There’s an appropriately nicknamed ‘BS meter’ that lights up when some actors talk about their current projects. “This is the best movie I’ve ever been in” or “I love my co-stars and I can’t wait to work with them again” are usually catch phrases that set off the alarm bells. But with Corbin Allred, it’s totally clear this actor loves “Saints and Soldiers.” There’s nothing contrived in the way he speaks about the film, its director, or the rest of the cast. He’s a passionate young man who genuinely believes in what the cast and crew of “Saints and Soldiers” were able to accomplish on a miniscule budget and with a very short shooting schedule. Based on the film’s reception at festivals around America, Allred’s got a real reason to be proud. “Saints and Soldiers” has won more than a dozen awards, including Feature Film Winner at the Telluride IndieFest and Audience Choice for Best Picture at the San Diego, Long Beach, Sacramento, and Eclipse Film Festivals.
INTERVIEW WITH CORBIN ALLRED (‘Deacon’) :
What type of research did you do?
I’ve always been a World War II buff so I can start out by saying that. My grandfather was in World War II and so I’ve heard stories growing up. I always looked up to him. Personally, I watched films like “The Longest Day,” the old World War II films – those great films – and some of the current films like “Saving Private Ryan” and “Band of Brothers” that Spielberg and Tom Hanks were part of. Those were always great. I watched the History Channel, A&E, I watched things like that to educate myself. Other than that, I was in contact and did speak with a lot of veterans. One of the writers, Geoffrey Panos, and one of the military advisors, Ray Meldrum, we were in contact with them. Those guys were the foremost experts on World War II and the Army and things like that. We were in contact with them throughout the entire shoot.
As far as me personally, it was all kind of just trying to dig into [the character]. If you see “Saints and Soldiers,” it’s not about so much the fighting. It’s not so much about the killing and this and that. It’s such a character-driven film and that’s how we, as the actors and the filmmakers, that’s how we feel that this will appeal to people. You’re not going to go see a film that can compete with the overall magnitude of “Saving Private Ryan” as far as how huge it is and the epic battle scenes. We do have the awesome battle scenes in the film, but this is something where people can watch and go, “Oh, okay, that’s a human being,” and try to find the humanity in a completely inhumane situation. And that’s what the film is really about. So as far as the historical aspect, I did my homework as far as watching, studying, reading. I bought a few books – Ambrose, books like that. But it’s very character-driven so I had to delve deeper into the emotional aspect of what soldiers might have to go through. But I think having never experienced it, I don’t think it’s something we, as civilians, can comprehend.
How do you keep your character from getting lost in the whole epic war story?
I think what it was is that this is an independent film. It’s really a low-budget film. I mean, we shot this movie – it was an impossibility. You look at what we shot it for and the amount of time that we spent shooting. We shot it in 30 days, give or take some pick-up days. In fact, all the actors were in the same trailer on set. We didn’t have separate trailers and that was part of the kind of tactic of the production, of the [producer] Adam Abel’s genius – one of my best friends, [director] Ryan Little - genius - one of my best friends. All of us as actors were together, and we were together for the whole shoot. And that created something. I mean, those four guys that I worked so closely with and intimately with, are some of my best friends and will remain some of my best friends throughout my life.
I think that when people go see the film and they see this character dynamic, and they see, “Okay, this guy likes this guy and they’re friends,” the reason that they’re going to come away with that feeling is because we are. And even though there are wars going on inside the war, there’s even battles on the same side – my character and the character Gould, we were at each other’s throats throughout the whole film. The character Winley and Kendrick were at each other’s throats throughout the film. But there was so much love.
