FROM Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood comes American Sniper, starring Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, whose skills as a sniper made him a hero on the battlefield. But there was much more to him than his skill as a sharpshooter.
Navy SEAL Chris Kyle is sent to Iraq with only one mission: to protect his brothers-in-arms. His pinpoint accuracy saves countless lives in the battlefield and, as stories of his courageous exploits spread, he earns the nickname “Legend.” However, his reputation is also growing behind enemy lines, putting a price on his head and making him a prime target of insurgents. He is also facing a different kind of battle on the home front: striving to be a good husband and father from halfway around the world.
Despite the danger, as well as the toll on his family at home, Chris serves through four harrowing tours of duty in Iraq, personifying the spirit of the SEAL creed to “leave no one behind.” But upon returning to his wife, Taya (Sienna Miller), and their kids, Chris finds that it is the war he can’t leave behind.
A two-time Oscar nominee for his work in Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, Cooper heads the cast which also includes Sienna Miller, Luke Grimes, Jake McDorman, Cory Hardrict, Kevin Lacz, Navid Negahban and Keir O’Donnell.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven) directed American Sniper from a screenplay written by Jason Hall, based on the book by Chris Kyle.
What was it about Chris Kyle’s story that resonated with you and made you so passionate about wanting to bring it to the screen?
Cooper: I liked the fact that it’s not really a movie about war so much as a character study. Chris’s story is a universal one about what veterans have to go through, really—the idea of dealing with the emotional seesaw of going into a warzone to fight and then coming home, back to your family life, and the challenges that experience presents to all our soldiers. That was very moving to me.
Eastwood: When the studio called me and asked me if I’d be interested in doing it, I was doing another picture and I was reading the book (American Sniper) just for fun. And I was curious about the story and the guy. So, they called me about it, and I said, “Well, gee, let me finish the next 30 pages and I’ll call you back.” It was interesting, ironic, a good story. So I said, “I’d love to see the script.” We met them and Bradley called and said, “They’d like to have you do it.” And that was the end of it.
When you were developing the movie, you met Chris and his wife, Taya. What was that experience like and what did you learn about him beyond what was already in the book?
Cooper: Well, I don’t want to speak for Clint, but I feel like the most of what we gleaned from Chris wasn’t even from the book. It was much more about the weekend we spent in Midlothian, Texas, with Taya Kyle, their children McKenna and Colton, his brother Jeff, and (his parents) Wayne and Debbie. We got to spend a full weekend, which happened to be the same weekend that was the anniversary of his murder. So, it was a pretty heavy time to be there. We went there sort of curious and as we were flying back, (Clint and I) were looking at each other like, “Wow, we got a lot from that.”
Eastwood: Pretty heavy stuff. It turned out that the second day we were there was the first anniversary. So, Taya was not in a great state then, needless to say. But we rode in a car with her, and she was great. We all just talked pretty frankly about what we thought about stuff.
Cooper: No book could ever really give you what you get from meeting people in the flesh. You just watch somebody move through the house that Chris lived in and it tells you a thousand things—to sit at the dining room table or on the couch, or go into his backyard.
Taya really opened up her life to us. She let us look through all of his clothes. She was a major reason we were able to take so many specific things about him that actually made it into the movie. There are a handful of scenes that came out of that weekend we spent in Texas where she was just telling us stories about their relationship.
Eastwood: It was also important casting-wise, because we wanted to get somebody to play Taya that we felt would not just do an imitation, but have that same spirit, which Sienna (Miller) did have. She came in to read for the part, and did a splendid job. It was surprising—she has this great American accent, so you don’t even know she’s British.
Was it important for you to get the truth up on the screen, to shape what actually happened in this man’s life into a narrative story?
Cooper: Well, the movie is based on the source material, and the source material is the book called American Sniper. Jason Hall wrote a script based on that book, which Clint and I both found ourselves, at separate times, compelled by, and it just starts from there.
