The Rich Roll Podcast - ‘American Sniper’ Screenwriter Jason Hall: Finding Purpose in Tragedy

Episode Date: February 16, 2015

Jason Hall is having a moment. The country is having a moment. Although hardly an overnight success story, it's fair to say American Sniper is this talented screenwriter's big break. A break so big he just might win his first Oscar a few days from today. But the celebratory mood is tempered by one inescapable fact: it is constructed from the tragic demise of a man named Chris Kyle. The soldier who not only serves as this contentious movie's protagonist, but was also a man Jason called friend. In an era when studios shy away from war movies as box office poison, American Sniper is an unsuspecting juggernaut. Breaking records left and right, the Bradley Cooper starrer seems to have touched a national nerve, packing theatres across the U.S. to the tune of over $300 million domestically and a fast approaching $400 million worldwide gross. Not only is American Sniper Clint Eastwood's most successful film to date, it's the highest grossing war film of all time. And yet the film is not without its critics and controversy. Propaganda or protest movie? War polemic or character study? The glorification of a highly skilled killer or the tragic tale of one man's demise?  Let the pundits pontificate, Jason Hall would say. The important thing is that people are now talking about things that need talking about. Irrespective of your personal feelings about this film, you cannot deny that it is a work that demands to be reckoned with. A reckoning that has catalyzed a productive dialog around a litany of important issues such as: * the incidence and treatment of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) in today’s soldiers; * the physical, mental and emotional impact of multiple deployments on soldiers, their families and society; and * how to systemically improve the much needed care and support we provide our troops. This is the dialog that interests Jason – a guy with his feet on the ground who really gets that the success of this movie is not about him. It's about service. It’s about the responsibility we collectively shoulder as a society – irrespective of politics — to do a much better job of taking proper care of the men and women who voluntarily enlist to place their lives on the line daily, and without reservation. This is a compelling conversation about many things, from the machinations of Hollywood to the fragility of life. But to me, this is about the responsibility to make your journey about something bigger and more important than your self and your ego. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. Peace + Plants, Rich

There's a lot of ways to succeed and you don't always know what's going to make you happiest, what's the most fulfilling if you can't get past your ego and your own idea of, you know, what you're supposed to be. This week's guest is Jason Hall, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter behind perhaps this year's most controversial box office hit, American Sniper. Welcome to episode 130 of the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody.

I'm Rich Roll, ultra endurance athlete, bestselling author, wellness evangelist, husband, father of four, dog owner, plant eater. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for spreading the word to your friends, to your family members on social media. Thank you for clicking through the Amazon banner ad on the main podcast page on the brand spanking new richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. I got a feeling this week's guest might bring a few new listeners to the show. So welcome if you're brand new. Real quick, let's break it down. What do we do here? Well, each week, I sit down with somebody I find to be personally inspiring. And over the last 130 episodes, since I started this little podcast adventure, in my opinion, these people collectively constitute some of the brightest, most forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds in health, wellness, fitness, sports, nutrition, entrepreneurship, and, like today's guest, even the arts.

And what these people have in common is that they all look at the world differently. They're all challenging the status quo. They're all breaking paradigms. They're all trying to make the world a better place. Conversation's designed to help you discover, uncover, unlock, and unleash your best, most authentic self. All right, you guys, just a little business first. most authentic self. All right, you guys, just a little business first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life.

And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care. Especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com, who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders,

gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first

step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices.

It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you.

Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. So let's talk about this week's guest, Jason Hall. So Jason is a guy that I've known for probably 15 years at this point. And I got to say, it's very, very cool to see him having this white hot moment in his career. It's a well-deserved moment for him. He is hardly an overnight success story. This is a moment a long time in the making. success story. This is a moment a long time in the making. And yet what is so poignant and so apropos to this podcast is that this is a moment that is about so much more than him as a writer and about so much more than a simple movie or piece of entertainment. Jason's now got all kinds of cool movies in the can or in development, but there is no doubt that American Sniper was his first huge break. And it's a bit of a bittersweet break given that in certain respects, this is a house that's been built upon the tragic demise of the film's main character, Chris Kyle,

a guy who's not only the movie's protagonist, but a guy that Jason ultimately considered to be a friend. So we get into this, and we get into so much more in what turned out to be a really compelling talk, a talk about the creative process, a rare glimpse into the machinations of Hollywood, including this great story that Jason tells about the day he got the phone call that Steven Spielberg had signed on to direct the movie and how that changed his life. This is a talk about the unique and unconventional way that this particular movie came together, which was very different from the typical manner in which projects like these typically piece themselves into reality. This is a talk about the controversy and the divisiveness swirling around this movie, a talk about the controversy and the divisiveness swirling around this movie, Jason's personal perception of this debate, and the dialogue that has ensued around it. This is a talk about

the true import of a movie like this, the opportunities it presents. Because whether you love this movie or you hate this movie, you simply cannot deny the importance of the cultural dialogue it has catalyzed around issues we desperately need to talk about and solve. Issues like the incidence and treatment of PTSD and TBI, traumatic brain injury, in today's soldiers. Issues like the physical, mental, and emotional impact of this multiple deployment lifestyle that is emblematic of today's typical modern soldier, and how we can begin to improve veterans affairs. This is the dialogue that interests me and this is the dialogue that interests Jason, a guy with his feet placed firmly on the ground who really gets that

the success of this movie is not about him. It's about service. It's about the responsibility we collectively shoulder as a society, irrespective of politics, to do a better job when it comes to taking care of our servicemen. Let's talk to Jason. It's February 3rd, and yesterday being February 2nd was kind of an interesting day. On the one hand, it was the two-year anniversary of Chris's murder, and simultaneously you're having this crazy moment in your life where you're going to the Oscar lunch and you have the DGA screening last night. So there's this juxtaposition,

right? This like dichotomy of you on the precipice of, you know, basically achieving your dreams, right? And that being on the shoulders of this tragic event and the demise of somebody who was your friend. Yeah. Well said. Yeah. I mean, expound on that a little if you could um yeah it was a heavy day you know because you're you understand that in a in a very real way and then you know going through all these experiences with chris and and then you know writing the script alongside him, and then having him murdered the next day, and becoming close with his wife. The success of this film is very different for me, and all of us, than it is for any other film, I think.

Not any other film, but certainly any other experience I've had. Where the victories feel bittersweet yeah it's got to be it's got to feel like weird in your stomach like you feel guilty about celebrating yeah you feel guilty but you know the beautiful part about it is uh his story now his story couldn't have gotten any bigger and then it did and and this guy who so much of what he did when he came back was was trying to help these guys and now even in his death he's found a way to help them which is you know pretty profound um and his wife i try and include her in all of it and you know sending her pictures yesterday and she's, she's very resilient and she's got a really good sense of humor and she, you know, she responds and she's like, Oh my God, it looks

like a kindergarten photo with what are all these people looking at? They're all thinking about themselves in the picture and looking the wrong way. And you know, the, the animation guy's got his eyes closed and the sound guy's got a goofy look i mean is it like is there something like this every day now leading up until it's coming up right the 22nd is that the oscars i think so it's got to be a pretty crazy like press schedule for you yeah and in screenings a lot of screenings and talking about the movie and doing that whole thing. But it has been hectic, but it's also nice to be talking about something you believe in, where you're not just talking to talk.

