it helped me to be... 532 00:38:13,082 --> 00:38:16,753 My relationship with him when we made that film made me much more confident 533 00:38:16,878 --> 00:38:19,547 in terms of understanding 534 00:38:21,549 --> 00:38:26,137 what actors wanted from a director. Do you know what I mean? 535 00:38:26,221 --> 00:38:27,263 Right. Right. 536 00:38:27,430 --> 00:38:28,556 Stop! 537 00:38:29,724 --> 00:38:30,892 Stop! 538 00:38:31,059 --> 00:38:33,520 Well, now we're rocking out. It's pushing on. 539 00:38:33,603 --> 00:38:39,108 And this is still this kind of breathless... Starting at the soccer field up until now. 540 00:38:39,567 --> 00:38:41,945 It doesn't kind of rest until, bang, now. 541 00:38:42,070 --> 00:38:44,447 Freddy's got only one leg. 542 00:38:44,572 --> 00:38:45,573 The scene stops. 543 00:38:45,657 --> 00:38:47,325 What the fuck! Why are you running? 544 00:38:47,408 --> 00:38:50,119 - Why you are chasing me? - Give me the book. 545 00:38:50,245 --> 00:38:51,246 Give me the fucking book! 546 00:38:51,329 --> 00:38:55,792 Now I thought this was a brilliant scene, 547 00:38:55,917 --> 00:38:59,546 a brilliant scene that I think everybody involved, 548 00:38:59,629 --> 00:39:02,674 I mean, obviously, the two of you, the guys around, 549 00:39:02,757 --> 00:39:08,263 but you take something very, very hard here, which is the prosthetic leg. 550 00:39:08,596 --> 00:39:12,725 You've suddenly abruptly stopped after a huge amount of chasing, 551 00:39:12,809 --> 00:39:16,729 and you've essentially got to turn a very tight corner here, 552 00:39:16,813 --> 00:39:19,399 because you're wanting to get away. 553 00:39:19,482 --> 00:39:22,235 You're in a hostile place. You're in an alleyway. 554 00:39:22,318 --> 00:39:24,404 You're a professional soldier. What do you do? 555 00:39:24,487 --> 00:39:28,324 But somehow, we've got to get this scene going and he's talking about the car, 556 00:39:28,449 --> 00:39:33,121 and I thought it was absolutely, if I may say so, very, very... 557 00:39:35,999 --> 00:39:39,002 - A corner very well turned. - Well, it's Khalid's performance. 558 00:39:40,628 --> 00:39:44,173 - Because you believe that those guys stop. - Yeah. 559 00:39:44,340 --> 00:39:46,551 - And that he arrests you. - Yeah. Exactly. 560 00:39:46,968 --> 00:39:49,929 Cause there's got to be something quite strong... 561 00:39:50,013 --> 00:39:51,973 It's not just our hero stopping. 562 00:39:52,056 --> 00:39:53,645 As you see, all those other soldiers stop. 563 00:39:53,725 --> 00:39:56,060 And, I mean, no one knew what he was gonna say there, 564 00:39:56,144 --> 00:39:58,980 and everyone stopped and listened to him. 565 00:40:01,858 --> 00:40:07,572 It's that thing, when you direct, you come to understand that... 566 00:40:07,989 --> 00:40:10,617 First of all, when you direct, 567 00:40:10,700 --> 00:40:14,662 you're surrounded by people who do extraordinary things for you, 568 00:40:14,746 --> 00:40:19,500 whether it's the BOP or the sound man or the first AD. 569 00:40:21,002 --> 00:40:26,716 And they all solve a series of very particular problems for you, 570 00:40:26,841 --> 00:40:31,137 but when you direct, you come to realize that it's the actor 571 00:40:31,220 --> 00:40:33,556 who can solve them all instantly. 572 00:40:33,681 --> 00:40:37,477 The actor can move to the certain place to make the shot work, 573 00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:39,979 can say it in a certain way to make the line work, 574 00:40:40,063 --> 00:40:43,900 can physically make it work so it can cut properly. 575 00:40:49,030 --> 00:40:51,532 It's a thing, if you're a young director, 576 00:40:53,868 --> 00:40:59,290 you have to see the capacity for technical problem solving 577 00:40:59,374 --> 00:41:00,917 that acting can give you, 578 00:41:01,042 --> 00:41:02,797 rather than just performance, do you know what I mean? 579 00:41:02,877 --> 00:41:06,881 Cause, of course, that's what crews understand. 580 00:41:06,965 --> 00:41:09,717 They all realize that, which is why they are... 581 00:41:09,926 --> 00:41:11,094 Let Bethel handle it, please. 582 00:41:11,219 --> 00:41:12,348 No. Bethel can't see past the files... 583 00:41:12,428 --> 00:41:15,556 Like when your director asks you to do just a loop like that... 584 00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:16,849 Exactly. 585 00:41:16,933 --> 00:41:19,188 "Then you go, " You know what? I'm just gonna get a little more intense 586 00:41:19,268 --> 00:41:20,348 "and act right through it." 587 00:41:21,229 --> 00:41:22,271 There you go. 588 00:41:22,397 --> 00:41:25,525 But now I'm angry that I had to do the loop, so that's all real anger. 589 00:41:25,608 --> 00:41:30,279 I know. I know. And you were a very, very, very good soldier for me there. 590 00:41:30,780 --> 00:41:33,825 What we're talking about is that if you look at that shot, 591 00:41:33,908 --> 00:41:37,620 we had some necessary dialogue here, is the truth of it... 592 00:41:37,745 --> 00:41:42,417 - Right. - ...because we had to genuinely 593 00:41:42,500 --> 00:41:44,377 step the intensity of the character up. 594 00:41:44,460 --> 00:41:46,587 He had to make a statement 595 00:41:47,755 --> 00:41:51,342 about what he was gonna do and why, 596 00:41:51,426 --> 00:41:54,429 and why he felt it necessary to continue off reservation, 597 00:41:54,512 --> 00:41:58,725 and it was very important, I think, for two reasons. 598 00:41:58,808 --> 00:42:05,356 It was important because we'd felt that this was not a film 599 00:42:05,815 --> 00:42:08,443 where you could have a personal scene 600 00:42:10,111 --> 00:42:12,405 about Miller's individual character. 601 00:42:12,488 --> 00:42:15,199 "In other words, " I'm going off reservation 602 00:42:15,283 --> 00:42:19,579 "because my father brought me up in way 'X'" 603 00:42:19,662 --> 00:42:22,210 "or something happened to me five years ago that made me wanna do it." 604 00:42:22,290 --> 00:42:24,087 It was important, I think for both of us, wasn't it, 605 00:42:24,167 --> 00:42:28,004 that Miller was just almost an everyman. 606 00:42:28,212 --> 00:42:32,675 He was doing what we all did, which is, by degrees 607 00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:35,386 start to question what was being said to us. 608 00:42:35,470 --> 00:42:38,267 Exactly. And we had had the conversation about that more personal angle, 609 00:42:38,347 --> 00:42:40,683 and we'd thought about that and kind of gone down that road 610 00:42:40,808 --> 00:42:45,605 just as an exercise, to think about what that could be, but you're right. 611 00:42:45,688 --> 00:42:49,984 Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that that was absolutely wrong. 612 00:42:50,526 --> 00:42:53,279 He had to be asking the fundamental question. 613 00:42:53,362 --> 00:42:57,784 Yeah. And he had to state it clearly, but we were there, 614 00:42:57,867 --> 00:43:03,498 and you had to make that wide turn, which really wasn't a motivated move, in truth, 615 00:43:03,873 --> 00:43:06,834 but in the context of the film, do you notice it? Never. 616 00:43:06,918 --> 00:43:08,002 No, no, no, no. No, no. 617 00:43:08,086 --> 00:43:09,587 But you feel it and I felt it. 618 00:43:09,670 --> 00:43:11,589 You felt it worst of all. 619 00:43:11,672 --> 00:43:14,967 - It's one of those things that... - You have to suck it up. 620 00:43:15,051 --> 00:43:16,719 - Let's be honest. - You gotta suck it up. 621 00:43:16,844 --> 00:43:21,557 And it's a trust... Look, things look differently through the camera. 622 00:43:22,058 --> 00:43:26,854 And so, you know, I don't know what Klemens was on there, maybe a 40. 623 00:43:28,189 --> 00:43:32,985 But he was moving, so you don't notice it. 624 00:43:33,069 --> 00:43:34,570 I mean, too many of those? 625 00:43:34,862 --> 00:43:38,222 Too many of those and they'll add up. Yeah. That's right. That's right. You'll see... 626 00:43:38,366 --> 00:43:41,077 You've gotta always be working to minimize those things. 627 00:43:41,202 --> 00:43:43,041 - Well, this is... - This is our guys coming in 628 00:43:43,121 --> 00:43:45,665 - out of the shit... - To the Green Zone. 629 00:43:45,748 --> 00:43:51,879 ...into the Green Zone, which is really, really well-described in Rajiv's book. 630 00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:59,011 And this is absolutely, literally a facsimile. 631 00:43:59,095 --> 00:44:05,059 It is an absolutely perfect version of what the Republican, 632 00:44:05,143 --> 00:44:07,019 the back of the Republican Palace looked like. 633 00:44:07,103 --> 00:44:13,484 This is exactly what it looked like in every detail, really. 634 00:44:15,570 --> 00:44:17,321 And surreal, in a way. 635 00:44:18,906 --> 00:44:21,784 You know, if you've been out in the dust of the desert, 636 00:44:23,786 --> 00:44:24,832 trying to look for these things, 637 00:44:24,912 --> 00:44:27,790 and suddenly, all the guys are in this sort of strange, 638 00:44:32,253 --> 00:44:38,092 semi-permissive environment, but also one filled with intrigue. 639 00:44:39,135 --> 00:44:43,181 And you get that sort of thriller route still going. 640 00:44:43,264 --> 00:44:45,266 The notebook, the names. 641 00:44:47,351 --> 00:44:50,104 So you're still driving him along. 642 00:44:50,605 --> 00:44:51,939 God damn! 643 00:44:52,273 --> 00:44:53,482 I like this scene very much. 644 00:44:53,608 --> 00:44:58,112 Brendan is kind of... You're not quite sure what his game is. 645 00:44:58,196 --> 00:45:03,451 You're not quite sure, is he gonna turn out to be a good guy or not? 646 00:45:03,826 --> 00:45:05,540 And he's sort of abrupt and gruff, isn't he? 647 00:45:05,620 --> 00:45:06,954 Yeah. He's just terrific. 648 00:45:07,038 --> 00:45:11,709 I wondered if he was channeling Gene Hackman for this role, 649 00:45:11,792 --> 00:45:15,504 because Brendan's this wonderful Irish guy. 650 00:45:15,630 --> 00:45:20,134 He's got this incredible voice and laugh, 651 00:45:21,010 --> 00:45:24,263 - but he just clicked right into this guy... - Yeah. 652 00:45:24,347 --> 00:45:28,476 ...and had such weight to him. 653 00:45:28,976 --> 00:45:33,314 You really believed that he'd spent his career over there 654 00:45:33,397 --> 00:45:37,026 and understood the way things really worked, 655 00:45:37,109 --> 00:45:40,321 and I just thought he did a terrific job. 656 00:45:41,489 --> 00:45:43,574 And this is Amy, who's... 657 00:45:43,658 --> 00:45:46,202 - How did you know that? - It's right there on your rifle. 658 00:45:46,327 --> 00:45:47,370 Lawrie Dayne... 