Eastwood: Where there weren’t actual incidents, all these various people that were hands-on or had lived this experience with Chris said, “Well, that could have been”—because it all seemed to fit into this guy’s MO There were other sequences, too, which we shot and could have put in. But we ended with something that we thought would be realistic, and something that Chris would like.
What do you think drove Chris to this absolute extreme of the experience of fighting a war?
Cooper: I think it’s those things that may seem saccharine in this day and age, but in the movie, he says to Taya in the bar, “I’d lay down my life for my country. I want to be of service.” Those aren’t just words to him. He meant that. He wanted to be a cowboy and a soldier, period. And he lived his life that way since he was a kid, taking care of his younger brother and growing up to be the man that he was. That’s the guy that I got to know, and that’s the guy in the movie. It’s really kind of nuts and bolts. That’s just the way it is. It doesn’t make him a martyr; it doesn’t make him anything other than just a man, but that’s the kind of man that he was.
Eastwood: But he liked taking care of people. He liked the leadership aspect of it. I guess he felt that was his calling. He worked hard to become a great Navy SEAL, and a great shot, and he had to work hard, because those guys are all really solid citizens as far as their physical abilities, but they have to have the mental ability, too. He went back for four tours with his wonderful family back home, so he could have easily taken the other direction and said, “Well, I’ve done a tour. What the hell?” But he felt that he had to go back, because he lost people and he wanted to avenge that. He felt that we should complete the mission there.
What it was like to work with each other?
Cooper: Well, he’s one of the reasons I wanted to be an actor. The truth is when I was growing up, I always thought there were two guys I wanted to work with: Robert de Niro and Clint Eastwood. And the fact that I’ve gotten to do both is incredible. (De diro costarred with Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook.)
I first started auditioning for Clint’s movies on Flags of Our Fathers and put myself on tape for all of them. There was one thing that looked like it was maybe going to happen, and then, when that fell through, I thought, “Oh, wow, I can’t believe it.” Then this project happened, and it was the perfect match.
He met every thought I had and surpassed it, and the truth is, we just get along great. We laughed a hell of a lot in the movie, and it’s important to have that kind of levity, I think, especially when the content is so heavy. Making this movie with Clint was just an utter joy and I made a friend. So, it was great.
Eastwood: I’ve admired him on film, and I voted for him on his Academy Award nomination. I think Bradley is head’s up on this generation of actors. He started in films with a lot of comedy and slapstick in them, and they were great. The job he did was terrific. But, then, I find a lot of people who have a knack for comedy are great dramatic actors, anyway. They tend to have a wider reach than most. But I hadn’t had the chance to work with him until now, and he actually called me on this one.
He’s a terrific guy. He’s focused and has a great work ethic. I mean, he can have fun and everything, but he never stops thinking about the job. You could call him up at midnight and he wouldn’t say, “I’ll call you back in the morning.” He’d start talking about it. I never did this, of course. (Laughs) I’m not the kind of person. But he’s the kind of guy that I know I could have.
What is it that you most hope people will take away from this personal story you’ve created about such a complex man?
Eastwood: It’s hard to say. There’ll be curiosity about someone who was documented to have shot 160 people, and how he handles that and how he handles life. People don’t really think too much about what being a military person does to the family life. But he also has time to hang out with the guys at the saloon. He meets this girl and immediately falls in love with her, and that’s a really important part of the picture.
Then, of course, the picture isn’t pro-war. In fact, I think it’s kind of antiwar in some ways because these people donate all this time and effort and we’re in wars that seem unwinnable. There are a lot of aspects to the story that are not the obvious things you’d expect, like action and stuff. There’s shooting and all that, but it’s more of an adult approach to a movie about war, I think.
Cooper: It’s true. It’s really a character study more than anything, and war happens to be the canvas. But, to me, Clint has cornered the market on complicated character studies of humanity. If you look at Letters from Iwo Jima, it’s a character study more than anything else. Unforgiven is a character study. And that’s what this movie is.
***Opening across the Philippines on January 21, American Sniper is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.