According to the ex-FBI Agent Eric O'Neill, Chris Cooper nails the role of one of the worst spies in American history in the dramatic film, Breach, and O'Neill knows what he's talking about. The film is based on O'Neill's involvement in the FBI investigation into Hanssen's traitorous activities, which ultimately led to his arrest. Although Cooper never had the chance to speak with the real Hanssen, O'Neill says Cooper captures Hanssen perfectly.
Signing on to Play Robert Hanssen: “As a rule, it usually takes 3 or 4 readings for me to be interested in a script," said Cooper. "And, if I’m interested, I’ll read it 3 or 4 times before I make a strong decision. This was unusual. It took one reading. Fortunately the people I work with at the Paradigm agency – the script came to me a little bit earlier than it usually did in the acting community. So we talked with Billy Ray and asked if he was interested in my coming aboard. I believe Billy than approached Universal and asked them if this sounded like an okay thing with them. They backed him and supported me. The great thing was that 4 to 6 weeks later - once it got around that we had a good script - there were names knocking at Universal’s doors to try to knock me out of that position, but Billy and Universal stood by me. I feel very fortunate.”
The Research Process: “The first step was, certainly, to find if there was any research material and there was a lot. I looked around the house; I needed to refresh my memory because I knew this was coming up, and I found at least five of the books I had used. They are pretty in-depth studies about Hanssen from his childhood all the way to his capture. They were very helpful and, of course, we had the true Eric O'Neill who made himself available about a week before we started shooting to both Ryan and I. We would spend anywhere from 10 to 12 hours a day peppering him with all sorts of questions, any bits of information about Robert Hanssen and their relationship. He was shadowing Hanssen so there was a lot to draw from.”
Tackling a Real Person Versus Playing a Fictional Character: “The intimidation was that even though there were some embarrassing and treasonous acts committed, I still felt responsible and respectable of, primarily, his family. No doubt this is a terrible embarrassment for the country and his wife Bonnie and the children. I think the script handled some of those aspects very tastefully. But intimated? No.”
Cooper’s not sure if Hanssen will ever get to see the film while in prison. “I don’t know. I saw a documentary on the prison where I believe he is, and I don’t know if they are granted reading material or televisions, but who knows. He may make some friends with the guards there and see it someday.”
Chris Cooper on Robert Hanssen’s Motivations: “When he was captured they certainly did a psychological evaluation of him and, if memory serves me, I think we played on probably four possibilities touching on why he did this,” explained Cooper. “I remember some of the psychiatrist quotes suggesting that the roots of this may well have begun concerning the relationship with his father. It started at an early age; this book that he read, he claims at 14, but was actually at 24. Another motivating factor that I tried to justify, to use as a possibility, I believed him to be truly a very committed, dedicated and religious person. And in that study they suggested that he had very strong psychological demons that he was dealing with.
He was terrified of failure, of not looking good in the eyes of his wife and his children. He expected to rise higher than he did in the FBI. He did rise, but only to a certain level. And because of his intelligence and early working knowledge of computers of that time, he was placed in the position where he ended up not being the guy guy of the FBI, and sitting in front of a monitor and reading reports. I think that may have been real discouraging to him and probably very irritating. [It] probably angered him quite a bit.”
Working with Ryan Phillippe: Cooper as Hanssen and Phillippe as O’Neill have a very interesting relationship onscreen, to put it mildly. “I came to Los Angeles and we were looking at working with six actors throughout the day. We found a little sound stage with a garage door, because we were working inside and outside on some scenes, and the six talents that they chose - you all would recognize them, you all would know who they were - but it just came out that Ryan was the better performance of all of them. That was Billy's choice.
The working relationship was just terrific in that we had some very strong, serious scenes every day to do. So what I appreciated in Ryan, I think the day of our introduction was the nicest I was to Ryan, and I preferred to keep it that way. That's the same method I used to work with Jake Gyllenhaal in October Sky. It didn't call for a chummy atmosphere on the set and that was fine for Ryan, and necessary for me.
I think Ryan and I work in similar ways. In many respects, and at the moment of performance, we're intuitive. There's a lot of pacing for both Ryan and me between scenes. That's a memory of mine. He'd be at one corner and I'd be at the other corner. But the atmosphere was appropriate. It wasn't the most joyous or chummy, but it was what we needed to do the work.”
On Filming on Location: Billy Ray tried as much as possible to shoot at the actual locations where events unfolded during the investigation. Cooper said that was definitely helpful. “In a subtle way, but it was an extra big layer,” explained Cooper. “You're in this neighborhood and you're retracing the steps of this guy. If you saw the film, where the car is parked and I'm about to get in the car and drive off, that house behind the car, I can't remember her name, but she was such a cute lady about 70 or so. She had T-shirts printed up – ‘Hanssen was captured here’. She was very accommodating to the cast and crew. It really gave you a sense of re-doing, of re-walking history.”