659 00:45:47,453 --> 00:45:49,247 I mean, it was a very hard challenge, 660 00:45:49,330 --> 00:45:53,501 'cause I always think the reporter in a conspiracy thriller 661 00:45:53,584 --> 00:45:57,922 is a very tough assignment, 662 00:45:58,005 --> 00:46:00,841 for an actor to find the sort of grounded reality. 663 00:46:00,925 --> 00:46:06,597 And she really had to work hard, 664 00:46:06,681 --> 00:46:11,769 and she did, to find a very simple line through that, 665 00:46:11,852 --> 00:46:17,358 because the truth is, in the real world, 666 00:46:19,235 --> 00:46:23,948 the relationship between the press and the events that took place 667 00:46:24,031 --> 00:46:27,785 in advance of the invasion was complex 668 00:46:27,868 --> 00:46:33,124 and filled with ethical questions 669 00:46:33,207 --> 00:46:35,543 and uncertainties, and I thought 670 00:46:37,378 --> 00:46:42,258 she managed to find a character who was at once... You condemned her, 671 00:46:42,341 --> 00:46:46,387 but in another way, you saw that she was trying to find a way out of it. 672 00:46:50,057 --> 00:46:53,894 Well, we shot a few of these scenes, anyway, along the way. 673 00:46:56,230 --> 00:46:57,940 But that's okay. 674 00:47:00,026 --> 00:47:02,820 I always wanted, in the end... 675 00:47:02,903 --> 00:47:09,618 This film is... It's got to be in genre. It's got to be in genre, 676 00:47:12,038 --> 00:47:16,542 but for me, the big radical play on the genre is, 677 00:47:16,625 --> 00:47:19,086 it's not in Bourne world. It's in the real world. 678 00:47:19,170 --> 00:47:21,088 - Right. - But yet, it's a fictional story. 679 00:47:21,172 --> 00:47:24,216 But yet, it's playing with a lot of elements 680 00:47:24,300 --> 00:47:26,013 that we know and remember from the real world. 681 00:47:26,093 --> 00:47:30,348 And so, I mean, obviously, people watching will make their own decisions, 682 00:47:30,431 --> 00:47:36,645 but to me, that curious sort of recognizable 683 00:47:36,729 --> 00:47:42,109 but unpredictable mix, it's taking some of the elements 684 00:47:42,193 --> 00:47:48,074 of the Bourne thrillers and putting them in the real world, 685 00:47:48,157 --> 00:47:52,078 and it's asking that audience, 686 00:47:53,454 --> 00:47:58,125 I always think, to take that step, really, that completes the circle, 687 00:47:58,209 --> 00:47:59,251 do you know what I mean? 688 00:47:59,335 --> 00:48:01,545 I mean, obviously, you made the first Bourne, I didn't, 689 00:48:01,629 --> 00:48:05,091 but it always struck me that Bourne, as a franchise, 690 00:48:05,466 --> 00:48:09,095 perfectly expressed all the mistrust and paranoia 691 00:48:09,178 --> 00:48:13,474 that grew up between 2001 and 2003. 692 00:48:13,641 --> 00:48:20,356 And we really, really distilled that, I think, in Supremacy and Ultimatum. 693 00:48:22,066 --> 00:48:26,112 So it's almost like it sprang from the real world, 694 00:48:26,195 --> 00:48:29,073 got distilled, and then Green Zone sort of says, 695 00:48:29,156 --> 00:48:35,037 "Well, let's go back into the real world and see what that feels like." 696 00:48:35,162 --> 00:48:36,414 - You know? - Yeah. 697 00:48:36,789 --> 00:48:38,457 - Where's Al Rawi? - Where's Al Rawi? 698 00:48:39,125 --> 00:48:41,585 Greg, I think, is very, very good in this scene. 699 00:48:42,378 --> 00:48:43,838 Greg's good in everything. 700 00:48:44,630 --> 00:48:49,093 But he captures a sort of discomfort... 701 00:48:49,176 --> 00:48:51,679 Yeah, I know. It's really nice that you can see... 702 00:48:51,762 --> 00:48:54,181 -He doesn't revel in this. Exactly. Exactly. 703 00:48:54,265 --> 00:48:59,520 Which would have been the easy way to do it, and it would've been wrong. 704 00:49:01,522 --> 00:49:05,443 People who are advocating this type of stuff 705 00:49:08,195 --> 00:49:10,322 - are not sadists. - No. 706 00:49:11,991 --> 00:49:17,079 It's about the inevitable results of great forces that are set in chain 707 00:49:17,163 --> 00:49:20,374 and pitted against each other, is the truth of it. 708 00:49:25,212 --> 00:49:27,301 And this was a scene we talked about a lot, wasn't it? 709 00:49:27,381 --> 00:49:29,925 - You and he, the first meeting... - Yeah. 710 00:49:30,009 --> 00:49:32,845 ...which in a way is a kind of... 711 00:49:32,928 --> 00:49:37,099 It's a necessary scene in a thriller genre. 712 00:49:37,183 --> 00:49:40,644 The hero meets the bad guy midway through, and... 713 00:49:40,728 --> 00:49:43,522 - The brush past, midway through. - Yeah. 714 00:49:44,732 --> 00:49:46,734 And I think it got 715 00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:55,409 a very simple procedural base to the scene. 716 00:49:56,076 --> 00:49:59,288 - I mean, you don't really engage with him. - Yeah. 717 00:49:59,371 --> 00:50:01,248 He's not really disturbed by that. 718 00:50:01,332 --> 00:50:03,584 He's just gonna convey his information. 719 00:50:04,001 --> 00:50:05,794 He's confirmed a few facts for us. 720 00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:12,426 I think it's great that it's in that sort of blasted, strange 721 00:50:14,637 --> 00:50:18,891 luxury-that's-been-trashed world of the Green Zone, 722 00:50:20,684 --> 00:50:22,394 which was quite deserted, in fact. 723 00:50:23,771 --> 00:50:25,314 But all the same, he does the... 724 00:50:25,397 --> 00:50:31,070 You get the lookout between the two of you. 725 00:50:31,153 --> 00:50:32,196 Right. 726 00:50:32,279 --> 00:50:34,039 There's an opportunity for you here, Miller. 727 00:50:34,156 --> 00:50:35,950 He sure is offering me a lot. 728 00:50:37,117 --> 00:50:39,912 Come party. Come party with the DOD guys. 729 00:50:40,663 --> 00:50:44,083 He doesn't overplay it, 730 00:50:44,166 --> 00:50:49,713 - but you feel the earnestness of the pitch. - No, no, no. 731 00:50:49,797 --> 00:50:51,010 He did a couple of different things here. 732 00:50:51,090 --> 00:50:56,470 And I don't remember if we ended with the, "We're doing a good thing here," and... 733 00:50:57,972 --> 00:51:01,016 They didn't over-egg it. It was just, that's what he believes. 734 00:51:01,225 --> 00:51:05,729 And I like that he threw away the "notebook" over his shoulder. 735 00:51:06,647 --> 00:51:10,067 Poundstone's unit pushed all that WMD intel you've been chasing your tail on. 736 00:51:10,150 --> 00:51:11,277 What? You mean Magellan? 737 00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:16,699 This is to create that world, again, of through-the-barricades 738 00:51:16,782 --> 00:51:18,450 - and everything, just the... - Yeah. 739 00:51:19,952 --> 00:51:21,912 Here's the deal. We checked the notebook. 740 00:51:21,996 --> 00:51:26,792 In any thriller, you've always got areas of exposition. 741 00:51:27,835 --> 00:51:29,635 - There are little... - And we've entered one. 742 00:51:30,838 --> 00:51:33,716 But you have to have them, because you've gotta... 743 00:51:33,799 --> 00:51:37,011 Particularly in thrillers, of course, because you always have characters 744 00:51:37,094 --> 00:51:40,389 moving along different timelines of knowledge. 745 00:51:40,472 --> 00:51:43,183 They know different things at different times. 746 00:51:43,267 --> 00:51:44,480 They have different states of knowledge, 747 00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:48,647 and you somehow, generally round about the middle of a thriller, 748 00:51:48,731 --> 00:51:53,110 you've gotta start to get their states of knowledge in alignment, 749 00:51:53,193 --> 00:51:56,447 so that they're gonna collide in the right kinds of ways 750 00:51:56,530 --> 00:51:59,783 in the final third, and that always gives rise 751 00:51:59,867 --> 00:52:03,078 to the necessary nature of the exposition, 752 00:52:03,162 --> 00:52:06,957 and also to get the central character 753 00:52:08,208 --> 00:52:11,295 framed up with whatever the moral obstacle's gonna be. 754 00:52:12,463 --> 00:52:14,173 We gotta find Al Rawi and bring him in. 755 00:52:14,256 --> 00:52:17,801 In this case, it's this very seasoned CIA guy telling him 756 00:52:17,885 --> 00:52:23,557 that he might have to reframe his moral dynamic. 757 00:52:24,224 --> 00:52:25,392 Yeah. 758 00:52:26,060 --> 00:52:28,062 - Yeah, I want it. - Good. 759 00:52:29,063 --> 00:52:30,105 Hamza's being held... 760 00:52:30,189 --> 00:52:33,692 And it's good, I think. I think one of the great things about this story is 761 00:52:33,776 --> 00:52:36,403 that it feels... 762 00:52:36,654 --> 00:52:38,781 I'm not. You are. 763 00:52:39,573 --> 00:52:42,910 - ...very, very simple, this story. - Right. 764 00:52:44,161 --> 00:52:48,582 And in a way, narratively, it is very simple. 765 00:52:49,917 --> 00:52:56,507 But the shifts of where you feel the moral center 766 00:52:56,590 --> 00:53:02,346 of any action... Is Al Rawi a guy that should be caught, 767 00:53:02,429 --> 00:53:06,058 or is he a bad guy, or are there some gray areas there? 768 00:53:06,141 --> 00:53:09,770 That shifts and changes as you get closer to him. 769 00:53:10,145 --> 00:53:14,566 Is the choice to catch him 770 00:53:15,401 --> 00:53:19,780 a good thing to do, from your point of view, in terms of what's in your interest 771 00:53:19,863 --> 00:53:22,783 and American interests, or is it actually more complex? 772 00:53:22,866 --> 00:53:25,994 That's your journey, isn't it? 773 00:53:26,078 --> 00:53:30,541 And it's starting to get hedged and complicated at this point. 774 00:53:37,548 --> 00:53:40,175 So now we're gonna kick up a gear. 775 00:53:42,678 --> 00:53:45,556 Start to sharpen it up. 776 00:53:46,390 --> 00:53:48,517 - I love when he says... - You made this dusk, huh? 777 00:53:49,977 --> 00:53:51,815 It was always meant to be. No, it was always meant to be. 778 00:53:51,895 --> 00:53:53,313 That's why the lights were on. 779 00:53:53,397 --> 00:53:56,195 - Yeah, but that's why we had the lights on. - I see. Now I've got you. 780 00:53:56,275 --> 00:53:58,318 Maybe I missed that memo. 781 00:54:00,487 --> 00:54:03,240 Wouldn't have played it differently, but, you know... 782 00:54:03,407 --> 00:54:05,451 But did you do that in the DI? You did that later? 783 00:54:05,534 --> 00:54:08,746 Yeah. We just graded it down a little bit, but it... 784 00:54:08,829 --> 00:54:12,791 We stopped that down in the day, 785 00:54:12,875 --> 00:54:17,129 'cause I wanted you to feel that this was all gonna go into one night. 786 00:54:17,212 --> 00:54:18,255 Right. 787 00:54:19,757 --> 00:54:23,135 So that, in effect, this whole film, from the moment... 