It feels like there's a point to it. You're talking in service of these guys, and not just Chris, but all these veterans. Well, I think that's a great way to be right-sized about it. You know, to just be in your, you're being in service to the veterans to this community of people who finally found like sort of, you know, a voice and a way to kind of connect through Chris's story. Yeah. Yeah. And, and for everybody to, to kind of understand what these guys go through, you know, the, our, our military is a volunteer military.

So the people that volunteer at this point are a very small population. And, you know, people that we know that have somebody directly related to them in the military is becoming fewer and fewer. directly related to them in the military is, is becoming fewer and fewer. And, uh, and people that are politicians know that have someone related to them, you know, their sons and daughters are not in the military for the most part. I think there are a few, maybe a few senators and one or two congressmen, um, or, or the other way around who, who actually have close relatives that are in the military. So the choices they make aren't personal choices. Right. And they're less and less influenced by their constituency as that sort of gets diluted, right? Yeah, their constituency in greater metropolitan areas is less and less affiliated with the military.

And I think your perspective going into this, I mean, it's kind of a heavy burden to shoulder knowing that you're going to carry the mantle of this guy's story and, and, and what, and everything that comes with that, because everybody who is sort of a veteran or part of that community is going

to be kind of projecting, you know, their experience onto that or how they, you know, how they relate to that. So when you were in the process of writing the movie and creating the film I mean how did you kind of weather that expectation or that pressure um it did feel like a huge burden it felt like a massive burden you know uh I went down to the funeral and and reconnected with Taya his widow and

and she said something when we were down there. She said, I can't believe this happened. He had just stopped fighting. And he'd been home for three years, so I didn't understand quite what she meant. I had a clue as to what she was talking about, but I left her my phone number. I said, when you're willing to talk about it, give me a call.

And she called a few days later. I think it was like five days later, and she said, if you're going to do this, you have to do it right because this is how my kids are going to remember their father. And it was like just a boulder dropped on your shoulders and you're like, oh my God, what do I even say? And I kind of came out the other end of that as I started talking to her more and more. And I realized I knew what to say. I knew the process of someone who's going through grief. I knew what the stages were. I'd been to a grief seminar, coincidentally, six years prior.

So I knew how you approach someone with grief. And it's not like, oh, I'm so sorry. It's like, I have no idea how you feel. Tell me how you feel. And then it opened up the door and she just walked through it. And what felt like this burden became slowly became a privilege. Right. It sounds like, I mean, from kind of just some of the reading that I did that, that, you know, obviously initially kind of sort of penetrating Chris while he was alive and trying to get inside that guy's mind is no small task,

right? That guy's shut down. You know, that's, that's pretty much not going to happen. Uh, no matter how much time you hang around with them, unless you're going to suddenly become a seal and get deployed with him. Right. Right. And, and the irony being that you weren't able to really connect with him until he'd passed and you were able to kind of relate that experience with, with Taya. And it's an interesting personal experience that you had, right? Like you were sort of vacationing with your brother, and you guys were in Lake Arrowhead, and there was a house fire. What happened?

I mean, that's what kind of precipitated your experience with grief. Yeah, that definitely did. I'll go back, though, and say, like, the feeling, certainly when I met Chris, it was like stonewall. You couldn't, it was just a wall of, you know, it felt like a lot of darkness and a lot of torment and that the humanity had some way been stripped from this man. But over the course of the next two and a half years you kind of felt a lightning and and you felt him softening in this way and the laughter started coming easier and he was he was his voice changed and everything about him started to to slowly change and much of that was over the phone

so it was hard to articulate but but you could feel it happening and yeah you know when you ask someone you know what makes you hurt you know it's a hard question yeah for me to answer yeah if you ask me i'd be like really dude come on but uh yeah when we were uh when we were kids we're in a i'm from lake arrowhead and up in the mountains and and we went went back to visit, I think it was, uh, it was Thanksgiving and we were out drinking with some friends and ended up in a house and, um, and it was me and my brother and two of my friends from college. And, uh, we ran into like our old girlfriends from sixth grade and seventh grade and like that period of time. And a bunch of us went to this house and we started drinking. We were just having a good time, playing the guitar or whatever. We kind of separated.

People left and we separated. I was with a girl in a room downstairs. The house was really cold and there was snow on the ground outside. Then suddenly it was really hot. We tried to turn on the heater and it didn't seem to be working. I look out the window and there's just flames leaping across the window and uh ran to the door opened the door just a wall of smoke and you're you know instantly you're dizzy you're reeling managed to throw a chair out the window and toss this girl out how many people were in the house uh i believe there were eight, seven or eight at that time.

And got outside and the whole house was engulfed in flames. And I ran around the side and through a rock, through a window, and my two friends were passed out in a bedroom. And I got them out of that room. And by this time, the house was so engulfed in flames that it was i was 35 feet away from the door and and it was like hot on your face like you're next to a campfire and i could see the door but it was just a shadow and i realized i didn't see my brother and i'm screaming for my brother and i start running for the for the shadow of the door and someone grabbed me and he came

running around the side of the house screaming this girl's name desiree and uh he had been upstairs with her they're making out or whatever and he went to wash his hands smelled the smoke he's the guy that touches the door handle he's like oh shit it's hot you know they get to the stairwell but it's an enclosed staircase and the flames are leaping up the stairs. And, you know, they're getting choked by the same smoke. They crawl to a window and he tells this girl to jump. And she just goes crazy and starts grabbing him and pulling at him.

And he's like, you know, reeling. And he's like, I'm going to jump. I'll catch you. You got to jump after me. And he jumps. And she never jumped. Right. I'm going to jump. I'll catch you.

You got to jump after me. And he jumps. And she never jumped. Right. And so, yeah, we went to the funeral. And my guys that I pulled out go back to school. And they call me a hero. And at the funeral, somebody blames him for letting this girl die and spits at him.

And we just, it was emotional trauma. It kind of felt like I lost my brother a little bit. Right, change your relationship with your brother. Yeah. And then also like sort of in the wake of that thinking, all right, well, life moves on and not really recognizing that you had a little, you know, post-traumatic stress, like there's a residue from something like that happening. Yeah, for sure. I think for everyone involved. And the way that death, a death to someone, especially someone who's young like that,

just splinters through families and communities as it does in war, it does in a community like that. She was Latin and she had tons of family and cousins. And this is before social media. So it wasn't like there wasn't a net to kind of catch all the details

and everyone kind of went back to their lives in this sort of disassociated way. And we didn't talk to a ton of people after that. Right. But it was suggested to you at some point, like, hey, maybe you should go talk to somebody. Well, no. This girl, I would run into this girl, and her dad ran a grief recovery workshop, and she would always say to me, hey, you should go to my dad's grief recovery workshop. I was like, why?

