I would think that it would help the film. It’s bittersweet, the timing. The timing is very bittersweet for us. Fortunately for the film, the timing is great because the way the world is right now, people want to see and need to see stories like this. But at the same time we wish that the timing wasn’t very good, because of how bad it is right now. When we watch the news and we see the things on the news, everything is so negative. And, granted, there are people that – we support our troops, some people don’t even support our troops, but I think that people need to see that they’re human beings. That every single one of these people are away from their families. When people say, “World War II – that’s a different breed. That’s the greatest generation that ever lived.” I think the generation now is the greatest generation that ever lived, as was the World War II generation. Anybody that served our country and is willing to go over and sacrifice even their lives, we are so indebted to.
I hope that people would come see this film and leave the theater – they don’t have to approve of the whole political thing, they don’t have to approve of all that – but support the soldiers. Support the people. They are over there and nobody wants to fight. Nobody is pro-war. I mean, is anybody really pro-war? There’s pro-war and anti-war, but no, nobody wants to fight.
This is one thing I’ll add: going into this film, one of the reasons I was such a big World War II buff was because I thought it was such a clear, black and white, cut and dry war. There’s the good guys and there’s the bad guys, and it was so clear. We touch on some of those things in the film that it’s not like that, and it never is like that. In any other circumstance, you might be best friends with the person that you are required by your country to kill or to harm. And that’s what’s going on now. My heart goes out [to them]. I get emotional when I talk about it. My heart goes out to these people that day in and day out are protecting and serving our country.
The fact they are people gets lost in all the news reports.
That’s what I mean. It’s like you get on the news and it’s like, “Three more Marines died.” And Marines, that sounds like, “Well, they do die. They are Marines.” But what are their names and where are they from? We lose that. I think that when you go see “Saints and Soldiers,” at the end of this film, you will know our names. And you will at the end of the film say, “You know what? I love and I related to this character.” Or, “I loved and related to this character. I love the change that happened in this character.” In Deacon, in Gould, in Gunderson, in those characters. You come away going, “My gosh, those are human beings in the worst of all situations.” And for who? For us.
You had a personal connection to the photo your character carried throughout this movie, didn’t you?
I did. It’s something that unless you read it or come to a screening, you’ll never know. My grandfather served in World War II, he was actually in the Pacific Theater. He was a Korean War vet, as well. During World War II he picked up, left his wife and I think he had two boys when he went to World War II – and I think my grandma was pregnant. So there were similarities [to my character]. He carried a photograph with him throughout World War II. My brother actually worked on this film, he was the second 2nd assistant director and we got together and said this would be a great idea. We talked to [producer Adam Abel] and [director Ryan Little] and they were so supportive of any ideas that we had as far as creativity. I said, “Hey, would it be a possibility…I know I carry a photograph in this film, could I carry the same photograph that my grandfather carried of my grandmother?” And they said absolutely. They’ve always been such heroes to me. I mean, as if my grandmother didn’t do enough when he was gone, raising these kids, in her part time she was putting together medic bandages. She was rolling medic bandages to support the war. So it was just a little something where I could say, “Hey grandpa and grandma, go see this film. You might notice something.”
You didn’t prepare them?
No. They knew that we were going to use the photo, but they didn’t really know to what extent. So throughout the film I look at this photo, and that’s one of the things that just keeps me sane and strong in the film. It wasn’t as if I was just looking at this face that I didn’t recognize. I looked at that photo, even in the film while we were shooting, and that’s my grandma. It puts things into perspective. Maybe I felt a little bit of what my grandfather may have been feeling, just hoping that he can get home to her.