788 00:54:23,927 --> 00:54:26,138 The moment you hit the soccer field, 789 00:54:26,221 --> 00:54:29,892 when you're sitting there and Al Rawi turns up 790 00:54:32,269 --> 00:54:34,813 at the generals' meeting... 791 00:54:34,897 --> 00:54:37,524 - That's one day. - It's one day till the end of the movie. 792 00:54:37,733 --> 00:54:39,151 I've got it! 793 00:54:43,822 --> 00:54:46,283 - Let's go. - Stay out of this, Marty. 794 00:54:48,368 --> 00:54:49,995 - You all right here? - Yeah. 795 00:54:54,625 --> 00:54:58,253 I think what you wanna feel out of this story is that... 796 00:54:58,587 --> 00:55:03,383 The fact that Al Rawi has surfaced, the fact that you have found the notebook, 797 00:55:05,427 --> 00:55:10,265 is now starting to make things happen. People are having to commit now. 798 00:55:10,349 --> 00:55:17,231 Poundstone can't afford to let Al Rawi, obviously, be found. 799 00:55:17,439 --> 00:55:19,566 He's gotta catch him first. 800 00:55:20,526 --> 00:55:26,365 And you'll start to feel the same thing. Certainly, Brown, Brendan's character, is. 801 00:55:32,496 --> 00:55:34,957 Now, the tone of this scene 802 00:55:38,293 --> 00:55:40,003 was a very difficult one to get right. 803 00:55:40,087 --> 00:55:44,466 You've gotta just serve it up straight, 804 00:55:48,053 --> 00:55:53,809 not overplay it, in terms of what I was doing. 805 00:55:55,978 --> 00:55:58,939 Well, it's based on research and... 806 00:56:01,733 --> 00:56:06,655 But, you know, you've got to keep this film 807 00:56:07,364 --> 00:56:10,158 true to what it is, which is, 808 00:56:11,869 --> 00:56:16,540 it's a thriller. You know what I mean? It's a thriller set in the real world. 809 00:56:17,165 --> 00:56:22,504 You don't want to deviate from that. But along the way, you can harness 810 00:56:22,588 --> 00:56:28,093 the moral complexities of the real-world environment. 811 00:56:30,137 --> 00:56:32,681 In this little detail, for instance. 812 00:56:37,394 --> 00:56:39,479 Just the minor humiliation. 813 00:56:40,522 --> 00:56:41,690 Check it out. 814 00:56:42,816 --> 00:56:47,446 Khalid is just so, you know... It looks like he's done it many times, 815 00:56:48,822 --> 00:56:50,449 now he's doing it again. 816 00:56:52,618 --> 00:56:57,289 Those little shots of him taking this in are really effective. 817 00:56:57,873 --> 00:57:01,001 Well, the translators were in a hideously difficult place, weren't they? 818 00:57:01,168 --> 00:57:04,087 I mean, translators, whether for the US or the UK. 819 00:57:04,171 --> 00:57:07,299 In other words, they were the guys who were gonna help, 820 00:57:07,382 --> 00:57:10,928 but, of course, if it went wrong, and when we go home, 821 00:57:11,011 --> 00:57:15,974 they are the ones that are left behind. And I thought he captured that 822 00:57:18,769 --> 00:57:20,520 feeling very well. 823 00:57:22,022 --> 00:57:24,149 Now, here's the decoy guy I'm supposed to meet. 824 00:57:24,232 --> 00:57:28,445 He's just a guy in the Republican Guard. Low-level Republican Guard. 825 00:57:30,364 --> 00:57:32,703 - That's not necessary, Sergeant. - Standard procedure, sir. 826 00:57:32,783 --> 00:57:37,204 And we see him knocked around a little bit. 827 00:57:41,500 --> 00:57:43,627 But I like this touch. You don't take that bait. 828 00:57:43,710 --> 00:57:48,131 Miller doesn't take that bait, he makes no comment on it. 829 00:57:48,215 --> 00:57:51,468 - -Well, it's a war and... - Yeah, exactly, guys get knocked about... 830 00:57:51,551 --> 00:57:53,348 - ...and he's a bad guy. - And he's a bad guy. 831 00:57:53,428 --> 00:57:56,473 He's in the Republican Guard, and he probably tried to shoot my friends 832 00:57:56,556 --> 00:57:58,225 - two weeks ago. - Correct. Exactly. 833 00:57:58,308 --> 00:58:04,398 So we're in the middle of a war, and it's not time to... 834 00:58:04,856 --> 00:58:07,359 Monty was very good with that, you know. 835 00:58:07,859 --> 00:58:10,779 Look, a bleeding-heart actor like myself, 836 00:58:10,862 --> 00:58:16,034 first thing I do if I see someone with a lump on their head is try to get them some ice. 837 00:58:16,743 --> 00:58:19,913 - But who knows the circumstances? - Exactly. Exactly. 838 00:58:20,372 --> 00:58:22,582 - We don't. - As you say, he could have been... 839 00:58:22,708 --> 00:58:24,546 Hey, listen, this guy just gave us a piece of intel. 840 00:58:24,626 --> 00:58:27,174 ...caught while trying to get away, or, you know, whatever, whatever. 841 00:58:27,254 --> 00:58:28,422 ...named Sewed Hamza. 842 00:58:28,505 --> 00:58:29,548 He can ID him for me. 843 00:58:29,631 --> 00:58:30,928 I gotta get him down here and ID him. 844 00:58:31,008 --> 00:58:37,347 So, here, I'm trying to talk my way into the HVT wing to get to Seyyed, 845 00:58:38,015 --> 00:58:42,853 make my offer on behalf of Martin Brown. 846 00:58:42,936 --> 00:58:44,438 Good, let's go. Hey, Freddy. 847 00:58:45,772 --> 00:58:48,483 And the gambit has worked, so here we go. 848 00:58:49,651 --> 00:58:51,319 More little details. 849 00:58:53,780 --> 00:58:56,116 And Freddy, again, seeing it all. 850 00:58:57,826 --> 00:59:00,704 And I think you have country music playing here, right? Yeah, it's nice. 851 00:59:00,787 --> 00:59:02,956 OGA coming in for an ID check. 852 00:59:03,790 --> 00:59:07,461 Those little details of the basketball game and the music... 853 00:59:19,014 --> 00:59:20,390 Hey, Hamza. 854 00:59:20,599 --> 00:59:21,808 Get up. 855 00:59:24,478 --> 00:59:27,898 On the level of narrative, now, you've got... 856 00:59:28,273 --> 00:59:32,235 - You gotta have the guy give a clue and die. - Yeah, you have to. 857 00:59:33,236 --> 00:59:34,905 I said, get a medic! 858 00:59:34,988 --> 00:59:39,951 But it's not just that. There's that going on, of course, on the surface, 859 00:59:40,035 --> 00:59:46,541 but also, really, it's about Miller getting deeper into this thing. 860 00:59:46,625 --> 00:59:48,835 It's like, it really is not... 861 00:59:50,921 --> 00:59:55,092 You're looking for clarity, and what you're getting is more mystery. 862 00:59:55,675 --> 00:59:58,720 Yeah, which is always a good... 863 00:59:58,804 --> 01:00:03,141 It's a necessary way that you unfold a conspiracy thriller. 864 01:00:03,225 --> 01:00:05,185 That's exactly what you want. 865 01:00:05,685 --> 01:00:10,398 The more mystery there is, the more urgently the central character needs clarity, 866 01:00:10,482 --> 01:00:15,862 and the more urgently he searches for clarity, the more he uncovers more mystery. 867 01:00:17,906 --> 01:00:20,867 For an audience, it's very satisfying, 868 01:00:20,951 --> 01:00:24,454 'cause obviously you know, deep down, the piece is gonna be resolved, 869 01:00:24,538 --> 01:00:26,373 or hopefully will be. 870 01:00:30,252 --> 01:00:34,381 And also, along with that development, 871 01:00:38,093 --> 01:00:40,387 you're unpicking more violence. 872 01:00:40,720 --> 01:00:44,975 Certainly, that's what you get here. 873 01:00:46,017 --> 01:00:48,395 Yeah. It's one of the things that... 874 01:00:48,895 --> 01:00:52,732 If you step back from Baghdad for a moment, 875 01:00:52,816 --> 01:00:58,321 in terms of what it means to everybody watching this thing, 876 01:01:00,574 --> 01:01:03,368 as an environment, it's very, very... 877 01:01:03,451 --> 01:01:06,997 Well, it is now, but certainly even more so then, 878 01:01:07,497 --> 01:01:09,833 was a very extreme environment, 879 01:01:09,916 --> 01:01:15,005 full of danger, physical danger, moral extremity, moral danger, 880 01:01:15,422 --> 01:01:19,050 and that drives the story, doesn't it? 881 01:01:21,386 --> 01:01:25,891 There are things you can do that are harder to do in downtown New York or London. 882 01:01:28,310 --> 01:01:29,811 Where is Mohammed Al Rawi? 883 01:01:30,103 --> 01:01:32,189 I don't know. 884 01:01:51,124 --> 01:01:53,335 The Al Rasheed Hotel. 885 01:01:54,127 --> 01:01:56,421 Gonna go see Lawrie Dayne. 886 01:02:00,842 --> 01:02:02,844 And confront her about... 887 01:02:04,137 --> 01:02:06,598 The sites she's writing about are sites that I've been to, 888 01:02:06,681 --> 01:02:09,142 and there's nothing there. 889 01:02:11,394 --> 01:02:13,897 She was one of the cheerleaders of the 890 01:02:15,982 --> 01:02:17,442 invasion, 891 01:02:23,698 --> 01:02:28,703 with this source she had, Magellan, who we've established she hasn't even met. 892 01:02:29,412 --> 01:02:30,455 So... 893 01:02:35,502 --> 01:02:36,962 Good scene, this one. 894 01:02:38,129 --> 01:02:40,006 Yeah, Amy is terrific. 895 01:02:40,090 --> 01:02:42,425 I'm going to call you right back. 896 01:02:43,093 --> 01:02:44,135 What you got? 897 01:02:44,219 --> 01:02:46,263 Amy kind of exploded onto the scene a few years ago 898 01:02:46,346 --> 01:02:51,351 in Ben's movie, in Gone Baby Gone. She was just wonderful, 899 01:02:51,434 --> 01:02:55,897 and everyone said, "Who the hell is this girl?" 900 01:02:56,273 --> 01:02:59,526 Oh, no. Come on, Miller. I can't discuss my sources with you. 901 01:02:59,609 --> 01:03:01,861 Well, did you ever meet the guy? 902 01:03:02,028 --> 01:03:05,115 Well, it would've been so easy to paint the journalist as... 903 01:03:05,198 --> 01:03:06,992 He's an Iraqi internal, for Christ's sake. 904 01:03:07,117 --> 01:03:09,160 Then how do you know what he's saying is true? 905 01:03:09,244 --> 01:03:11,621 - ...you know, a strident figure. - Right. 906 01:03:11,705 --> 01:03:16,501 I think what's interesting is you take that failing, that all... 907 01:03:16,626 --> 01:03:20,297 Let's face it, a lot of press, 908 01:03:20,380 --> 01:03:22,382 both in the US and the UK, 909 01:03:23,591 --> 01:03:26,845 weren't critical enough about asking questions in the run-up to this thing. 910 01:03:26,928 --> 01:03:29,848 There's no question... Even they would agree with that. 911 01:03:31,933 --> 01:03:35,020 But she portrays it ultimately. 912 01:03:35,186 --> 01:03:37,689 It has already occurred to her 913 01:03:37,772 --> 01:03:40,859 and is already dawning on her before this scene 914 01:03:41,192 --> 01:03:42,527 that she's been had. 915 01:03:42,610 --> 01:03:44,491 And she's not comfortable about it. That's what I mean. 916 01:03:44,571 --> 01:03:48,658 She's not taking the View, with her character, that, 917 01:03:48,742 --> 01:03:52,203 "I'm just gonna cover this up." She's very, very conflicted about it. 918 01:03:52,287 --> 01:03:56,291 And that's what gets revealed in this scene. And I think it's a... 919 01:03:56,416 --> 01:03:59,252 And it's such a tough thing to play, because she is... 920 01:03:59,919 --> 01:04:02,422 You know, you can tell she's been thinking about this. 921 01:04:02,505 --> 01:04:04,507 You can tell this has been eating away at her. 922 01:04:04,591 --> 01:04:06,388 But at the same time, she's trying to defend herself 923 01:04:06,468 --> 01:04:08,014 -from this guy who comes into her room... Exactly. 