What do I look like? I have grief? She didn't know my story at all. And, uh, like six or seven times she said this over the course of like five or six years. And finally I had gone to New York to propose to a girl and I got there and she's pregnant and engaged, which is a whole, that's a whole, you can have a whole other podcast about that. Adventures in idiocy. I actually really want to hear about that. I'll take a pass for now.

I mean, it's an amazing story. It was only two months. I let her go for two months, and that was enough time. She was in a hurry. Yeah. She was in a rush. So I came back and i thought i was heartbroken you know i was like oh this girl and um i ran into that the girl again she's like you should go to my dad's grief recovery workshop and i was like all right i'll go you know i just had a

breakup if that's what that's called i don't know what that's called. And so I went to the class thinking that's why I was going was about this breakup. And there was like 14 people in the class, and they're from all around the country. Two of them were from China, North Carolina, Boston, San Francisco. And you write down the things in your life that caused you grief. And I'm like, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, oh, that fire, you know, it was like the bottom of the list though. Yeah. It wasn't what I thought, you know, for me, it was, it was traumatic. And I, and I really cared for this girl, Desiree, who was this, you know, beautiful, just kind of angelic girl that we had grown up

with. And, uh, but, but I also didn't come out of it in the same way that my brother did where he carried that thing. It didn't define me in the way that it did him. And so you get paired up with someone else in the class and you're going to read just that person your list of things and that person's supposed to sit quietly. There was a really cute girl in the class from North Carolina. And I was like, this is why I'm here.

This is the solution to my grief. You know, this girl and we're going to live happily ever after. And like, you know, cuckoo. And I didn't get paired up with that girl. I got paired up with the like quiet little shy girl. And so I read this girl my stuff and and uh go down the list and after we're done she's supposed to be quiet she's supposed to stand up give me a hug so she stands up she gives me a hug we both sit down and uh she looks at me and

she goes was that girl from the fire was her name desiree and I was like just goosebumps yeah and uh and I said yeah she's like I grew up in Crestline where you're from and Desiree's little sister was my best friend and I stayed with them for a while after the fire and you need to tell your brother that Desiree's parents never blamed him she was she was afraid of heights heights, which was something we didn't know. So I got to walk back and tell my brother that. And it changed our relationship. Right, helped you reconnect with your brother. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't that we were disconnected totally,

but we certainly didn't talk about it. Right. What's he do now? He's down in San Diego. He's a developer. So basically you walk out of that experience, What's he do now? He's down in San Diego. He's a developer. But so, so basically you walk out of that experience. So it gives you kind of a vocabulary or got this beautiful miracle.

And then like, Oh yeah, you just, you just spent an entire weekend learning about grief, the stages of grief, how to approach someone and talk to somebody with grief and, and how to deal with it and walk through it. So I end up on the phone,

you know, seven, eight, I don't know, I think it was seven years later, with this woman whose husband's just been murdered seven days before. And what do you say to that woman? And I'm watching the phone ring in my hand, and I'm like, I don't want to answer the phone. I don't know what to say to someone whose husband's just been murdered. And then I realized, oh, wait, I do know what to say. And it allowed me to open up the gates in a way that allowed her to talk.

And her, this quote-unquote research, was actually allowing her to feel purposeful in exploring her grief. Interesting, yeah. And I think you had just been down visiting like just prior to that happening right i i remember running into you i went to you had just gotten back and it had just happened for the funeral yeah i went to the funeral yeah which was yeah in itself an experience to go down there and you know walk into this community of guys who are not always happy to have an outsider right and that's

a whole that's a whole other thing i want to get into that because i i mean i look at you and i go if there was ever a screenwriter in hollywood that that would be able to kind of walk into like a you know a pool party full of navy you know of seals and be able to connect it's it's you i mean you you got the physique you know maybe like put a camouflage you know baseball of seals and be able to connect it's, it's you, I mean, you're, you got the physique, you know, maybe like put a camouflage, you know, baseball hat on and like grow your beard out a little bit and you're all good. What I learned was you don't wear a hoodie either. Oh, why, why is that? Navy seals don't wear hoodies.

What's the, what's the deal with that? I just think it's like, uh, that's like a pussy thing. Yeah. It's not cool. Who's that comedian who wears a hoodie on a comedy network? Oh, it's not cool. Who's that comedian that wears a hoodie on Comedy Network? I don't know. God, one of them. The guy that brought me down was like, are you going to wear your hoodie again? I was like, what?

But you were wearing the wrong shoes, right? Yeah, I was wearing the wrong shoes. What are the wrong shoes? Well, anything converse is the wrong shoe. Anything kind of like hipstery. You wear mountain climbing boots or kind of whatever. Nothing hipstery, no hipster boots or wingtips or fucking no know no converse no none of that cowboy boots hiking hiking boots cowboy boots yeah that's what i meant right uh well let's take it back i want

to hear the origin story for the movie because usually you know the way something like this works and the way that you know that way that i just assumed it worked was, uh, you know, a guy like Chris writes a book, the book becomes a big bestseller before the books even published, uh, the studios, you know, bid for it and it gets taken off the market when it's still in galley form. Right. And, and then the studio, whatever studio it is, we'll hire a writer and then hire another writer and hire another writer. And then it's either in development hell or it gets made. But that's not what happened here. You were way ahead of that.

Yeah. In early 2010, I heard Chris's story. And me and two producers organized a trip for myself to go down to Texas and to meet him. And that was before there was any book. He had been home like nine months at that point. He had retired from the Navy nine months earlier. And he had actually dictated the book. I was later to learn it was kind of like he met a guy in a bar.

The guy knew some of the guys he knew and seemed like a, you know, he was a lawyer, seemed like a cool guy. And he told the guy a few stories after a while. And the guy was like, hey, we should record this. Like, let's put it down. And the guy brought a tape recorder and basically put a tape recorder on the bar in front of this soldier who was home for six months and was like hey tell me that story tell me some stories yeah and so that's the voice you get of

chris who's like you know feels like he's two beers in and he's given this like rant that's you know unapologetic it's kind of nasty and and it's like yeah i went to war and i did my thing and yeah it was fun i saved these guys lives and you know i killed these people yeah and he hadn't been home long enough to really have any perspective on anything none none he was at war for 10 years and so you know i go and meet him a couple months later and they'd worked out and they were shopping that to they put it down a manuscript form or or shopping it into publishers. But you didn't even, I mean, the first time you went down and visited him,

you didn't even know that, right? I didn't know there was a book or anything. You went down just on a lark to go meet this guy. It was before anybody knew who this guy was. All I knew was that he had killed, he had more confirmed kills than anyone in U.S. military history. So you were told, right? You didn't even know if that was true. Well, what I did was I ended up calling a guy.

