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First printed at www.movingpicturesnetwork.com

By Elliot V. Kotek
(Moving Pictures, Spring 2009 issue)

After relishing his roles in Sam Mendes’s Jarhead, McG’s We Are Marshall and Art School Confidential and Emilio Estevez’s much-lauded Bobby, we caught up with sometime surfer and rapidly rising actor Brian Geraghty.

Moving Pictures Magazine: Usually film festivals have a more politically liberal audience, and this is a film that specifically avoids commenting on the politics of the Iraq War. Were you conscious of that and at all worried that by doing this project you would be asked to comment on the greater political questions?
Brian Geraghty: Yeah. Certainly. I was certainly even worried about people asking me who I was gonna vote for for president, “If I was gonna run for president” – you know, all that kind of stuff. That’s the thing, when we started making the film I was conscious of what my character was doing, [but] I had so much going on, I never really thought about it in terms of the politics of the war until after I saw the first cut. And I think Kathryn purposely crafted that. I mean, anyone who makes a film about war has got to be very, very careful.

MPM: How was it with being reunited with Anthony Mackie?
Geraghty: It was fun, man. We had a good time. He was flown in kind of last. He had the job for a while but he couldn’t train as much with us, so it was good to [already] feel comfortable around him. It was really good for us because our characters – we’d been friends in the film for a long time and I think it kind of played out. We could finish each other’s sentences and we trust each other. It was good. Aside from that, I never want to do another film with him. [Laughs]

MPM: What was it like working with Kathryn Bigelow? She’s got such a legacy on film.
Geraghty: I know. You know what? This is so ironic. I got lucky I got this job. Basically, I auditioned at her house on a Sunday. I was working all night. I hadn’t read the script. My manager was, like, “This is your role. Trust me. You have to go and audition for this.” I went in, read with Jeremy, had the worst audition of my life, and somehow got the job. I mean, it wasn’t like, “Oh, you probably just thought it was a bad audition.” No. Even the writer was, like, “I don’t know how you got the job, dude. That was the worst audition I’ve ever seen.”

It was a great role to jump into. I had a lot of stuff going on. It certainly helped filming in the Middle East – the architecture, the landscape, the people. We had no trailer; we had a Bedouin tent. It was great. All the actors shared this little space, and it was really fun.

MPM: Did you get to meet Jordanian people?
Geraghty: Oh, yeah. We hung out with their families. They’re amazing. They took us out to clubs. We were going out, and then Ramadan hit and everything closed up.

MPM: And now you get to tour around to film festivals, being re-united with the guys –
Geraghty: So much fun, man. So much fun. You know what it is? It’s like a celebration of our work. We did suffer as much as you can suffer on a film set, and it’s still the best job in the world, you know? But it was tough. As far as filmmaking goes, that was probably one of the toughest things I’ve ever done.

MPM: Jeremy Renner said it took him about a month or so just to detox from the experience.
Geraghty: Yeah. You know what? It’s funny. I got back to L.A. and I went through a depression, almost. I had a really difficult adjustment period. I was just living in a different culture with different people. These guys were my family, my brothers, and I came away and I just had a different perspective on the world, particularly Hollywood and this business that I’m in. It really made me question, “What am I doing?” I got in this business to do things like this, to make films like this. I’ve been really lucky; some of the films I’ve gotten to do have a lot of integrity behind them. The adjustment period coming back was – I was questioning everything. I was, “The CW? WB? What is this shit?” It was tough, man.

MPM: Traveling with the film will get you back on track?
Geraghty: Yeah. Yeah. It’s been good for me.

Anthony Mackie is on other actors’ “Must Watch” lists. Since appearing in Spike Lee’s She Hate Me and Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, the classically-trained thespian has appeared in the independent find Half Nelson and is in the middle of portraying a series of real-lifers such as Tupac Shakur, ragtime jazz impresario Buddy Bolden and Olympic-icon Jesse Owens. The Hurt Locker garnered Mackie his second Film Independent Spirit Award nomination.