924 01:04:08,094 --> 01:04:10,764 ...and starts levying all these accusations at her. 925 01:04:10,847 --> 01:04:14,601 And so it's a really tricky scene, 926 01:04:14,684 --> 01:04:17,979 and she just does it really well. 927 01:04:18,104 --> 01:04:21,983 "The truth about Saddam's WMD programs." So I go to meet him. 928 01:04:22,108 --> 01:04:23,943 I remember her giving you degrees, too. 929 01:04:24,027 --> 01:04:26,488 It was take after take, and they were all great. 930 01:04:26,613 --> 01:04:27,614 Yeah. 931 01:04:27,697 --> 01:04:29,783 Magellan's product, the raw intel. 932 01:04:30,533 --> 01:04:31,868 But when do you check the story? 933 01:04:31,951 --> 01:04:34,913 And I believed her when she told her story, 934 01:04:34,996 --> 01:04:38,249 that she'd met this guy and he'd given her the documents. 935 01:04:38,333 --> 01:04:44,047 Actually, the story that she had to work with was quite generalized, in a way, 936 01:04:44,130 --> 01:04:46,216 but she made it feel particular. 937 01:04:46,299 --> 01:04:48,009 And it was in that room 938 01:04:48,134 --> 01:04:52,222 I believed that you believed that she was telling you a real story. 939 01:04:54,140 --> 01:04:57,227 That was very hard for you, that scene, because 940 01:04:58,478 --> 01:05:02,982 in a way, you're just firing questions at her, she's got the work to do. 941 01:05:08,988 --> 01:05:12,867 And you've somehow got to take out of that... 942 01:05:12,992 --> 01:05:15,703 It's got to spring you into life and give you more fuel, 943 01:05:15,829 --> 01:05:18,289 but without you feeling sort of sententious 944 01:05:18,373 --> 01:05:21,042 and kind of, "Oh, my God, I'm gonna give you a moral here." 945 01:05:21,167 --> 01:05:22,168 Right. 946 01:05:22,252 --> 01:05:27,173 I think we were pretty good in this film about not, 947 01:05:28,842 --> 01:05:34,013 yeah, not letting this film at all deviate away from a thriller route 948 01:05:34,097 --> 01:05:36,724 into preaching stuff. 949 01:05:38,059 --> 01:05:43,022 It's a story set in that world at that time, and you can accept it as that. 950 01:05:43,106 --> 01:05:44,858 It doesn't make any sense. 951 01:05:44,941 --> 01:05:47,735 This is some fantastic exposition through here. 952 01:05:48,194 --> 01:05:52,365 - I love it. - Keep it moving, keep it moving, faster. 953 01:05:52,740 --> 01:05:56,703 But, I think, very dramatic, 'cause I think all of us, 954 01:05:58,371 --> 01:06:00,498 at some point, remember a moment 955 01:06:00,582 --> 01:06:03,960 where you kind of go, "Hang on a second, maybe they don't have them." 956 01:06:04,043 --> 01:06:05,587 - Right, right. - You know? 957 01:06:05,712 --> 01:06:09,674 I remember you directing Brendan in this scene, 958 01:06:09,757 --> 01:06:11,638 and telling him it's fun to... He didn't have to... 959 01:06:11,718 --> 01:06:14,596 'Cause we wanted him to be working it out here. 960 01:06:15,930 --> 01:06:18,558 You said how fun it is to watch smart people thinking. 961 01:06:18,641 --> 01:06:19,893 Yeah. 962 01:06:21,561 --> 01:06:25,732 SW, Mohammad N Ram was 'm Amman, Jordan on February 5th, 2003. 963 01:06:27,609 --> 01:06:33,406 John Powell does some very clever work, musically, here. 964 01:06:34,949 --> 01:06:37,076 He's modulating the pulse. 965 01:06:38,411 --> 01:06:43,583 Giving it, holding it back, giving it, holding it back. 966 01:06:45,335 --> 01:06:49,506 Just so that as we step up, now, from here to the end of the movie, 967 01:06:50,840 --> 01:06:54,761 musically, he's got an absolutely... As in any... 968 01:06:55,345 --> 01:07:00,141 Yeah, whether it's the Bourne movies or this or whatever, you know, there's a... 969 01:07:01,100 --> 01:07:05,104 When you actually examine what the composer has to do, 970 01:07:05,188 --> 01:07:11,152 he's got to get you from the beginning of the film to the end, 971 01:07:12,779 --> 01:07:16,282 across bridges, up inclines, 972 01:07:18,117 --> 01:07:20,370 places to push, places to hold back, 973 01:07:20,453 --> 01:07:26,042 and he's gotta give you a graduated journey all the way until your peak, 974 01:07:26,709 --> 01:07:30,797 and that's an incredibly meticulous journey 975 01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:33,633 to do with musical pace, 976 01:07:35,802 --> 01:07:38,304 accuracy and clarity of the themes. 977 01:07:39,722 --> 01:07:41,391 I mean, he's a master of it, isn't he? 978 01:07:41,474 --> 01:07:44,143 - He's an absolute master, I think. - Yeah. 979 01:07:45,019 --> 01:07:46,062 Stop. 980 01:07:55,697 --> 01:07:57,198 Where is Mohammed Al Rawi? 981 01:07:57,991 --> 01:07:59,826 Where is he? 982 01:08:00,493 --> 01:08:01,995 Tell me. 983 01:08:02,328 --> 01:08:05,748 Even if I knew, I would not tell you. 984 01:08:16,009 --> 01:08:17,719 All clear, Chief. 985 01:08:19,679 --> 01:08:21,806 - Send Freddy! - Yes, sir! 986 01:08:21,889 --> 01:08:23,766 Freddy, on the move. 987 01:08:28,563 --> 01:08:30,940 Freddy, I need you to translate. 988 01:08:31,024 --> 01:08:33,526 Tell him I need to get a message to General Al Rawi. 989 01:08:36,571 --> 01:08:40,950 Just starting to feel, now, it's... The pieces are locking in, now, 990 01:08:42,910 --> 01:08:46,539 to create a climax. 991 01:08:46,623 --> 01:08:50,460 It's almost like you've got to bring your pieces to the field. 992 01:08:52,045 --> 01:08:54,300 There's a lot of heavy lifts you have to do, isn't there, in a movie, 993 01:08:54,380 --> 01:08:57,508 to get to a place where you can let it unfold. 994 01:08:57,592 --> 01:09:00,887 I told him I'd meet him at the Adhamiya bus station tonight. 995 01:09:01,220 --> 01:09:03,640 If I can bring him in alive, then we'll have our proof. 996 01:09:03,723 --> 01:09:06,559 If he talks, then we'll get the truth about WMD. 997 01:09:06,684 --> 01:09:08,728 And again, this was something I was saying earlier, 998 01:09:08,853 --> 01:09:11,606 although this story here is quite simple, 999 01:09:12,357 --> 01:09:15,151 the positioning of, say, your character in this scene now, 1000 01:09:15,234 --> 01:09:21,199 where you've fully got behind the idea that Al Rawi must be brought in, 1001 01:09:22,408 --> 01:09:26,537 where before, you were absolutely, firmly of a different view, 1002 01:09:27,288 --> 01:09:28,960 you've understood something quite different, 1003 01:09:29,040 --> 01:09:31,668 that he can help... 1004 01:09:31,751 --> 01:09:33,920 All right, listen up, we're going to Adhamiya. 1005 01:09:34,045 --> 01:09:36,631 ...in terms of stopping the insurgency. 1006 01:09:36,756 --> 01:09:41,719 In effect, you're starting to see him not so much as an enemy, but a possible ally. 1007 01:09:41,803 --> 01:09:44,514 That's quite a big journey for a character to take. 1008 01:09:44,597 --> 01:09:49,977 And, of course, Freddy is very uncomfortable with that as an idea. 1009 01:09:50,937 --> 01:09:54,774 But you have to commit yourself, and Miller's made his choice. 1010 01:09:58,444 --> 01:10:00,279 And in a way... 1011 01:10:00,405 --> 01:10:01,572 Let's roll! 1012 01:10:03,282 --> 01:10:07,620 ...it's only possibly an heroic choice from Miller's point of View. 1013 01:10:08,079 --> 01:10:10,707 If you're an audience, are you fully behind him? 1014 01:10:10,790 --> 01:10:12,792 - Sort of. - Right. 1015 01:10:13,251 --> 01:10:15,294 But there's something that, 1016 01:10:16,963 --> 01:10:19,716 in this world, in this story, 1017 01:10:19,799 --> 01:10:24,846 it's very hard to be comfortable about a black-and-White choice for the hero, I think. 1018 01:10:25,012 --> 01:10:26,097 Right, right, it's not... 1019 01:10:26,180 --> 01:10:30,143 You start black and white and, I think, you end black and white. 1020 01:10:30,768 --> 01:10:37,608 But it's always degrees of moral lack of clarity. 1021 01:10:40,611 --> 01:10:41,654 Tell me. 1022 01:10:43,698 --> 01:10:47,535 You're starting to view him slightly differently, aren't you, at this point? 1023 01:10:47,952 --> 01:10:50,204 Cause you know he's a bad guy... 1024 01:10:51,456 --> 01:10:54,500 He wants to meet you, sir. 1025 01:10:55,376 --> 01:10:56,794 ...but what's his game? 1026 01:11:14,312 --> 01:11:15,813 Republican Palace. 1027 01:11:18,357 --> 01:11:21,652 Got to get a little "Mission accomplished" in there. 1028 01:11:22,862 --> 01:11:24,530 Well, in terms of our story... 1029 01:11:24,655 --> 01:11:26,324 Captain Card, 1030 01:11:26,991 --> 01:11:29,452 officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln... 1031 01:11:29,535 --> 01:11:35,666 ...this is the moment, in any thriller, where the bad guy thinks he's won. 1032 01:11:37,210 --> 01:11:39,796 In the battle of Iraq, the United States... 1033 01:11:39,879 --> 01:11:43,299 Which, in a perfect world, you'll always want to precede the moment 1034 01:11:43,382 --> 01:11:45,843 when it all collapses for him. 1035 01:11:48,596 --> 01:11:50,348 And that's, kind of, 1036 01:11:54,227 --> 01:11:56,020 the card we're playing here. 1037 01:11:56,729 --> 01:11:58,064 - Yeah? - This is Briggs. 1038 01:11:58,189 --> 01:12:00,525 There you go. "We got a problem." 1039 01:12:00,608 --> 01:12:02,276 My local assets are down. 1040 01:12:02,401 --> 01:12:06,113 I got a report saying it was US Army took them out and nobody called it in. 1041 01:12:06,239 --> 01:12:07,698 Where's Miller? 1042 01:12:08,199 --> 01:12:09,283 Stand by. 1043 01:12:10,076 --> 01:12:13,371 All right, listen up. I need everybody on a Blue Force Tracker. 1044 01:12:13,454 --> 01:12:15,414 Met-Delta 85th, XTF. 1045 01:12:19,085 --> 01:12:23,548 Poor Greg wasn't dealt the best card on the mobile phone, was he there? 1046 01:12:24,924 --> 01:12:28,761 2003, special issue, big sat phone. 1047 01:12:35,726 --> 01:12:39,188 Well, now, we're getting a chase. 1048 01:12:39,272 --> 01:12:41,399 - Now it's ramping up. - Yeah. 1049 01:12:42,608 --> 01:12:45,611 He's meeting with Al Rawi. Son of a bitch. 1050 01:12:45,736 --> 01:12:48,990 Which is what you want. You want move and countermove in a... 1051 01:12:49,115 --> 01:12:52,368 Follow Miller. He'll lead you right to him. And when you find Al Rawi... 1052 01:12:52,451 --> 01:12:54,704 In these sorts of stories, you want... 1053 01:12:54,787 --> 01:12:57,498 - What about Miller? - He's off reservation. 