You know, he also hit this shot from 2100 yards right so i called the guy who i i knew was legit who was in seal six and um was down at the farm you know working for the cia coaching up these uh these spooks you should have called that guy to ask what kind of shoes to wear yeah he probably would have told me he probably knew um and i said uh i said hey this guy i heard about this guy his name is chris kyle and he hit a shot from 2100 yards and and you know anything about it he's like no i know that he's full of shit it's like your guy's full of shit and i was like all right well because like there's only like yeah he said there's five guys in the world who can hit that shot and your guy's not one of them i said all right will you look him up he's like yeah but he's full of shit like all right so he calls back he's like so um he's one of the five you know

right like a week later a week later calls back he's one of the five and and you know he's i think he said this guy's dipped in gold shit or something. And he was like, you know, somebody dipped this guy in gold because the shit he did down there is unheard of. And he said he was always in the right time and the right place to take the right shot that saved a bunch of guys' lives. And it's like, you know, people started feeling like he was their good luck charm and they wanted him on their team. They wanted him on any direct action stuff they did.

And so I knew to a degree that you know all right this guy's the real deal and he's down there in texas i'm gonna go meet him but i i didn't know i'd never been to texas either which in and of itself leave out the navy seal leave out all the cops that were there there was 50 cops when i showed up that were there like drinking and carousing and hunting like he he was putting on a seminar or something, right? Yeah, he had these guys up to a hunting lodge. It was a big, fancy hunting lodge. And he was entertaining them because he was starting a training company,

like a security and tactical training company. So he wanted their business. He wanted these cops to come in. He'd come in, train the these cops to come in and, you know, he'd come in, train the cops how to use their guns, retrain them every six months on how to, you know, firing techniques and make sure they were honed up so they didn't mess up in the field. And, yeah, so I showed up at this ranch house and there's 50 cops

and a Navy SEAL sniper. And you're like the weenie Hollywood guy, right? And they all know it i had my hoodie on in my converse and uh yeah it did and i don't drink so it didn't go it didn't go that well i was like hey you want a beer i was like no and it's like silence right the room goes so you're gonna socially penetrate this group of guys right exactly so what do you do you know i just sat around and listened for a long time and and and tried to try to get him to talk. And I kept asking his friends, why wouldn't he, his friends were telling the stories. It wasn't him. And it was kind of like,

that was kind of the, the story of Chris was all his friends would tell a bunch of stories and he'd kind of like sit there and roll his eyes. And, and, you know, he was kind of embarrassed by it is the truth of how he felt he didn't he wasn't you know the the book sounds like this braggart but the reality is he was very uncomfortable with it and so these guys would sit there and tell stories about the legend and i was like well why won't he talk to me they're like he's a sniper man he sits and waits sits and waits how long does he wait and what is he waiting for well there's that one scene in the movie where you kind of capture that where they're at the auto body shop and the guy the guy rolls up

on him and wants to say all this stuff and he just you know bradley's just squirming you know so uncomfortable with such a great receiving such a great moment for him i mean he he builds the layers of that scene and the layers of how uncomfortable he is and, and you know what he's thinking through the action that's going on around him. And it's such a terrific scene for Bradley. I mean, was that the intention with that scene to kind of capture that aspect of his character that you discovered so early on? Absolutely.

I found him to be, you know, people are like, well, he wrote a book about killing people, what he did and the reality was he someone else was going to write the book you know someone was starting to write the book about him without him and wasn't going to be able to give his guys credit and he

felt like all right i can write the book on myself give my guys some credit and you know what credit is due and uh and so he did and and you know but but that that didn't happen at that point obviously so i'm sitting there with the the cops and the and the seal and and the golf guy uh faraday you know the guy that sits by the green is like he's lining up his shoulder you know the whole thing and so he's sitting there like kind of narrating oh the hollywood writers he's right gonna get his pan's ass kicked uh-huh you know and like this this walk and you're there totally on your own totally on my own yeah no wingman no wingman no and it's texas rangers like there's every texas ranger and swat guy and like long tables

of fucking steak and beef lined up and everyone's drinking and firing guns off the deck and it's like you know it's that kind of environment i want to see that movie yeah something's gonna happen you know it felt like they were deciding who they were gonna hunt that night it was like you know i i thought they're gonna like paint me red and send me out into the field. Run, run. Yeah. So you're going to have to like, you're going to have to do something here, right? Yeah.

So I ended up, this guy was giving me a hard time. He kept calling me a Hollywood pussy and really egging me on and egging me on. And he was kind of the joker of the group, and he was kind of joking, but he crossed the line. He definitely crossed the line. And Chris wasn't talking to me. I didn't know what to do, so I just threw him in a headlock and threw the guy down.

The SWAT guy or the SEAL team guy? No, the SWAT guy. SWAT guy. Yeah. Threw him down and choked him out a little bit. And Chris liked that a lot. Yeah. That was Chris's party trick was choking people out

did you know that or I I had heard them say it they had threatened they said well if Chris likes you if you'll know because he'll choke you out and and so I knew that he didn't like me because he hadn't choked me out so I choked out one of his friends and tried to and then he was like hey this guy's all right i'll talk to you what do you want to know but it was still like you know there was a there was a just a tremendous amount of like he'd smile over it and it was all fine but like in the in the moments between you could feel it you could feel on him that he'd done something that was just had had come home with him there's just heaviness just a heaviness that followed him home and and

you know he just didn't feel like he was home at all uh when did you when was the moment where you thought oh there's there's a movie here like there's the idea of the character but then right that's different from the no and i sat there with chris and talked about different movie ideas and none of them were about him like he had a ton of movie ideas but none of them were about him he's like yeah you write a better movie like right these guys go down to mexico and take on the cartel or something you know he had action movie ideas but he didn't see a movie about himself which was kind of telling um but the you know i'd call that's interesting too just on that idea of like kind of dichotomies because it's very easy to look at the whole thing and go, well, this guy's opportunist. He's writing this book when the SEAL guys aren't supposed to do that kind of thing.

He's going on the talk radio show. He's going on TV talking about all this stuff and telling these crazy stories, because now, of course, there's all this controversy over these other things that he either did or didn't do. And how do you reconcile that with this kind of quiet guy in the corner? Yeah, I mean, look, these guys come home and there's a lot of damage. There's a lot of damage. And so my experience with him was that he was very shy and humble. And I know why he wrote the book. And he carried this legend thing around on his shoulders.

Like, it was a heavy crown. And I think that that really weighed on him, and it affected him. And, you know, he was someone who came home with stress, and he came home with some TBI. And, you know, he was shot several times. He was blown up twice by um and by roadside bombs ids and um you know that takes an effect on a man and and add that to the amount of life he he was tasked with taking it's it's heavy um and you could see that so the next morning his wife and kids walked in and i watched him like struggle down to his knees and he had had a knee replaced and he was just he looked like he

was like 75 years old trying to get to his knees and spread his arms for his kids and i saw his face light up and it was a different different guy than i'd seen in the last 24 hours and uh and i also realized i had figured out how long he'd been away at war and, and all the training and added it up. And his kids were four and six. And I looked at his wife and I was like, holy shit, she raised these kids by herself. Like this was her war in every way that it was his. And every time he deployed, she was deployed in the same way. And I heard stories from her about how, you know, they conducted their marriage over a cell phone, over a sap phone for the last, you know, however long. And, uh, and it was, it struck me that, you know, here's a story. This is the story of this family at war,

not just this guy at war, but here's this family who, who went to war in every, every way possible. I mean, that's, that's the movie for me that's the whole movie the whole movie is his relationship with his wife and his children his inability and struggle and ultimately you know uh success at kind of you know overcoming the emotional hurdles to be able to reconnect when he comes back and just just like what was so unique and powerful was just seeing the multiple deployments. It's like you can watch Hal Ashby's Coming Home and you see John Voight and we talk about World War II, World War I, the Great War.