Moving Pictures Magazine: Welcome to Toronto.
Anthony Mackie: Yes, yes, yes. I follow Moving Pictures all over the world. Everywhere I go, you’re there.

MPM: Bahamas. Bozeman, Montana. I’m stalking you.
Mackie: That’s what it is. If I see a camera in my house, we’re gonna have problems.

MPM: How was it seeing the film first with an Italian audience at the film festival in Venice and then with a North American audience?
Mackie: It was really different. The language barrier kind of shifted their responses. But it went extremely well. It was really well received in Venice. People really enjoyed it [and] it was reviewed really well. And it was received really well here. People laughed and people cried and people went on a ride that we tried to take them on, so it was good.

MPM: It’s an intense experience watching this movie. Your character, Sanborn, Jeremy Renner’s James and Brian Geraghty’s Eldridge all are testing and challenging each other in closely confined quarters. Your duels with Renner are particularly powerful. What was that relationship like to act out?
Mackie: Actually, it was a lot of fun. Jeremy is an amazing actor. He was so good in Dahmer. He was so good in [The Assassination of] Jesse James [by the Coward Robert Ford]. Now, he finally got a role really that showcased him in a movie that people are gonna see, because there’s been limits put on his talent for so long and he finally got to blow it out. The great thing about it is when I read the script – the reason I wanted to play Sanborn is because of the relationship between James and Sanborn. The writer, Mark Boal, and Kathryn [Bigelow] really were able to bring a certain level of humanity to these characters and a dignity that in most characters in war films you don’t see.

MPM: Tell us about meeting real bomb squad soldiers over there.
Mackie: It was interesting. There were so many guys who weren’t from the Middle East. There are a bunch of Australian guys, a bunch of American guys, who really allowed us to ask them whatever questions we wanted. They helped us and informed us on all the different levels of play that goes on in a bunker or in intense situations, so we could make it as real as we possibly could.

MPM: How was it working with a director who’s done some of the most pop culture movies of all time: Point Break, K-19: The Widowmaker, Strange Days?
Mackie: Kathryn was great. She really allowed us to go as far as we wanted with the character. Then she kind of wrangled us in when we got off the mark a little bit. She had an interesting way of doing it, because it wasn’t condescending. It wasn’t in a way that took anything away from what we were bringing to the characters. You know, 75 percent of the director’s job is casting. She really believed in that and really let us go as far as we wanted to go.

MPM: I know you’ve got a couple of projects coming up where you play true-to-life figures as well. Was your Sanborn based on any one person in particular?
Mackie: I was doing research maybe a year-and-a-half ago for this movie. I was down in D.C., and I met this guy who works at the Pentagon. He’s a really high-ranking official in the army. He’s the guy who was responsible for all the secret briefings that go on in the Pentagon. He gives them all of the data, all of the information, all of the re-con information. He has all this stuff and he’s sitting in the room with the president and all these people when they make these decisions – but he can’t talk about it. He can’t even go home and talk to his wife about it. When I met him, he was so straight-laced and so professional and so well put together, but, at the same time, he was just a normal guy who would snap your neck if he needed to. I wanted to find that laser focus with Sanborn.

MPM: You seem to be a go-to guy in some of your recent roles, even in Eagle Eye with Shia LaBoeuf. Does your career mirror your personal life?
Mackie: No, no. I’m not the go-to guy in real life. If you come to me and say you need something, you’re shit out of luck.

Jeremy Renner has flown on the less obvious side of the radar for some time, delivering spot-on performances in independent films such as Neo Ned and Dahmer, as well as higher profile pics like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford opposite Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, and S.W.A.T., co-starring Colin Farrell. The Hurt Locker, to a large extent, rests on the shoulders of Renner’s bomb-squad operator, and he carries the burden brilliantly amidst a sea of supporting performances from Guy Pearce, David Morse and Ralph Fiennes. Along with his co-star, the role also earned Renner a second Film Independent Spirit Award nomination.