1054 01:12:57,623 --> 01:13:02,545 ...the main protagonist to be following a strong agenda, 1055 01:13:02,628 --> 01:13:07,133 and that causing collision. 1056 01:13:07,258 --> 01:13:11,345 Other characters have then got to do things in response. 1057 01:13:11,470 --> 01:13:17,560 And that causes your central character to have to modify or change his or her plans. 1058 01:13:17,643 --> 01:13:21,147 You're getting a ballet, basically. 1059 01:13:21,272 --> 01:13:25,943 A physical dance, basically. 1060 01:13:27,486 --> 01:13:32,658 'Cause once you've got it into that state, you can start to develop pace and attack, 1061 01:13:34,368 --> 01:13:35,786 and now we're getting it. 1062 01:13:35,870 --> 01:13:38,122 I need a 0-2 bird with eyes over Adhamiya. 1063 01:13:38,205 --> 01:13:41,709 I want an ISO on all military radio and cell phone transmissions. 1064 01:13:41,834 --> 01:13:46,672 We're at the very beginnings now of what is, in effect, 1065 01:13:47,840 --> 01:13:54,055 I don't know, must be a good 20 minutes of sustained action. 1066 01:13:56,557 --> 01:13:58,726 When you're in a cutting room, 1067 01:14:01,270 --> 01:14:05,232 the big job is just interleaving these elements 1068 01:14:05,358 --> 01:14:08,486 so you've got clarity 1069 01:14:10,237 --> 01:14:14,200 and you're able to moderate pace. 1070 01:14:16,744 --> 01:14:20,998 - That's where Mr. Rouse is a master. - Yeah, man, he sure is. 1071 01:14:21,499 --> 01:14:23,542 It's something big, Marty. 1072 01:14:26,629 --> 01:14:29,799 Now we go down for CPA orders one and two. 1073 01:14:37,223 --> 01:14:40,810 This whole section was a massive challenge 1074 01:14:40,893 --> 01:14:44,814 for our lords of the camera. 1075 01:14:45,564 --> 01:14:48,234 Barry Ackroyd, our DOP. 1076 01:14:52,655 --> 01:14:54,323 He and I go way back. 1077 01:14:54,991 --> 01:15:01,330 We did United 93 together and then, obviously, he shot Hurl Looker, brilliantly. 1078 01:15:04,583 --> 01:15:09,755 And he had the problem of... Which we talked about several times. 1079 01:15:09,880 --> 01:15:12,008 I wanted night to be night. 1080 01:15:13,509 --> 01:15:17,596 And I wanted to see if we could shoot, 1081 01:15:18,764 --> 01:15:21,058 effectively, an action thriller 1082 01:15:22,268 --> 01:15:24,020 finale, a large piece, 1083 01:15:24,854 --> 01:15:30,693 but with the true demands of it being night. 1084 01:15:30,776 --> 01:15:32,695 In other words, I didn't want it to be overlit. 1085 01:15:32,778 --> 01:15:35,906 I didn't want to give him or Klemens 1086 01:15:37,283 --> 01:15:40,453 and all the other operators, but principally Klemens, 1087 01:15:43,581 --> 01:15:46,709 the amount of light that they would have most needed 1088 01:15:46,792 --> 01:15:50,212 to be able to follow this kind of physicality 1089 01:15:50,296 --> 01:15:56,218 with any, sort of, hope of success, in terms of focus. 1090 01:15:57,636 --> 01:16:01,974 It made their life incredibly hard. 1091 01:16:03,309 --> 01:16:05,311 But they never complained and they went for it. 1092 01:16:05,394 --> 01:16:07,146 I mean, incredible... 1093 01:16:08,439 --> 01:16:11,067 As a director, you know, it's that thing of, 1094 01:16:11,150 --> 01:16:15,404 you look sometimes, or not sometimes, every single day, 1095 01:16:15,988 --> 01:16:21,494 at the quality of courage 1096 01:16:21,577 --> 01:16:24,830 that the people that make the film with you are willing to... 1097 01:16:24,955 --> 01:16:28,292 Whether it's you or Barry or Sammy, 1098 01:16:28,584 --> 01:16:32,505 the things you ask, as a director, of people to do 1099 01:16:32,630 --> 01:16:34,423 that can expose them. 1100 01:16:34,757 --> 01:16:38,135 My rushes might not look good, and yet they go for it. 1101 01:16:38,969 --> 01:16:44,100 I mean, he's probably on a 40 here, but this is Steadicam and it's dark in there. 1102 01:16:44,183 --> 01:16:46,018 - -Yeah. - I mean, look at that. 1103 01:16:46,143 --> 01:16:47,937 - And there's a ton of... - Pitch. 1104 01:16:48,020 --> 01:16:53,275 Yeah. A ton of longer-lens stuff of me walking, alternately, 1105 01:16:53,359 --> 01:16:56,529 and running and stopping, and the camera moving, it's really... 1106 01:16:56,612 --> 01:17:01,367 The focal plane was very shallow and maybe never... 1107 01:17:03,536 --> 01:17:05,955 They're just a terrific crew. 1108 01:17:06,622 --> 01:17:07,957 Terrific crew. 1109 01:17:08,040 --> 01:17:14,964 I think that a lot of DOPs would never have let me do what Barry... 1110 01:17:15,297 --> 01:17:19,552 But you needed that. I mean, just walking into this dark... 1111 01:17:19,635 --> 01:17:23,806 It looks real. It was. It was dark. I mean, you know... 1112 01:17:24,682 --> 01:17:25,975 And I think it... Yeah. 1113 01:17:26,058 --> 01:17:30,312 You can look at some of the images from here on to the end and say, 1114 01:17:31,230 --> 01:17:36,652 "Well, technically, they're edgy," and all of that. 1115 01:17:38,028 --> 01:17:44,410 But that's what makes the sequence feel like it's got the bite of reality. 1116 01:17:45,369 --> 01:17:48,080 It doesn't have the gloss 1117 01:17:49,707 --> 01:17:50,833 of fiction. 1118 01:17:50,916 --> 01:17:55,546 Somewhere it, sort of, sits between the two, which is good, I think. 1119 01:17:56,755 --> 01:17:58,177 I always love this little sequence, too, 1120 01:17:58,257 --> 01:18:00,843 because it's like he's at home, he's watching. 1121 01:18:00,926 --> 01:18:04,847 He's watching the fact that they've de-Ba'athified 1122 01:18:04,930 --> 01:18:06,182 and they've disbanded the army, 1123 01:18:06,265 --> 01:18:10,269 and it's just, instantaneously, these guys pick up their arms. 1124 01:18:10,394 --> 01:18:13,606 - It's just that they've been waiting. - It's gonna be no deal. 1125 01:18:13,731 --> 01:18:17,109 That's it. So it's an insurgency, 1126 01:18:17,193 --> 01:18:20,446 and the connection between those two things, 1127 01:18:21,947 --> 01:18:27,703 sending hundreds of thousands of people away, armed, and saying, 1128 01:18:27,786 --> 01:18:30,289 "There's not a place for you in this country." 1129 01:18:31,457 --> 01:18:34,460 But what's interesting is, is that thing... 1130 01:18:35,878 --> 01:18:39,632 Now, morally, the equation's turned again. 1131 01:18:39,757 --> 01:18:41,884 Yeah, you were seeking him as an ally, 1132 01:18:41,967 --> 01:18:45,262 Miller was seeking him as an ally five minutes ago. 1133 01:18:45,596 --> 01:18:47,973 And as an audience, you're probably uncomfortable with that, 1134 01:18:48,098 --> 01:18:50,643 but you're probably, in terms of the story of this film, going, 1135 01:18:50,768 --> 01:18:54,146 "Okay, well, our hero wants that and it's going to help present..." 1136 01:18:54,230 --> 01:18:58,400 Now, Al Rawi is throwing down. 1137 01:18:58,484 --> 01:19:04,990 So the idea of using him as an ally, at this point, is impossible. 1138 01:19:05,115 --> 01:19:08,577 So the entire moral equation for Miller, 1139 01:19:08,661 --> 01:19:11,000 - although he doesn't yet know it... - He doesn't know it yet. 1140 01:19:11,080 --> 01:19:12,790 ...has been removed. 1141 01:19:15,125 --> 01:19:17,670 - Unless he can talk him out of it. - Yeah. 1142 01:19:18,170 --> 01:19:21,674 But yes, no, barring that, then they're at war. 1143 01:19:23,509 --> 01:19:25,010 I lost contact. 1144 01:19:31,934 --> 01:19:35,479 This is Rouse getting me out of dutch there. 1145 01:19:36,313 --> 01:19:40,150 Collapsing the time a little bit, so we can buy that. 1146 01:19:40,985 --> 01:19:42,573 They're always hideous moments, aren't they? 1147 01:19:42,653 --> 01:19:44,321 Trying to get people in and out of cars. 1148 01:19:44,405 --> 01:19:46,573 - 'Cause the truth is... - So slow... 1149 01:19:47,283 --> 01:19:52,329 But you always want them to feel dynamic onscreen, so get the scissors in. 1150 01:19:53,872 --> 01:19:56,583 All units, we need help in the Adhamiya district. 1151 01:19:56,667 --> 01:19:59,169 Copy that, MET Team. This is Vanguard 6 and TF221. 1152 01:19:59,253 --> 01:20:04,550 And we, to a lesser extent on this film than the past two Bourne films, 1153 01:20:04,633 --> 01:20:09,680 but still, he was there for a little while, Dan Bradley came. 1154 01:20:09,930 --> 01:20:11,056 - -Yeah. - And... 1155 01:20:12,266 --> 01:20:14,351 - Just when we needed him most, actually. - Yeah. 1156 01:20:14,435 --> 01:20:18,105 You know what I mean? He came in towards the end 1157 01:20:18,188 --> 01:20:22,067 when we still had a mountain of action to climb 1158 01:20:22,776 --> 01:20:24,611 and not a lot of time to do it. 1159 01:20:24,695 --> 01:20:29,616 And just that huge, massive 1160 01:20:30,659 --> 01:20:32,286 - energy... - Yes, yes. 1161 01:20:33,787 --> 01:20:38,083 He helped us get over the line, actually, is the truth of it, isn't it? 1162 01:20:39,960 --> 01:20:42,755 Now he's a first unit director, so hopefully we'll... 1163 01:20:42,838 --> 01:20:44,631 Yeah. Yeah. 1164 01:20:51,263 --> 01:20:53,515 Yeah, he has 1165 01:20:55,851 --> 01:20:58,604 - done a lot for me. - Me, too. 1166 01:21:02,274 --> 01:21:05,736 It's that old thing. As a director, you get given a lot of credit 1167 01:21:05,819 --> 01:21:10,783 for a lot of things that belong to the people who work alongside you, in truth. 1168 01:21:11,408 --> 01:21:14,453 - Well, you get the blame, too. 80... - Yeah, that's true. 1169 01:21:14,536 --> 01:21:15,624 - -Yeah. In fact, what am I saying? - Yeah, 1170 01:21:15,704 --> 01:21:17,001 - I don't know what you're talking about. - Yeah. 1171 01:21:17,081 --> 01:21:20,000 - Take the credit. - It was all my work, wasn't it? 1172 01:21:23,796 --> 01:21:25,339 Well, now, we're into... 1173 01:21:26,465 --> 01:21:29,176 We're getting this chase into a good place, now. 1174 01:21:30,052 --> 01:21:32,221 You know, you're setting up a fort, 1175 01:21:32,304 --> 01:21:35,933 so there's gonna be a physical place where it's gonna take place. 1176 01:21:37,017 --> 01:21:39,645 You've got your hero in great difficulty. 1177 01:21:40,687 --> 01:21:41,730 And... 1178 01:21:49,029 --> 01:21:52,908 Briggs is onto you. And here come the cavalry. 1179 01:21:52,991 --> 01:21:54,076 All the high-tech... 1180 01:21:54,159 --> 01:21:55,372 We're three klicks from target area. 1181 01:21:55,452 --> 01:21:57,871 All right, put us down. Find an LZ a klick from here. 1182 01:21:57,955 --> 01:22:00,040 But again, it's playing with, 1183 01:22:01,834 --> 01:22:05,671 "Are we on their side? Are we on your side? Are you working together? Are you not?" 1184 01:22:05,754 --> 01:22:08,549 You know, it's the... 1185 01:22:11,718 --> 01:22:14,054 Hopefully, the feeling in this film 1186 01:22:14,138 --> 01:22:18,725 that you've got a driving, straight thriller premise, 1187 01:22:18,809 --> 01:22:23,313 your hero's in jeopardy, people are coming, there's a bad guy he's gonna confront, 1188 01:22:24,356 --> 01:22:29,736 is pitted against... But the bad guys are the ones coming to get you out. 1189 01:22:31,947 --> 01:22:34,241 It's all a little bit unclear. 