It's like the soldiers go, they have this experience, they come back and they try to reacclimate and they either do or they don't or there's some spectrum in their ability to sort of resume their normal life but here we have a situation where you know suddenly we're perpetually at war you know and i don't see that changing we're just we're just in a constant state of international conflict where troops are going overseas for a certain period of time then they're coming back then they're going back then they're going back at any given moment

they can call their whoever they want up on the're coming back, then they're going back, then they're going back. At any given moment, they can call their, whoever they want, up on the telephone. And back at home, we're all watching it on television. And so what a colossal brain fuck that whole thing is. And we've never had to experience anything like that. And I don't think we're really talking about the kind of emotional toll that that kind of protracted level of service is taking on these soldiers.

Yeah. And it's never occurred like this before. Those guys who went to World War II and those guys who went to World War I, they sailed back together on a ship. You know, and you go back to the Crusades, they paddled back together on a ship. You know, the Vikings, whatever we're talking about. It's like there was a re-acclimation period. Right. A slow period. A slow period of, of, of like just kind of melting into it. And, and not only, not only the, the re-acclimation, but also having the group together, having the group of, of soldiers who returned together and sort of decompress at the same time with each other,

able to talk to each other. Now, you know, early on in the war, it was guys would come home solo. Guys would be dropped on a commercial flight and walk off into a normal airport, you know, from, you know, stumbling down the stairs carrying their buddy with the, you know, who was bleeding into their mouth in into you know omaha airport right and it's like no re-acclimation right no friends there no nothing yeah it's back to that juxtaposition really i mean the idea that you could be like patrolling through the streets of fallujah and literally 24 hours later you're at costco yeah you know yeah and i mean that scene

with the mitsubishi like minivan behind them when they look like they're driving on the freeway in Orange County. Like it's just, you know, that's so, that was so palpable where you're like, yeah, of course he still thinks he's back there. Yeah. Everything. The drill, the thing, you know, every sound, every sensory thing. And the interesting biological part of that is the you know the

level of stress that they're exposed to is is creating an environment ripe for psychological trauma because of the of the release of of all the dopamine and and the adrenaline levels and and cortisol it's uh all that stuff stuff is stored in a very ripe environment. And so it's right there and it keeps coming back. You know, I'm not a neuroscientist, but I've been talking to plenty of them. And it's really interesting to hear them talk about the way this information is stored and how they can't differentiate that because of where it's stored and the environment of their, of their brain. When they encounter that information, uh, they can't differentiate that information from, from fiction. That's really interesting. I mean, and that doesn't

even get into the other aspect of it, which is, you know, once you're sort of, that's, you're used to that being your reality, then that's kind of what you want to be your reality it feels more like your reality yeah because it's uh the the other side of it is they're that environment that's right for trauma that environment is also ripe for camaraderie and and brotherhood and this the bonds that these guys create are as strong or stronger that the bonds that they have at home, you know, familial with their wife. And otherwise, it's just, you're not going to ever encounter that level of trust with anybody else. You know, these guys trust each other with their lives, and they know when they go left, he's going to go right, and they know exactly what's going to happen. Then they come home, and it's not like that. It's like, well, you go left,'s going to go right and they know exactly what's going to happen then they come home and it's not like that it's like well you go left you might go left alone i'm going to go back

inside right right right and you can't you can't expect anybody to understand that there's no point in even trying to explain it no right really not so what are the what are the uh you know what are the resources available to these guys like are they you know i i only have like a lay person's understanding of like how the va operates right kind of the you know what kind of help that that they can access you know in the last couple years has been not much i think that's the reality is a lot of these guys go sign up they get an appointment they wait in these long lines all day then they get a number and then they got to plug in the number. And then it's like, all right, you have your appointments

in, you know, we'll call you when your appointment's up. And usually it's like, I think the average wait time was like 189 days at some of these places. And so you're talking about, then you get in there and you're talking to a civilian who half the time is looking at their computer, you know, and they're punching in information and your 15 minutes is up when it's up and you got to get out. And it's not that the person behind the desk is a bad person, but they're just overwhelmed, you know, and, and, uh, and hopefully that's changing. You know, we, we have a new VA secretary who seems like he, he to do a good job and has taken, you know, unregulated things that they were doing and tossed them out the window. And he comes from the private sector and he's trying to approach this like, hey, this is a business and this is customer relations.

These are our customers. Right. But you're also dealing with one of the biggest bureaucracies in the world, right? The VA is enormous. Yeah, it's the second biggest healthcare system outside of France. Out of France. So trying to turn that thing around. Yeah, it's no small task.

And meanwhile, all these guys are having these multiple deployments, and the problem gets exacerbated. Yeah. Yeah. deployments and you know the problem gets exacerbated yeah yeah so i mean how would you you know if you if you were in charge like you know what do you what have you in your experience of kind of you know navigating through this world and the other project that you're working on thank you you know for your service i mean what have you learned about what could possibly be changed you know it's challenging i don't think ptsd PTSD and post-traumatic stress is not uncurable. I don't believe that it's uncurable. I just believe that the healthcare approach has to be a whole body approach and that are, you know, that they understand, but it's kind of cutting edge stuff. I think the closer we align some of these traumatic brain injuries with other kind of, with sports, with football, same stuff is happening to those guys in football.

With the TBI. With the TBI. With the TBI. So the closer that they associate themselves with that, the easier it's going to be to jump into that modality of treatment in the way that they treat these guys. And a lot of these guys, some of them do need medication, but a lot of them need hormone therapy and there's other things that, you know, light therapy treatment and all these things that we can do to repair some of that shearing of the brain. Yeah, I heard you when you were on Rogan's podcast and you had a veteran with you and you had that hormone therapy

guy. What's that guy's name again? Mark Gordon. Sounds like he's doing some really interesting things. He was having amazing results. Amazing results. And look, that doesn't mean it's going to work for everybody. But for a certain amount of these guys, they're in fight or flight. They go over there, and it's like fight or flight for six months. And their adrenaline just goes through the roof, and the cortisol goes up, and the DHEA drops. And then they come back, and everything you know the cortisol goes up and the dhea drops and and then they come back and it

everything drops through the floor because in that six months long-term homeostasis of the body shuts down so the body stops doing all that regulation for the things that are you know come after the the adrenaline surge right you're just constantly in fight or flight the whole fight or flight like your your system is distressed to the max yeah and then you come back and it all just it all kind of it drops down and then everything shuts down and it causes systematic uh health problems you know kidneys liver all your all these other functions start have have not been taken care of over that six months period of time. And they just are, you know, flailing to, to regulate themselves. So it's, it's a massive challenge and I don't, I don't pretend to have the answers in any way, shape or form, but, you know, I, I think that

it's going to require real patience and, and, uh, and it's going to, it's going to require real reform on the part of the VA. And hopefully this Bob McDonald is up for the job. It seems like he is. Yeah, I hope so. I mean, you know, because certainly this problem's not going away. And as the sort of multiple deployment, this sort of like, you know, status quo perpetuates, this is a problem that's just going to get larger. Yeah. I mean, hopefully it doesn't get larger.

