Based on what you said in regards to your research for The Kingdom, it seems as if that was your guiding light to writing Lions for Lambs.
MC: A huge part of it, wanting to dwell for much longer periods of time in those offices.
Yeah, based on seeing the latest trailer it seemed like you were describing what I saw.
MC: Exactly, the thing that fascinates me constantly is hypocrisy. It is such a cliché catch word now, especially with the Republican party’s recent foibles. I mean, my God, it’s like the Republican party has turned into the Catholic priesthood. I am amazed and really fascinated by the hypocrisy of our stance in the Middle East now, that we are actually there to spread democracy or at least that is the boiler plate and we are still sending billions of dollars to Saudi kings that are the furthest thing from it. It’s almost like we don’t think the man on the street in Riyadh, or name the Middle Eastern city, it’s almost like we don’t think they see that, or we hope they don’t. I really wanted to explore that and get into that and at the end of the day see if it even matters. Is this that big of a fight? Is this the Cold War all over again? Where we can sacrifice some of our better principals in the name of victory, and that started to brew when I was doing the research for The Kingdom, you’re absolutely right, that led into Lions for Lambs. The thing that took me over the top, obviously I haven’t stopped talking for the last 20 minutes, I’m the first one to rant and rave and talk about our government and the fact that we have a president that has never read any military history or he would know you don’t start a war on two fronts. The only time you start a war on two fronts is if you are attacked on both, you certainly don’t opt into it. I can complain with the best of them.
Two falls ago, just before I started writing Lions for Lambs, the thing that really spurred me on to do it, I was flipping through the channels trying to find the USC game and I was in Chicago so it was going to be late at night and I flipped right past this CNN report of these four or five soldiers that were in a Humvee and the Humvee flipped and went off the road. These four or five soldiers drowned and I thought, my God, what an awful way to go out, and I couldn’t turn away fast enough. It struck me later that night, here are four or five Americans that pledge allegiance to the same flag I do, speak the same language I do and like the same songs I do and I will never see their face or know their name and I couldn’t even give the report about their deaths because I didn’t want it to play on my mind while I was trying to enjoy a football game.
That stuck with me, and I thought writing some of this down and writing a story that gets to the core of that might be my paltry contribution to trying to wake people up. As you and I have been talking, two or three American soldiers have probably lost their lives and here it is in a war that you might think and argue is not worth the loss of one life, much less 4,000.
Those two factors culminated in me writing Lions for Lambs.
It seems like this is just a large scale movie and I say that based on the first teaser trailer, which I have to say was not very good. They gave us a bunch of one liners, but at least the second one was much better.
MC: Thank you, thank you. You just echoed the screams that were heard from mine and my producer’s trailer when we saw that first teaser.
Yeah, I already know Robert Redford won an Oscar. I don’t need a trailer to tell me Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise are good actors and it seemed like that is all that first trailer was.
MC: [laughing] Totally, it’s like why not just have a teaser that literally says in a simple font, “Coming in November three very large movie stars are going to be in the same movie, so block out some time”? To UA’s credit they heard the cry and they made a change and that second trailer was just world’s better than that teaser. I mean the music, it was so off and wrong and not correct. They heard it and made the changes.
I think you will be surprised though, it’s all pretty contained. It actually all happens within an hour and 15 minutes of real time. It literally happens across an hour and 20 minute stretch in all three locations; in a classroom, in a senator’s office and on a ridge in Afghanistan. It’s just this little snapshot in time, and I was trying to give people the sense that as they are watching that movie soldiers are dying. That an IED probably blew up somewhere in the world and either gravely injured or killed American soldiers while you had your ass planted in that seat watching the movie this is happening. We can try and anesthetize ourselves with college football in my case, or Entertainment Tonight or US Weekly, all the minutia and bullshit that gets news coverage, but never forget that soldiers are dying. The people that might be the best and brightest are giving their lives in these godforsaken corners of the world.
There was one line that I wrote down from the Lions for Lambs trailer that I wrote down and I wanted to ask you about it. Streep says the line, “Says the man in the air conditioned room.” After talking to you for 25 minutes now it seems like that is a line straight from your heart and what everyone else is thinking.
MC: Yeah, absolutely, we have a president that through his family name and his family status during the Vietnam War was able to fly outdated interceptors in Alabama and Texas, and even then it doesn’t sound like he was flying them all that often.
We had an Attorney General in Ashcroft that got I can’t remember how many deferments to get out of service. Dick Cheney with his six deferments, and yet it’s these same people, when it is other people’s children and other people’s lives, they almost can’t contain themselves before they start a second war. Before they capture and kill the men that killed 6,000 of us six years ago. The fact that those guys still breathe the same air you and I do, it’s an infuriating point for me. These guys in the air conditioned room 9,000 miles away started a second war.
The Kingdom hits theaters this Friday, September 28 get more here. Lions for Lambs hits
theaters on November 9th, for more on that one click here.
Also, be sure to come back tomorrow for part two of my interview with Matt when we discuss State of Play and why Tony Gilroy came on to do a rewrite and White Jazz, which he gives us some good details on how dark George Clooney’s character is going to need to be.