1190 01:22:35,868 --> 01:22:38,287 I like that in this film. 1191 01:22:50,883 --> 01:22:54,803 Jason wanted to do the going-down-the-rope thing for 50 feet, 1192 01:22:56,180 --> 01:22:59,725 - but unfortunately... - We ran out of time. 1193 01:23:01,018 --> 01:23:03,437 This is good. It's always... Yeah. 1194 01:23:03,979 --> 01:23:07,191 Whenever a teenager has a gun to your head, it's not a good thing. 1195 01:23:07,274 --> 01:23:08,946 No, you don't know quite what's gonna happen. 1196 01:23:09,026 --> 01:23:10,319 You don't know. 1197 01:23:10,402 --> 01:23:14,031 - I love this look from Yigal here. - Yeah, I know. 1198 01:23:14,448 --> 01:23:18,202 - He just looks at him, look. Yeah. - He just looks at him. 1199 01:23:18,285 --> 01:23:19,620 "Fuck off." 1200 01:23:21,246 --> 01:23:23,916 And he doesn't like it. It's like, 1201 01:23:23,999 --> 01:23:28,128 - "Have you got balls, or what?" Yeah. - There's nothing you can do. 1202 01:23:29,755 --> 01:23:32,424 Yeah, Yigal was just... And look at how spare he is, 1203 01:23:32,508 --> 01:23:36,261 he just doesn't... There's no superfluous movement. 1204 01:23:36,345 --> 01:23:37,596 - -Yeah. - It's just... 1205 01:23:37,679 --> 01:23:39,681 I'm a chief warrant officer with the US Army. 1206 01:23:39,765 --> 01:23:42,601 - Well, this is the sort of... - I found it really easy 1207 01:23:43,393 --> 01:23:48,482 to play these scenes with him because he's just a very honest actor. 1208 01:23:48,565 --> 01:23:52,110 And if you look into his eyes, he's right there. 1209 01:23:53,237 --> 01:23:56,490 I really liked watching him. 1210 01:23:58,534 --> 01:24:01,119 - He's Iraqi by birth. - Yeah. 1211 01:24:01,245 --> 01:24:07,417 And he had a great love and understanding of the country. 1212 01:24:10,420 --> 01:24:12,005 What programs? 1213 01:24:12,965 --> 01:24:14,216 There are no programs. 1214 01:24:14,299 --> 01:24:18,887 And I think somewhere in that conflicted, 1215 01:24:21,598 --> 01:24:25,102 Iraqi-by-birth, but, obviously, having not grown up there, 1216 01:24:25,936 --> 01:24:31,858 somewhere, that confusion, in a sense, he brought to that character. 1217 01:24:33,569 --> 01:24:37,489 Because that character is a man 1218 01:24:38,448 --> 01:24:42,661 who grew up in the Ba'athist system. He's not a good man at all. 1219 01:24:42,744 --> 01:24:43,999 - Right. - He'd have had to have been 1220 01:24:44,079 --> 01:24:46,748 - a ruthless, ambitious careerist. - Absolutely, yeah. 1221 01:24:46,832 --> 01:24:50,961 But he's not a psychopathic Saddamite. 1222 01:24:51,044 --> 01:24:52,504 Right, right. 1223 01:24:53,297 --> 01:24:55,465 He would have had to have dealt with those people, 1224 01:24:55,549 --> 01:24:59,261 and he certainly prospered on them, but he didn't approve of them. 1225 01:24:59,344 --> 01:25:02,639 He's a nationalist. He's a strong... 1226 01:25:02,723 --> 01:25:05,892 And he thought his moment had come, Al Rawi, didn't he? 1227 01:25:06,018 --> 01:25:09,271 He thought he was gonna emerge as a leading player 1228 01:25:10,022 --> 01:25:12,149 in post-invasion Iraq, 1229 01:25:12,232 --> 01:25:18,196 because he dealt with the US in advance. 1230 01:25:18,780 --> 01:25:23,785 He tried to, in a sense, see which way the wind was blowing 1231 01:25:24,036 --> 01:25:27,956 and play his cards accordingly. And, of course, he gets betrayed, 1232 01:25:28,040 --> 01:25:31,043 and you feel the real... 1233 01:25:31,126 --> 01:25:35,297 And what I liked was when we talked about when we did that scene, 1234 01:25:36,048 --> 01:25:39,259 I think I'm giving him a piece of information that's... 1235 01:25:39,968 --> 01:25:42,721 "No, but you see it's all been this horrible misunderstanding." 1236 01:25:42,804 --> 01:25:44,973 - Yeah, yeah. - But what he can speak to 1237 01:25:45,057 --> 01:25:48,644 with absolute authority is the way that power works. 1238 01:25:48,727 --> 01:25:49,811 Yeah. 1239 01:25:51,897 --> 01:25:54,858 And it just dawns on me when he says, 1240 01:25:54,941 --> 01:25:57,235 "They heard exactly what they wanted to hear." 1241 01:25:57,402 --> 01:25:59,696 General, if you come in with me... 1242 01:25:59,780 --> 01:26:02,949 No, no, the film 1243 01:26:03,075 --> 01:26:07,746 - is, in many ways, the education of Miller... - Yeah. 1244 01:26:09,414 --> 01:26:12,542 - ...to the realities of power. - Yeah. 1245 01:26:12,626 --> 01:26:14,753 This is how it really works. 1246 01:26:15,337 --> 01:26:17,923 Look at Yigal here. I mean, he just... 1247 01:26:18,090 --> 01:26:21,385 Why take Iraq apart piece by piece? 1248 01:26:21,468 --> 01:26:23,178 Just utterly believable. 1249 01:26:23,261 --> 01:26:26,348 It's a great moment, though. I love the way your head goes down, 1250 01:26:26,431 --> 01:26:29,309 'cause it's sort of crushed you, too. You know what I mean? 1251 01:26:29,434 --> 01:26:31,061 - -Yeah. - You've gone in there, 1252 01:26:31,144 --> 01:26:32,729 "No, but wait! Hang on a second!" 1253 01:26:32,813 --> 01:26:34,526 -You know what I mean? It's like... Exactly. 1254 01:26:34,606 --> 01:26:38,860 "I've got this piece of information." And the other shoe drops. 1255 01:26:38,944 --> 01:26:41,571 And you're in a world of problems now. 1256 01:26:41,655 --> 01:26:44,616 So Where is my place, Mr. Miller? 1257 01:26:45,283 --> 01:26:47,119 "On a deck of cards?" I love the way... 1258 01:26:47,953 --> 01:26:51,164 And what I love about that, as well, is, he goes personal, doesn't he? 1259 01:26:51,289 --> 01:26:53,253 - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You feel there's a real personal 1260 01:26:53,333 --> 01:26:54,835 sense of betrayal. It's like... 1261 01:26:54,960 --> 01:26:56,837 And his whole life had been leading up to this. 1262 01:26:56,962 --> 01:26:57,963 Yeah. 1263 01:26:58,046 --> 01:27:01,803 Finally, there's a place where this guy is positioned to... 1264 01:27:01,883 --> 01:27:03,176 Take over. 1265 01:27:06,972 --> 01:27:08,807 And now, he's gonna take it out on you. 1266 01:27:13,979 --> 01:27:17,023 Quickly! The Americans are coming! 1267 01:27:18,692 --> 01:27:21,027 You know, these guys were all Special Forces, 1268 01:27:21,153 --> 01:27:23,405 and Jason is utterly convincing. 1269 01:27:25,157 --> 01:27:26,199 Utterly convincing. 1270 01:27:26,324 --> 01:27:28,535 I mean, one of the best guys We ever heard do accents, 1271 01:27:28,660 --> 01:27:30,662 American accents, that is. 1272 01:27:31,204 --> 01:27:36,084 The accent that he's got in this movie, I would never know that he was English. 1273 01:27:37,669 --> 01:27:39,337 He just really has 1274 01:27:39,921 --> 01:27:44,885 - got a real, real facility for that. - Yeah. 1275 01:27:45,010 --> 01:27:47,804 But the whole characterization is because he'd spent a lot of time 1276 01:27:47,888 --> 01:27:50,515 when he did Black Hawk Down, just the way he moves, 1277 01:27:50,599 --> 01:27:53,518 he's very, very physical, very convincing. 1278 01:27:54,227 --> 01:27:55,440 And wears a hell of a mustache. 1279 01:27:55,520 --> 01:27:57,731 And wears a hell of a mustache, that's right. 1280 01:27:57,856 --> 01:28:00,525 Pored over every detail with these guys 1281 01:28:00,609 --> 01:28:02,819 to make sure that there was not one little thing... 1282 01:28:02,903 --> 01:28:05,655 I always say that performances are about details, 1283 01:28:05,739 --> 01:28:09,326 and he's just really wonderful in that way. 1284 01:28:09,409 --> 01:28:11,745 And, incidentally, the Special Forces guy on the set, 1285 01:28:11,870 --> 01:28:15,332 who was looking after us for security, had the same mustache. 1286 01:28:15,415 --> 01:28:16,750 - So... - Yeah. 1287 01:28:16,875 --> 01:28:18,877 ...if you fight us. 1288 01:28:20,587 --> 01:28:23,548 You have to come in now before it's too late. 1289 01:28:23,632 --> 01:28:26,676 You think the war is over. 1290 01:28:26,760 --> 01:28:28,553 Now we're sort of, 1291 01:28:29,805 --> 01:28:33,058 in terms of choreographing action, 1292 01:28:33,600 --> 01:28:35,477 you're at the perfect moment 1293 01:28:35,894 --> 01:28:39,564 where you're gonna let it go. 1294 01:28:39,773 --> 01:28:43,151 It's all been, really, for this build. And there you go. 1295 01:28:44,319 --> 01:28:49,491 One by one, you see all of our guys throw themselves into the fight. 1296 01:28:49,574 --> 01:28:51,284 - -Yeah. - Join the fight. 1297 01:28:54,162 --> 01:28:55,413 Grenade! 1298 01:28:55,497 --> 01:28:56,832 Go! Go! 1299 01:29:03,588 --> 01:29:06,174 This is, again, one of those Rouse things where it's an eggy bit. 1300 01:29:06,258 --> 01:29:08,343 How do you get four guys with guns out of the room? 1301 01:29:08,426 --> 01:29:11,429 - -Yeah. - He may still be alive, and... 1302 01:29:12,430 --> 01:29:14,683 But that's just one of those... 1303 01:29:16,518 --> 01:29:20,772 Well, often, I think, in these sorts of films, 1304 01:29:21,940 --> 01:29:25,360 you reach moments like that where certain things have to happen, 1305 01:29:25,443 --> 01:29:27,362 in terms of physicality. 1306 01:29:27,863 --> 01:29:32,909 And it's very often the conviction with which you do them that carries them. 1307 01:29:32,993 --> 01:29:36,288 Rouse did a really good job of cutting back to all these other stories, 1308 01:29:36,371 --> 01:29:41,209 so there's a disorientation that you get because the chaos of battle has started. 1309 01:29:41,293 --> 01:29:43,879 - -Yeah. - And that allows for a lot, too. 1310 01:29:45,547 --> 01:29:50,468 You can see a messy fight where these guys are digging at each other's eyes and... 1311 01:29:55,557 --> 01:29:57,559 Come on! Move! 1312 01:29:58,643 --> 01:30:01,730 I mean, I always wanted this film to kind of... 1313 01:30:03,064 --> 01:30:07,277 You've got to believe, "Okay, it's a story. It's not exactly how it happened." 1314 01:30:07,360 --> 01:30:10,113 Although these sorts of things absolutely did happen. 1315 01:30:10,196 --> 01:30:13,742 But I wanted it to feel like the insurgency had started, 1316 01:30:13,825 --> 01:30:16,745 that somewhere, the stakes of the film 1317 01:30:16,828 --> 01:30:20,040 that you stated from the beginning, "Is this world..." 1318 01:30:20,206 --> 01:30:22,918 Okay, it happens to be Iraq, that's the world we're talking about. 