There's 3 million guys that went. I got this number two days ago. 3 million now is what they say have gone to Iraq or Afghanistan. So, I mean, hopefully it doesn't get larger and hopefully it doesn't get. It will get larger, but hopefully it doesn't get larger in the way that it did over the last decade. Right, right, right. Well, let's get back to Chris. So you're trying to crack this nut wide open, right?

Like trying to figure out what's making this guy tick and how are you going to write a movie about this guy's life, right? Right. So how many times do you go down and visit him? I mean, what is the process like of trying to crack the story here? Well, I spent that entire, I spent like three more days down there after that and went hunting with him and his son and I you know I kind of watched him step back into his life it felt like you know and I know he had been there but his family he had moved out to Texas uh and his family was still packing and moving everything out and kind of came to join him and so I watched

him sort of step back into his life and I went hunting with him and his kid and and watched him you know his son get his first buck and and you know his dad walk him through this process this sort of ritualistic process of like you know here's what we do is we're gonna skin the deer and and here's the parts we use and don't use and um you know field dress this animal and and the son's kind of like, yuck. How old is he? I think he was six at the time. Oh, my God. That's so young.

Yeah, very young. But it's about the same age that Chris started hunting for real. And so did his son. But I felt privileged to watch this whole thing unfold and watch him be a dad in a way that you know you just don't when you think of these these soldiers and these war stories you think of like dust and sand and grit and it's like you know you don't think of him sitting there with his daughter and rubbing her feet while she watches despicable me you know which is a different it's a whole different side that i hadn't seen. So it really opened everything up.

And then as I was walking out the door, it was like, oh, there's going to be a book. And kind of the door slams. I was like, oh, great. We're never going to get this. But we got the galleys for the book. Because you're working with some independent producers. You're down there on a lark. You're not getting paid.

You're just there to sniff around and see if there's some possibility of a project for you to do. And I still honestly didn't know what the story was. I kind of pitched in my ideas, and I said, I want to make it more than just about you. Let's make it about these four deployments, and how could we structure that, and how could we tell your story in an honest way? And his big thing was, I don't want it just to be about me. It can't just be about me um you know there's a lot of guys you got to give everybody credit and and uh you know that was his big concern off the top um and he still was like and i'm sure we could find something else

to make this movie about and he's like and even if you know even if you just you come down here bring your family and kids again well at least we'll get a you get a trip out of it right at least he's talking to you any movie yeah at least he's talking to me by the end of the weekend but you're thinking oh there's a book like forget it i thought i'm never gonna get the rights to this book it's the most lethal sniper in u.s history it's you know how are we get the rights to this? But the book came out and it was so unapologetic and it just was like shocking. Hollywood's like, no thanks. Hollywood said, no thanks.

There was one other person who wanted it for like a limited series or something. But I knew while reading the book, I knew what was between every line. You know, the difference was I'd stood there in front of him. I knew this was not some, some like off the wall sociopath, crazy person. I'd stood there, I'd shook his hand. I looked into his eyes.

I saw pain. If he was crazy, there would have been no pain. If there was crazy, there would have been no stress. There would have been no problem. I've talked to those guys. I've talked to the guys who have gone over there and i've gone on 11 deployments and i hunted pablo escobar and i did this and that and it's like there's like a nothing no problem sociopath kind of personality yeah it's the detachment that you you didn't experience

with chris right you know with chris it was uh there was there was hurt, there was torment. You could feel it. So I knew it was between the lines of the book, and I felt that I could explain that and explore that if I could get him to open up more. And so that was my challenge, and we optioned the book, and I called up Bradley and pitched it to him, and we went in and sold it to Warner Brothers. What was it about the story that Bradley, you know, connected with?

I just, I pitched him Deer Hunter, really. I kind of pitched him De hunter and I, and, and the way that that affected those characters, the way that war affected those men. And, and I also, I also pitched him the story of telling this like a Western, you know, really in the dirt and the dust and, and, you know, and their understanding of the war they walked into, because there was a limited understanding of, of the war they walked into, because there was a limited understanding of the war they walked into.

There was a limited understanding of it for the public at the time, and certainly a limited understanding for the soldiers at the time. And the way that they related to that war was through those towers falling. When those towers fell, people went and signed up for the war. They didn't know where they were going, to Iraq or Afghanistan, but that's why they signed up. And Chris was already in when the towers fell. But when the towers fell, he watched it on the news.

His beeper went off because he still had a beeper. And it was like, you have to get to base. had a beeper and uh and it was like you have to get to base and and so the reaction for those guys was like towers fell we're going to war and and you know there's been some criticism of that of like the towers fell didn't wasn't the same war you were fighting right but his reaction was the towers fell i got a beeper i'm on the freeway going to war. Cop pulls me over. And the cop pulls me over, says I'm speeding. And I'm like, I'm a Navy SEAL. The towers just fell. And he's like, all right, follow me, and gives him a police escort back to San Diego.

Right. Wow. So it's like that was their emotional reaction was this. I forgot if I was even answering a question. Yeah, no, we were just talking about what was it about the story that Bradley connected with? What was the part that made him want to do the movie? Yeah, so I think it was that Western element. It was the Western element of this guy

gets sent to this place of lawlessness, and he has this duel with this enemy sniper that kind of is like this mano a mano thing that is as much psychological as it is actual and and uh you know they have this shootout in the end and and look the reality of the war by the time chris got over there the second battle of fallujah by the time he was a sniper was uh we were fighting enemy insurgents who had you know radical extremists who had flooded into the country to kill americans for the promise of pay and and everything else that came you know through their religion they they were smuggled into the country so he was fighting jordanians and chechens and

syrians you make that point with with Mustafa being like a foreign national. Yeah, Syrian. So, yeah, I mean, I think that in terms of the criticism of the film, the attacks really come from this perspective of it being this misplaced archetype of what war is or the politics of this war. Whereas, really, I feel like this is an experience seen through the politics of this war. Whereas really I feel like this is, this is an experience seen through the eyes of one character and his limited prism and you know,

the information that he chose to process, you know, this experience through. And when you kind of, you know, put those blinders on and restrict your, your kind of access to information or, or what have you,

it, the whole movie kind of comes into a crisper focus for me. Right. And, you know, he went over there with a purpose, and it wasn't, he didn't choose whether he was going to go to Iraq or Afghanistan. He, you know, he was trained to do what he was trained to do, and he's trained to follow orders, and he was sent over there and he did his job. So how do you, like when people, when you read the, I mean, do you read the reviews? Have you

seen the criticism? Like how do you kind of process all of that? I mean, what is your response? I mean, my first response is great. I'm glad people are having a reaction to it. I'm glad people are talking about it. I'm glad people are talking about the Iraq war. I'm glad they're talking about a real soldier because any talk about a real soldier, any reaction to this is a positive reaction because it means we're talking about it. And it means we're talking about these guys who get buried under just a 24 hour, you know, seven days a week news cycle of, of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, you know, we had the VA story come up last year, and it was this huge, huge scandal that just disappeared overnight. Disappeared.