Moving Pictures Magazine: Congratulations on the The Hurt Locker. It looked like it was a pretty brutal experience. What did it take for you, personally and physically?
Jeremy Renner: Everything I had, and it probably asked a little bit more of me than I could give. For everyone. Everybody had a moment of Mapquesting our dignity and our self-respect and couldn’t find it. It took a lot out of all of us.

MPM: Had you been in the Middle East before?
Renner: No. I was actually really hesitant about it, but once I got there the people were glorious. Really generous. They brought us into their homes and they were great. We were shooting in the greatest parts of Jordan. It was actually quite beautiful. The Red Sea, the Dead Sea – all that’s right there. Really lovely.

MPM: There are war movies coming out that deal directly with the issues behind the Iraq or Afghanistan war. There are others that deal more with the personalities and the people over there. Do you think this film does a good job of representing the real guys on the ground?
Renner: That was the one thing I know that [screenwriter] Mark Boal and Kathryn [Bigelow] and myself were really, really adamant about: trying to make it as accurate as we possibly could. I know some EOD guys that I trained with, I know they’re gonna bark at me a little bit. There’s [some] technical stuff that they’re not gonna like, but I think the portrayal of EOD is pretty accurate, even though the character I play, James, is not a normal EOD guy.

I asked them a lot of things when I was training with them. They said that nobody does this, except for one guy they knew. He’d walk over a 555, kick it, you know – he was that guy. There was only one guy that they all knew. Normally, they’re a little bit more by the book. They’re abnormally smart.

MPM: How extensively did you train with the guys? And how receptive to you were they?
Renner: The guys in Fort Irwin… It took a few days to sort of tap into them as human beings, you know? They were all very military at first: “Put on the suit; you do this; do this; do this.” Then we actually got to know them, and I started hanging out with them, and they visited me in L.A. and we hung ut a bit. That was actually quite nice, to get a really good idea of who these guys really were. They were very helpful.

MPM: That must have been really interesting, having them hang out in your environment.
Renner: Yeah, ‘cause we’d go into a bar, grab a burger: It was the middle of the day, and this guy’s a big dude and he’s sitting there twiddling his fingers; he’s really nervous, starts sweating. We’re sitting at the bar eating a burger! I’m, like, “What’s wrong?” He’s, like, “I’m not used to having my back to the door, all I’m thinking about right now is, if some shots go off, where am I gonna get out of here?” So we had to move to a certain area. That was interesting… prying into his brain. That’s what goes through his head, you know?

MPM: Have any of the post-screening Q&A questions surprised you?
Renner: No. You hear them all. That’s what I love about it; it’s interesting. Everybody takes something else. It’s not so much of a story, but it’s an experience.

MPM: How would you characterize Kathryn Bigelow as a director?
Renner: She’s a painter; she’s an observer and she’s a fantastic action director.

MPM: The interplay between you and Anthony Mackie’s Sanborn begins with absolute bravado, then slowly crawls toward respect. It certainly seemed like you guys challenged each other.
Renner: Mackie’s great, man. We weren’t very method on creating conflict in our personal lives. We got along straight away and we both respected each other before we even started working together as actors. He made my job easy.

MPM: Having had that physical training for the film, the mental challenge of going through it and maybe the physical exhaustion after it, did it change you?
Renner: That’s The Hurt Locker to me. The suit was The Hurt Locker. It gave me a lot of respect for EOD and what they do. I couldn’t do it. I don’t have the courage, or even the stamina or the brains to do what they do. The experience of doing it – shooting it – it hurt me three months afterwards. I guess it tested wills and made me ask a lot of questions about myself. -MPM

The Hurt Locker opens in limited release on June 26, 2009

Photos: Original photography by Scott McDermott / film stills courtesy of Summit Entertainment