1319 01:30:23,043 --> 01:30:25,962 "Is this world gonna be okay or not?" 1320 01:30:26,046 --> 01:30:29,466 And you want to feel that the story that we're telling 1321 01:30:30,133 --> 01:30:33,386 is intimately bound up with what's happening in the wider world, 1322 01:30:33,511 --> 01:30:35,305 and this is it. 1323 01:30:35,722 --> 01:30:39,976 Al Rawi's thrown down. The Sunni insurgency's beginning, 1324 01:30:44,689 --> 01:30:45,857 and now, 1325 01:30:47,025 --> 01:30:51,196 it feels to me like, morally, we're entering a different phase again. 1326 01:30:51,321 --> 01:30:56,493 Because you're still determined to bring him in, 1327 01:31:00,830 --> 01:31:03,083 but to what end? Do you know what I mean? 1328 01:31:04,876 --> 01:31:06,586 It's almost because 1329 01:31:08,546 --> 01:31:12,008 you've got to complete your mission, really, isn't it? 1330 01:31:12,217 --> 01:31:15,303 Yeah, I mean, as long as there is any chance 1331 01:31:15,387 --> 01:31:18,890 that he can be convinced to stand his men down... 1332 01:31:22,018 --> 01:31:24,437 - Although, given CPA... - Or that bringing him in 1333 01:31:24,562 --> 01:31:26,982 - -and telling the truth, I think is... - Yeah, yeah. 1334 01:31:27,065 --> 01:31:29,567 ...sort of where you're getting, aren't you? 1335 01:31:31,194 --> 01:31:35,198 You know, I might not be able to solve the problems of the world, 1336 01:31:36,032 --> 01:31:37,325 but that is my piece. 1337 01:31:37,409 --> 01:31:40,745 That's the piece I came for and that's the piece I'm gonna get. 1338 01:31:40,870 --> 01:31:44,374 Right. It's like what we were talking about the other day. 1339 01:31:44,457 --> 01:31:47,377 - I can't do anything about the big... - Yeah. 1340 01:31:49,129 --> 01:31:51,423 The larger forces at work here. 1341 01:31:56,594 --> 01:31:58,555 It's amazing. When you... 1342 01:32:00,390 --> 01:32:04,978 People who don't watch this DVD wonder what, say, 1343 01:32:05,103 --> 01:32:08,523 you and I spend a lot of our time talking about during the making of a film. 1344 01:32:08,606 --> 01:32:10,942 Yeah, some of it will be technical issues. 1345 01:32:11,067 --> 01:32:14,112 But, yeah, and there's always that sort of 1346 01:32:16,072 --> 01:32:18,158 joke shtick about, "What's my motivation?" 1347 01:32:18,283 --> 01:32:22,078 But the truth is, trying to piece together, 1348 01:32:23,329 --> 01:32:29,419 together, a director and an actor, in any given situation, 1349 01:32:29,502 --> 01:32:32,714 trying to find out why you're doing what you're doing 1350 01:32:32,797 --> 01:32:35,341 and what you're aiming for, and what you're gonna get out of it, 1351 01:32:35,467 --> 01:32:38,553 and what that will give you to go to the next scene 1352 01:32:38,636 --> 01:32:40,263 is a huge part of it. 1353 01:32:40,346 --> 01:32:43,892 Because if you can piece those pieces together, 1354 01:32:43,975 --> 01:32:46,272 and they're often very conflicting... It's never clear, is it? 1355 01:32:46,352 --> 01:32:50,940 Sometimes. But a lot of the time, in the really big stuff, it isn't clear, 1356 01:32:51,024 --> 01:32:53,651 or it's contradictory or it's duplicator y. 1357 01:32:53,777 --> 01:32:57,822 But if you can get some clarity, that's the foundation stone, isn't it, 1358 01:32:58,323 --> 01:33:02,118 for a film that feels right. 1359 01:33:03,036 --> 01:33:04,954 - You know? - Yeah, yeah. 1360 01:33:06,331 --> 01:33:10,335 It goes back to that point about the writer will have had a go 1361 01:33:10,460 --> 01:33:13,755 at solving those problems, and will have solved some of them, 1362 01:33:13,838 --> 01:33:17,175 and others of them will have offered a fix to those problems. 1363 01:33:17,300 --> 01:33:21,846 And then you take that, and during the process of making it, 1364 01:33:21,971 --> 01:33:25,141 you explore those solutions. 1365 01:33:25,225 --> 01:33:29,229 And some of them hold good, and some of them you shift and amend. 1366 01:33:29,854 --> 01:33:32,107 And that's basically the way a film's made, isn't it? 1367 01:33:32,190 --> 01:33:35,485 It's a constant process of going down a tunnel 1368 01:33:36,653 --> 01:33:38,404 further and further, 1369 01:33:39,989 --> 01:33:41,491 collectively, 1370 01:33:42,325 --> 01:33:46,329 to find a truth. That's what you're aiming at. 1371 01:33:46,412 --> 01:33:51,042 And when films work, somewhere, collectively, 1372 01:33:52,585 --> 01:33:54,796 it all feels purposeful. 1373 01:33:54,879 --> 01:33:58,007 And you get to the end and go, "Oh, yeah, I get it." 1374 01:34:00,718 --> 01:34:03,721 But it rarely feels like that when you're in the middle of it, does it? 1375 01:34:03,847 --> 01:34:06,766 Well, certainly, this one was very tricky. 1376 01:34:06,891 --> 01:34:08,893 No, I mean, we really... 1377 01:34:10,228 --> 01:34:12,147 There were some things we knew the whole time 1378 01:34:12,230 --> 01:34:14,315 and we definitely knew going in, 1379 01:34:14,399 --> 01:34:17,735 and then there were just some things that we didn't. 1380 01:34:17,944 --> 01:34:22,782 And you're very inhibited, inevitably, by the real-world aspects 1381 01:34:22,907 --> 01:34:25,451 and the sensitivities of the war. 1382 01:34:25,577 --> 01:34:30,707 So we were talking about real soldiers. That's why they were there. To constantly... 1383 01:34:31,040 --> 01:34:34,294 The fact that this was occurring in Iraq, 1384 01:34:34,419 --> 01:34:37,088 so there were sensitivities there... 1385 01:34:40,633 --> 01:34:46,306 It's not easy making a piece of fiction this close to the real world, 1386 01:34:46,431 --> 01:34:50,727 using this many elements that are, in truth, drawn from the real world, 1387 01:34:51,603 --> 01:34:55,648 spun around in a way that will support 1388 01:34:57,483 --> 01:35:00,320 a thriller, and yet be true to that world, 1389 01:35:01,779 --> 01:35:06,659 sensitive to that world, but also give an audience, that are gonna watch it, 1390 01:35:06,784 --> 01:35:12,373 the feeling that they're gonna be rewarded by watching it in every way. 1391 01:35:12,457 --> 01:35:17,629 It's gonna be a cinematic experience. It's gonna have a ride element like this. 1392 01:35:18,963 --> 01:35:21,007 You're gonna feel that you're... 1393 01:35:22,634 --> 01:35:25,261 It's been worth you watching this thing. 1394 01:35:25,345 --> 01:35:30,558 And it felt, didn't it, like there were a lot of factors 1395 01:35:30,642 --> 01:35:34,437 - that we had to steer through. - Yeah, definitely, definitely. 1396 01:35:35,438 --> 01:35:38,358 And a couple paths we had to half-head down. 1397 01:35:38,483 --> 01:35:39,525 Yeah. 1398 01:35:42,195 --> 01:35:43,655 Double back. 1399 01:35:46,157 --> 01:35:48,618 So it's now we should thank the studio. 1400 01:35:48,701 --> 01:35:50,912 - Listen, it... - Yeah. 1401 01:35:50,995 --> 01:35:55,166 Again, people watching this, 1402 01:35:57,168 --> 01:36:02,257 you've gotta have nerves of steel, I think, to run those studios, 1403 01:36:03,174 --> 01:36:06,135 and some pretty big balls. I mean, to make... 1404 01:36:07,929 --> 01:36:11,432 To take the proposition that you and I, out of Bourne Ultimatum, 1405 01:36:11,516 --> 01:36:16,354 are gonna go and make a film, a substantial film, set in Iraq 1406 01:36:16,437 --> 01:36:20,525 at the outset of the war on quite a controversial topic, 1407 01:36:20,608 --> 01:36:24,779 and that we're gonna try and hone, somewhere out of that, 1408 01:36:24,862 --> 01:36:29,450 really, pretty unappealing territory from a studio, 1409 01:36:31,286 --> 01:36:35,290 a thriller that a broad audience is gonna watch... 1410 01:36:35,373 --> 01:36:39,043 We're going to try and say to the Bourne audience, effectively, 1411 01:36:39,127 --> 01:36:43,214 "You enjoyed those films, come with us and take a step into the real world" 1412 01:36:43,339 --> 01:36:46,634 and see if that can be made to work, 1413 01:36:46,718 --> 01:36:49,554 - that's a big bet. - Right. 1414 01:36:49,679 --> 01:36:51,639 And then you add to that 1415 01:36:53,308 --> 01:36:59,147 the many difficulties that you find on a film like that or like this. 1416 01:36:59,230 --> 01:37:01,819 As you say, you go down roads, it doesn't quite work, 1417 01:37:01,899 --> 01:37:03,735 you have to come back. 1418 01:37:06,070 --> 01:37:09,240 It says a lot for them that we did it 1419 01:37:11,868 --> 01:37:13,790 - and there were no cross words, really. - No, no, no. 1420 01:37:13,870 --> 01:37:16,247 I mean, I'm sure there were days when they were anxious. 1421 01:37:16,331 --> 01:37:19,083 Certainly were days when you and I were. 1422 01:37:21,252 --> 01:37:25,173 But when you get to this moment in the film, 1423 01:37:26,257 --> 01:37:29,844 I always go, "Well, we did it." 1424 01:37:30,219 --> 01:37:34,682 We got to a great ending, a confrontation, 1425 01:37:40,271 --> 01:37:43,566 with a great question from Yigal 1426 01:37:45,026 --> 01:37:47,195 - which can't be answered. - Right. 1427 01:37:48,780 --> 01:37:52,867 And a great statement of Freddy's belief. 1428 01:37:53,117 --> 01:37:55,286 What the fuck did you do? 1429 01:37:55,370 --> 01:37:59,874 Which, in a way, completes the education of Miller, 1430 01:38:00,375 --> 01:38:01,667 - -I always think. - Yeah, yeah. 1431 01:38:01,793 --> 01:38:03,961 It is not for you to decide what happens here. 1432 01:38:15,723 --> 01:38:17,892 I love that look. It's like, 1433 01:38:22,814 --> 01:38:24,732 "It's done." 1434 01:38:27,819 --> 01:38:30,405 Get out of here, Freddy. Go home. 1435 01:38:31,489 --> 01:38:35,827 And you slightly amended your performance in that line, 1436 01:38:35,952 --> 01:38:40,581 and I think it gave it a little more humanity. I thought it was a good call of yours, that. 1437 01:38:48,256 --> 01:38:50,800 It was a great moment. 1438 01:38:57,849 --> 01:39:00,935 The quest for the truth. The quest for the man. 1439 01:39:01,978 --> 01:39:05,189 You fail him, don't you? But you do get the truth. 1440 01:39:10,695 --> 01:39:12,447 And that's the... 1441 01:39:13,364 --> 01:39:19,036 In a way, I wanted that to prefigure what happened. 1442 01:39:20,955 --> 01:39:22,957 The long war of attrition 1443 01:39:25,376 --> 01:39:30,047 that was fought to try and stabilize Iraq. 1444 01:39:34,552 --> 01:39:38,806 But along the way, for all of that, 1445 01:39:41,225 --> 01:39:43,144 the truth has been told. 1446 01:39:58,075 --> 01:40:01,662 Tricky issue here, in terms of finishing this film. 1447 01:40:01,746 --> 01:40:05,917 I mean, there always are in these sorts of thrillers, aren't there? 