We found somebody in Libya that had been part of the embassy bombing, and, you know, the story was gone. It disappeared. And the fact that we've been talking about this for a couple weeks is a huge, huge victory. And the point was to explore the warrior archetype, to explore this man's story and exploring his story in a singular and personal way. We explore the archetype of warriors and what they go through and what one man goes through and, and what his family sacrifices in that process. Are you surprised by the reaction that the movie's gotten?

Um, yeah, I mean, it's, it, it's, it's hit a, it's hit a nerve for everybody in a, in a good and a bad way. And again, I think that's, I think that's a positive. Uh, I went to this dinner the other night with um i was invited to this dinner where the new va secretary was and he he paid this huge compliment he said look you guys have done more to advance the the the awareness of veterans in in the last two weeks than we've been able to do in the last decade. So it's like, wow. That means something.

Just the fact that there's a public discourse about PTSD, TBI, what we're doing with these multiple deployments and all these soldiers can't be a bad thing. If that's the only thing that comes out of this. Yeah, and look, we walk into this. I have my own opinion of Iraq. I didn't understand why we went to Iraq I thought it was crazy the access of evil and this and that

I got it, Afghanistan, absolutely we're going after this guy this is the guy that did it and then it shifted to Iraq and I didn't understand that but it wasn't for these guys to understand that they didn't choose to go to this that they didn't choose to go to this war they didn't they didn't get to go investigate whether the yellow powder was was there and they were

producing it or not you know they were they were certainly sent in to they were sent in to do this job hey you're on a rooftop it's a very small like you get a very small tapestry when you're a soldier it's like you're going to be on a rooftop you're going to be on the southwest corner of that building you're going to be looking down that street through a one and a half inch piece of glass that's what there there's your war dude that's your that's your area that's your war anything outside of that yellow powder or whatever the government's talking about or whatever she sold him and that it's not your issue your issue is like real and it's right now and you're you're going to try and save lives or guys are going to die and and that's all you have to

look at is one and a half inches of glass i feel like you you um kind of very deftly traverse this tightrope act with Chris being a guy who would be very easy to characterize as kind of this larger-than-life, Achilles-type person, you know, all these kills, like, you know, he's legendary, and he's got a price on his head, and all this sort of thing. But you make this choice to say, actually, this is really kind of a tragic story like

let's look at the tragic aspects of what it means to walk a day in this guy's shoes yeah and i feel like in this dialogue about the merits of the movie and you know as a polemic of war or not that that actually is getting lost in the discussion a little bit and that's really the thrust of the movie for me yeah no that was the thrust of the movie for me. Yeah. No, that was the thrust of the movie for all of us. And the unfortunate side of the media is that people adopt it for their own reasons. It's like, oh, well, I'm going to say this crazy thing about what snipers and they're cowards

because nobody's paid attention to me in the last two years. Right, or some kind of clickbait headline. Right. Right. Like the clickbait headline for this podcast would be, uh, uh, you know, how to write a $300 million movie. You know what I mean? Like, like as if, you know, tuning into this podcast is going to teach some aspiring screenwriter how that's going to happen. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, a lot of these, a lot of these things are so hyperbolic that it's kind of hysterical.

Right. And it's unfortunate in the way that everyone's screaming so loud on the left and the right and pulling it this way and that, that you lose the voice in the middle, which is these guys who are finally having an opportunity to talk. And I hope this is furthering furthering their, their desire and their, their willingness to speak, you know, and I've, I've gotten a few letters that are, that have indicated that, that are just like magic, you know, these letters from, from wives and from, from soldiers themselves. That's only starting, dude. I mean, that's, that's inevitable. I mean, look, we're talking about, you know, it is a $300 million movie and it barely just came out. Right. And this is Clint Eastwood's most successful movie. Like this is one of the, is it the most financially successful war movie of all time? Like it's insane what's happening right now with this film. And it's, it's really, I think it's still in its just beginning. Right. I mean, it only came out a couple of weeks ago, really wide. So, uh, you know, this is kind of an amazing experience that you're having. Yeah. I mean, how does that feel? Um,

it feels good. I mean, it feels, it feels purposeful, which is the good part about it. It doesn't feel like it's a bunch of hot air. It feels like there's a real purpose to this and there's a real, uh, you know you know, I certainly have an agenda. And how are you channeling that advocacy? Like what are the avenues that you can place that energy? You know, it's challenging. I've looked into starting my own foundation and doing that. And then I kind of found, I met Maria Sh shriver and her brother bobby and uh who'd been

suing the va you know bobby yeah sweetest guy like so funny uh we went and had dinner at their house and he'd been suing the va to get them to use the uh west la parcel of land that they have that's basically a parking lot with these buildings on it that just sits there to house the, you know, in L.A. We have the largest population of homeless veterans anywhere in the country. And so the point was to, hey, I'm going to sue you guys to use this to house homeless veterans. And so Bob McDonald took the secretary's ship over, was appointed by Obama, and he said, hey, it's crazy you're suing us because we should be doing what you're asking us to do. Right.

And here's what else we're going to do. We're going to do this, this, and this, and we're going to do this land assessment and we're going to see if we can add a track and a basketball court and we're going to try and do all these things. And he's really trying to make it happen. And so I think that that's a great cause. The idea that we can't really treat these guys if they don't have a roof over their heads makes a tremendous amount of sense to me. Because you treat these guys for PTSD and then send them out to live under a bridge, you've got a problem. That's going to cause its own symptoms and everything that goes with that.

So, you know, I've kind of found my way into that, and I'm going to march with that one and see what else. That's cool. There's certainly a lot of, you know, Taya has her own foundation called Chris Kyle Frog that's going to not just Navy SEALs, but first responders and, and all these other, um, all these other good causes. So ton of good causes out there. It's, uh, it's about finding the right ones and, and, you know, being multi-purposeful. I like that. Um, back to the narrative of how this movie got made. So Bradley's on board and, uh, but that's still a long way from there actually being a movie,

right? Like what happens next? Um, it was a, it was a shorter way. I mean, it was, we walked in and they were like,

Oh Bradley. Yeah, sure. We'll buy whatever you want. Cause he had just done the hangover, the hangover too. I'm not sure which one it was, but it was like,

you know, they just gave him a deal. So they couldn't say no. I don't even think they were listening to the pitch. They were like, Iraq war movie. Sure, whatever. He didn't want to hear the whole pitch, honestly. Right. It was hilarious.

