Meet the Real Louis Zamperini in a Featurette for Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken

December 2, 2014

With Angelina Jolie’s second directorial feature, Unbroken, hitting theaters December 25, Universal Pictures has today released a behind-the-scenes featurette that offers a look at real life Olympian and war hero Louis “Louie” Zamperini (played by Jack O’Connell in the film) and provides insight from Jolie herself. Check it out in the player below!

Unbroken follows Zamperini who, along with two other crewmen, survived in a raft for 47 days after a near-fatal plane crash in WWII — only to be caught by the Japanese Navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.

Starring alongside O’Connell are Domhnall Gleeson and Finn Wittrock as Phil and Mac, the airmen with whom Zamperini endured perilous weeks adrift in the open Pacific. Garrett Hedlund and John Magaro also star as fellow POWs who find an unexpected camaraderie during their internment, Alex Russell as Zamperini’s brother, Pete, and in his English-language feature debut, Japanese actor Miyavi as the brutal camp guard known only to the men as “The Bird.”

The film is produced by Jolie, Clayton Townsend (This Is 40), Matthew Baer (City by the Sea) and Erwin Stoff (The Day the Earth Stood Still) and boasts cinematography by 11-time Oscar-nominated Roger Deakins (Skyfall).

Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men) rewrote the screenplay from earlier drafts by William Nicholson (Les Misérables) and Richard LaGravenese (Behind the Candelabra).