1448 01:40:06,000 --> 01:40:08,085 How you pay characters off. 1449 01:40:08,211 --> 01:40:10,671 Who's gonna kill who in exactly what sequence, 1450 01:40:10,755 --> 01:40:15,676 and what does that mean? And small changes can mean everything. 1451 01:40:15,760 --> 01:40:17,428 We never wanted 1452 01:40:19,889 --> 01:40:22,433 Briggs, and we've actually not mentioned that. 1453 01:40:23,434 --> 01:40:27,522 At the maximum moment, when you've tackled Briggs, 1454 01:40:27,605 --> 01:40:29,440 - Briggs could kill you. - Right. 1455 01:40:29,524 --> 01:40:32,193 -But he does not, because... Exactly. 1456 01:40:32,276 --> 01:40:34,490 ...an American soldier would not kill an American soldier. 1457 01:40:34,570 --> 01:40:35,613 That's right. 1458 01:40:35,696 --> 01:40:39,450 This is not one of those sorts of movies. That's a code that he couldn't break. 1459 01:40:39,575 --> 01:40:43,079 He's come to get Al Rawi. You're not the point. 1460 01:40:45,957 --> 01:40:49,627 In a way, that choice of his is actually what causes him to die. 1461 01:40:49,710 --> 01:40:50,962 Right. 1462 01:40:51,087 --> 01:40:53,798 You don't kill him, he doesn't kill you. 1463 01:40:55,049 --> 01:40:57,218 And we debated that endlessly. 1464 01:40:57,301 --> 01:41:00,304 There was a version of this film where you could've gone man-to-man with him 1465 01:41:00,429 --> 01:41:02,974 or he could've gone man-to-man with you. 1466 01:41:03,057 --> 01:41:06,811 You're having to work those sorts of resolution issues out. 1467 01:41:06,894 --> 01:41:08,232 And there's another big problem here, 1468 01:41:08,312 --> 01:41:11,983 which is, a film like this demands you confront the bad guy. 1469 01:41:12,108 --> 01:41:13,150 Right. 1470 01:41:14,777 --> 01:41:17,200 But you don't actually have any cards in your locker at this point, 1471 01:41:17,280 --> 01:41:19,657 'cause Al Rawi's dead, so you can't bring him down. 1472 01:41:19,782 --> 01:41:21,867 Which is what he tells me. 1473 01:41:21,951 --> 01:41:24,161 - But it's a great scene. - Yeah. 1474 01:41:24,245 --> 01:41:26,205 It's my favorite scene. 1475 01:41:26,289 --> 01:41:28,749 Yeah, I like it, too. I just remember just... 1476 01:41:28,833 --> 01:41:30,671 This was kind of towards the end of the schedule, 1477 01:41:30,751 --> 01:41:34,380 and I remember thinking about all those guys and the tours they served 1478 01:41:38,050 --> 01:41:40,928 and the weapons weren't there, you know? 1479 01:41:43,347 --> 01:41:46,809 And some of them... It's just... 1480 01:41:48,227 --> 01:41:54,775 To wear that uniform and play that moment was... I felt very... 1481 01:41:56,569 --> 01:41:58,362 Full of responsibility, I think, there. 1482 01:41:58,446 --> 01:42:00,239 - In a good way or... - In a good way, yeah. 1483 01:42:00,323 --> 01:42:01,907 I mean, I wanted to do that. 1484 01:42:03,951 --> 01:42:08,164 Like most people, I was, I think, a little pissed off about the whole thing. 1485 01:42:08,247 --> 01:42:10,374 - More than a little bit. - Yeah. 1486 01:42:10,458 --> 01:42:14,378 And what they're saying in the scene, by the end of the scene... 1487 01:42:16,422 --> 01:42:19,383 Yeah, he's pissed off. He's furious. People have died, 1488 01:42:20,926 --> 01:42:22,803 and the reasons matter. 1489 01:42:23,346 --> 01:42:25,139 - The reasons matter. - Yeah, no, 1... 1490 01:42:25,222 --> 01:42:31,103 I agree, and I think what's interesting is it's the moment when the two processes, 1491 01:42:31,187 --> 01:42:36,233 the process of creating a fictional genre-thriller 1492 01:42:37,151 --> 01:42:41,072 perfectly align up with the real world. 1493 01:42:42,073 --> 01:42:47,036 And he perfectly expresses there, Poundstone, 1494 01:42:47,662 --> 01:42:50,915 the basic view, which is that the ends justified the means. 1495 01:42:50,998 --> 01:42:55,628 It doesn't matter how we got there, it was a necessary thing to do, 1496 01:42:56,629 --> 01:42:58,381 and we won. 1497 01:42:59,632 --> 01:43:01,676 But the point is, if you're... 1498 01:43:01,759 --> 01:43:04,470 As we found in dealing with a lot of those soldiers, 1499 01:43:06,347 --> 01:43:09,892 that it doesn't quite feel that way if you're the guy asked to go and shoot 1500 01:43:09,975 --> 01:43:11,686 - or be shot. - Right. 1501 01:43:12,311 --> 01:43:16,691 "It's one thing to be told, " We've gotta do this because of X ' 'Y' and 'Z. 1502 01:43:16,774 --> 01:43:21,487 It's another thing to be told, "It's all about WMD," and they're not there. 1503 01:43:23,531 --> 01:43:27,868 And in any case, as this film shows, then it all went wrong. 1504 01:43:34,834 --> 01:43:37,211 But I was always very... 1505 01:43:37,294 --> 01:43:40,131 Well, we've had this discussion many times, haven't we? 1506 01:43:40,214 --> 01:43:43,592 You can't let a film 1507 01:43:44,885 --> 01:43:47,763 end on a downer. 1 never felt like this film should, 1508 01:43:47,847 --> 01:43:50,933 or any film, actually, that I've ever made, end on a downer. 1509 01:43:52,059 --> 01:43:56,063 The truth is, in those five or six years since these events, 1510 01:44:02,194 --> 01:44:07,158 the truth has come out. And it's come out, as this scene really embodies, 1511 01:44:07,700 --> 01:44:13,205 because insiders like Miller, and there are many, many of them, 1512 01:44:13,289 --> 01:44:20,045 have, over the past five or six years, interacted with a press that has, in a sense, 1513 01:44:20,129 --> 01:44:25,217 redeemed its problems prior to 2003. 1514 01:44:26,218 --> 01:44:29,346 That's why all those publications are there, 1515 01:44:29,430 --> 01:44:33,726 because they've all played a very pronounced role 1516 01:44:35,478 --> 01:44:39,648 in exploring what really happened and the mistakes that were made. 1517 01:44:39,732 --> 01:44:43,027 And in that process, you heal and move on, you know? 1518 01:44:44,028 --> 01:44:46,155 - And that's redeeming, I think. - Yeah. 1519 01:44:51,160 --> 01:44:54,747 That's kind of the note I think you want to strike at the end. 1520 01:44:58,959 --> 01:45:01,173 - It was a lot of work, though, wasn't it? - Oh, God, yes. 1521 01:45:01,253 --> 01:45:03,088 - -Hard movie. - That was a tough one. 1522 01:45:03,881 --> 01:45:06,008 - But I'm very proud of it. - Me, too. 1523 01:45:06,091 --> 01:45:08,594 And of everybody who worked on it. 1524 01:45:09,470 --> 01:45:10,888 Particularly you, my man. 1525 01:45:10,971 --> 01:45:14,141 That was a hell of a burden you had to take there. 1526 01:45:15,518 --> 01:45:17,144 No, man, that was a... 1527 01:45:19,271 --> 01:45:20,940 - That was a tough one. - Yeah. 1528 01:45:22,191 --> 01:45:24,777 Well directed, man. Very, very well directed. 1529 01:45:24,860 --> 01:45:26,111 - Again. - There was a lot of... 1530 01:45:26,195 --> 01:45:29,240 The things you're never supposed to say in these things, huh? 1531 01:45:29,323 --> 01:45:31,579 The little things where you go, "Well, that didn't quite work." 1532 01:45:31,659 --> 01:45:33,289 - -You know what I mean? Like... - Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1533 01:45:33,369 --> 01:45:34,623 Like when you were put in that car. 1534 01:45:34,703 --> 01:45:36,747 I always look at that and I think, "Oh, my God. 1535 01:45:36,831 --> 01:45:39,333 "I under-covered that." And we were short of time. 1536 01:45:39,416 --> 01:45:42,002 It was a lot of ragged pieces. 1537 01:45:42,086 --> 01:45:44,129 But in the end, 1538 01:45:48,425 --> 01:45:52,721 we, I, you and I, we wanted to make a film 1539 01:45:54,098 --> 01:45:57,601 set in that world that people would actually go and see. 1540 01:45:57,685 --> 01:45:58,936 That was it, really, wasn't it? 1541 01:45:59,019 --> 01:46:01,856 - Definitely. - You know what I mean? 1542 01:46:01,939 --> 01:46:05,025 There have been lots and lots of wonderful, wonderful films 1543 01:46:06,151 --> 01:46:07,528 about Iraq... 1544 01:46:08,779 --> 01:46:11,740 Tell you one thing I do think. It's very easy... 1545 01:46:11,824 --> 01:46:14,702 It's often said, "Iraq films, they don't work at the box office," 1546 01:46:14,785 --> 01:46:16,745 as if that suddenly dismisses them all. 1547 01:46:16,829 --> 01:46:21,625 I mean, the truth is, as an industry, I think... I mean, it's across the board. 1548 01:46:21,709 --> 01:46:25,212 Our industry, Hollywood, whatever you want to call it, 1549 01:46:25,296 --> 01:46:26,801 I think stepped up to the plate pretty well. 1550 01:46:26,881 --> 01:46:29,049 There've been a lot of movies made about Iraq, 1551 01:46:29,133 --> 01:46:34,138 and some of them have not worked so well at the box office, 1552 01:46:34,221 --> 01:46:36,473 but as an experience, 1553 01:46:38,434 --> 01:46:40,394 the movie industry has tried to engage with it. 1554 01:46:40,477 --> 01:46:43,355 It's a huge issue that's driven our world, 1555 01:46:43,439 --> 01:46:47,484 and there've been lots and lots of different sorts of movies made. 1556 01:46:49,320 --> 01:46:53,991 And our bit of it was to try and make one that could, 1557 01:46:54,074 --> 01:46:59,163 in our type of story and in our choice of how we told the story, 1558 01:46:59,246 --> 01:47:01,957 that we could actually try and get a bigger audience 1559 01:47:02,041 --> 01:47:05,920 to come and feel rewarded by it. And I think... 1560 01:47:07,755 --> 01:47:11,342 I think when I'm hanging up my boots at this game, 1561 01:47:12,009 --> 01:47:14,011 I should be pretty proud of that. 1562 01:47:15,012 --> 01:47:16,680 Absolutely. Yeah. 1563 01:47:16,764 --> 01:47:20,225 Proud of the fact of it and hopefully proud of the reality of it. 1564 01:47:20,309 --> 01:47:22,353 I hope people do go see it. 1565 01:47:22,686 --> 01:47:25,189 So, Bourne IV in Afghanistan? 1566 01:47:28,525 --> 01:47:31,236 I'll tell you what. If people aren't going to see it, 1567 01:47:31,320 --> 01:47:34,281 we'll just take it back and then we'll re-title it. 1568 01:47:36,075 --> 01:47:38,827 Bourne in Baghdad. Put it out. 1569 01:47:39,244 --> 01:47:43,791 - I think they've already got that title covered. - Then we can keep working. 1570 01:47:45,334 --> 01:47:48,003 Well, well done, man. Just a terrific job. 1571 01:47:48,087 --> 01:47:50,756 - Terrific job, I'm really proud of it. - Well done, yeah. 1572 01:47:50,839 --> 01:47:55,260 We made the movie we wanted to make, and I hope it lasts. 1573 01:47:55,594 --> 01:47:58,430 - And well done to the studio. - Definitely. Definitely. 1574 01:47:58,555 --> 01:48:02,393 - And Working Title. Both of them. - Tough pill to swallow. 1575 01:48:03,602 --> 01:48:05,980 We'll get your money back, guys. 1576 01:48:06,063 --> 01:48:07,648 - We hope. - We really will.