Flags of Our Fathers Poster
Eastwood and Cast Talk Remaining Anonymous in Flags of Our Fathers
“We’re using lesser-known actors because
the average age of people sent to Iwo Jima was 19 years old, except for
some of the officers,” said Eastwood. “I think because of the
age and we had to use young people it lent itself to using lesser-known
actors. And also if you have big name actors coming on the screen in a situation,
sometimes it takes a while to adjust and see someone who’s well-known
and then adjust to them as a character and its up to that actor to romance
you over into thinking that he is that character. And also people are going
to the movies to see their favorite actor. That may be the case in this
movie or any other movie, but this time you can kind of accept in a faster
fashion the fact that these people are the characters.”
Of course, movie fans still recognize Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam
Beach and Barry Pepper. But those guys don’t mind being considered
actors first.
“I’m very happy,” said Phillippe. “I don’t
like the word movie star. I think I’m an actor who I think will continue
to get better and better, and that’s my aim and. I’ve done a
lot of work but I don’t think people necessarily know who I personally
am, and I want to keep it that way. Then I think I can do anything or be
anything to anyone. I think once people feel like they have a firm grasp
of who you are or who they want you to be then it’s hard for you to
be anything else. So as much as I can avoid that and keep some kind of mystery
alive about it I will.”
Bradford, on the other hand, may have higher ambitions. “Well, I like
power,” he admitted. “And so there’s a degree to which
if you get that super stardom, your power goes up tremendously, your power
to get what you want out of life, call it what you will, on any level really,
to win friends and influence people, to get the job you want which is way
high on the list for me. Money is power. Power takes a lot of different
forms and that’s one way to get it. But I think there are a lot of
pitfalls too and I don't know, man. I feel really lucky and I feel like
I’ve been able to work in this business for a long time and I feel
like, especially with a movie like this, I feel relatively confident that
I’m going to be able to keep working and that’s a form of power
too and that’s enough for me.”
Back to Flags of Our Fathers, Pepper said the lack of ego
kept everyone in the moment. “Everybody was I think just in awe of
being there period, sort of like we all were on Private Ryan
as well,” said Pepper. “But it was neat how we all kind of just
clicked with each other’s style. We would march to set and me playing
the sergeant, everybody called me Sarge and I called Ryan Doc. Everybody
called him Doc. We never went to the set medic for band-aids or this or
that. He’d always have everything in his gear. We addressed each other
in character, we marched to set in cadence because Clint had no boot camp
or rehearsal so we kind of had to do it ourselves.”
Flags for Our Fathers opens this Friday, October
20th.
For the trailers, stills and more movie info, go to the Flags
of Our Fathers Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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