00:00You guys so tonight's not the first screening the veteran screening was the first one
00:03Tell me why that was so important to have that that be the first screening in LA
00:07Yeah, I mean American Legion is a home for all veterans where we come if we need help
00:12We need to get together to help each other out
00:14And so I think I wanted them to be the first ones to see it
00:18It was made for them alley is a veteran played by Cosmo Jarvis
00:22So I thought it was important that they'd be the first ones to see it
00:25Everyone that's come down the line tonight has praised you guys, but also just said what a singular experience this has been for them
00:32I mean you've made a lot of movies in your life
00:34Tell me how this one why you feel like this is just obviously so much different and what this brotherhood means to you
00:39it was a
00:41Absolutely a singular experience for me, too
00:44The reason it was singular was him. It was working with right
00:48You
00:50Know because I know you hired him before on Civil War when did this conversation turn into something more?
00:57we were in the post-production period of Civil War and
01:03You know, I'd worked closely with Ray during that film and while editing stuff
01:07I just pulled Ray up and said hey, are you interested in doing this? And he said yes, and we just work
01:15From that day pretty much and you live this and I and I love what you had to say about to hire these actors
01:21They had to have fire in their guts and they had to have the right attitude. Tell me about that
01:25Yeah, I think that was important based off the schedule that we were gonna be running
01:29We didn't have a lot of leeway for error
01:31And so I needed everybody firing at all cylinders, which includes the crew included us
01:36And so yeah, we all worked in concert to achieve this great objective
01:40You put a movie out of it last year that landed at a certain time in our political landscape
01:44This one is also coming out at a time when people are thinking a lot about politics
01:48I think also thinking a lot about war. I think
01:53my feeling was
01:55That there is never
01:57Like a bad time to try to make an honest
02:01war film or book about war or play or
02:05Home or whatever it is. The thing that was available to rain myself was to make a film
02:10And I would also say it is a particularly strange time because conflict
02:17feels
02:18So close and so present
02:21But to be honest
02:24It would always have a place an honest account of war any decade any year and then can I ask you to
02:32I really loved what you had to say because it felt honest as well about you weren't even able to process
02:37What had happened until many years later put the pieces of your memory together to actually have a conversation
02:42How are you feeling now about it after you know being knee-deep in the trenches on this film for the past couple of years?
02:48And then on the eve of its release. Yeah a lot better. It's been therapeutic along the way Alex was critical in that
02:55But I think at each time we show this
02:58Getting like that stamp of approval. It's like less weight on my shoulders
03:02Till finally, you know
03:05You know, we'll see what the public has to say about it
03:07but from a veteran standpoint where I think we're united for the most part in that that front and
03:13That's the most important thing to me not to embarrass this guy
03:16But I got it. I got to change some positive energy here after what I did. What did you learn from him?
03:24I learned a lot
03:25from obviously film techniques
03:28And how do you you know extract emotion, you know out of scenes no, I mean I learned
03:38It was so much what I learned from it as it what he provided for me
03:41Which is like a platform to someone to trust to express, you know
03:45Those emotions and trauma that I've like pushed down for a really long long time
03:49So it was more of a I think just like a group effort and the trust that we built that means more to me
03:58You
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