But yeah, it was a long way. It took a lot to get the deal done and Bradley certainly managed to bring everybody together and, and, you know, and convince Chris that we were,

we were serious and we weren't going to screw this up. And, and those guys, they never met in person, did they? No, but they talked on the phone and, and,

and Chris said to Bradley, he said, well, I'm going to have to drag you behind my truck a little bit and knock the pretty off of you. Bradley's like, all said, well, I'm going to have to drag you behind my truck a little bit and knock the pretty off of you. Bradley's like, all right, all right, and do whatever you need to do. And, you know, he said, he said, I'll let you put me through the paces and roll me around in the sand.

And Chris took that and then knocked it up a notch to drag you behind my truck. Right. Well, Bradley seemed to be able to pull it off about that aspect of it because it's like uncanny when you watch videos of chris and then you watch the movie i mean he yeah is it yeah it says it's a it's a spiritual transformation yes i would imagine too there was an expectation that briley you know eventually would have met chris on set and that was yeah we thought we're gonna make chris was gonna be the technical advisor for the movie you know we thought we're gonna make the movie with chris so it wasn't there wasn't a big hurry he was home he was safe guy had lived through four tours of

duty he wasn't you know right this wasn't going anywhere this movie doesn't have to happen right now but um so we sold it got the deal done and then started working on it and i'd call chris every day and bug him and you know tell me about this tell me about that tell me all these stories and you know i got the story the enemy sniper from him that was like one line in his book and he was like i don't want to glorify that you know piece of shit i mean how real how how rooted in reality was that like was the guy called mustafa was he a Syrian? Was it, I mean, is that? I think that Chris changed the name when he told me the guy's name, but then I've since heard from someone in the State Department that his name was Mustafa.

So I'm not positive what his name was, but they were all aware of him as a possible Olympianian sniper out there and so the difference between a movie and reality is when you're looking through the scope of a gun and it's beyond 500 yards how would you know how would you know you don't know but the idea that this guy is out there who's an enemy sniper who's who's you know was in the olympics anything outside of a certain distance became this guy. Anything outside of 800 yards, in Chris's mind, becomes like, this has to be Mustafa. This has to be that guy. And so it was a little bit of fiction because it's a movie and you see that it's that guy.

For Chris, it was more psychological in that he imagined it to be this guy and perhaps it was perhaps it wasn't you never know you know at any given point if it is and you know chris believed he killed him and then a year later heard that the guy was still alive so that was the story i got from chris um one of many he also told me there was a midget sniper too right you know which you want to put that in the movie i try i try to put it in the movie but it just seemed ridiculous it seemed like you just made this up and like you know because he was so easily identifiable because of his height they would smuggle him in in a suitcase are you serious yeah and apparently this guy was good everybody knew about the midget sniper really yeah you ask any of these uh

what was that guy's name you ask any of the i don't know what that guy's name was but you ask any of the guys who are in fallujah and ramadi they heard of the the midget sniper yeah oh that's amazing yeah are there like old drafts of the script laying around where that was a midget yeah what is it like watch out they're gonna smuggle him in in some luggage something like that oh my god be on the lookout for some luggage the comedy version right right and sniper well no in the in the beginning to that guy uh the guy that's you know on the rooftop with him that's his spotter that he eventually like has it out with and it's like if you don't go down the street i don't want to see you again they called him goat because in the beginning and it came out of his

book they went into they were clearing the rooms then went into a bathroom and this goat jumped out of the bathroom and like jumped off uh jumped off a four-story railing and like committed suicide this this goat and the guy got the the guy who was clearing the rooms got so nervous that he fired his gun off and screamed out. Called him goat after that. Yeah, he's forever goat after something like that. Wow, interesting. That didn't make it into the movie for obvious reasons.

Right, right, right. Yeah, so there is a whole comedy version you could cut. Yeah, cut that in there. All right, well, right. Yeah, so there is a whole comedy version you could cut. Yeah. Yeah, cut that in there. All right, well, when does... I mean, originally, David O. Russell gets involved, right? I never even heard that. You didn't even know that? That's on the Wikipedia.

Yeah, I think that's... I think David O. Russell, after Stephen dropped out, I think Bradley reached out to David, but I think David's immediate answer was... Oh, because it made it sound like that was before Stephen on the Wikipedia. But Stephen was really the... When Steven Spielberg gets involved, then this thing suddenly becomes very real.

Yeah. Yeah, it got very real. I mean, what was that phone call like? That was a crazy day, because it was... Basically, it was a series of phone calls. The first phone call was from my agent. He's like, you're not going to believe this,

but Spielberg's reading your script sniper and I was like wow and I was like what a great day that's great I had no expectation of anything else happening and I was like wow man what a cool day thanks for that and you know he's never going to read it and then later on in the day I bought a truck

I don't know if you had seen my I bought a Toyota Land Cruiser from Japan. It was a right-drive truck, so the steering wheel was on the right side. And I was taking it out to get fixed, and all the electrical is different, and so I can't plug anything in. And I'm taking it out to the Land Cruiser place in the valley, and my phone's dying on the way, and I can't plug it into this freaking car because the outlets are the wrong voltage.

And I get another call. It's like, Steven Spielberg's door is closed. I was like, what door? And they're like, the door of his office. He's reading the script. Oh, so you're getting like real-time updates. I'm getting real-time updates. And then it's like, as I get further out into the valley,

it's like, I'm getting there to my guy's place and my phone is like at 12%, 10%, 9% and it's like get another call. Stephen's agent just walked into Bradley's agent's office. I'm standing in the hallway outside. The door is closed. I'm like, oh my god, this is crazy. Really? Really? Really? It's kind of like teenage girls talking.

My agent's like hiding in the hallway. He's like, I'm standing in the hallway right now. Yeah, you sit there. I hear him talking. That's hilarious. And I get to the Land Cruiser place, and I've had like six Land Cruisers. So the last time I saw this guy was a while ago, but he remembers me like, hey, oh my God. And he jumps into this story about his daughter. And it's like this story about his daughter that he picked up from like six years earlier. He just picked it up like, oh, my daughter's doing great now, man. And I don't totally remember.

I remember the guy, but I don't totally remember the story about the daughter. But he's telling me and he's really happy. His daughter's doing well and I'm listening to the story, but my phone is ringing in my pocket. And I'm like, I know it's my agent and I know something else has happened. And I know my fucking phone is dying and I just want to answer the phone, but I don't want to be rude right and this guy's telling me something that means

something about his daughter about his daughter so i just like i'm sitting there listening and and i'm in the middle like i'm in the industrial part of the deepest part of chatsworth i know i know that land rover place i used to take my truck there i know exactly what you're talking about yeah and so it's surrounded by like industrial buildings and it's out in the middle of nowhere. By the train station kind of. Yeah, I think so. I think so. And I'm like, wow, that's cool.

And I'm kind of trying to back away a little bit. And I'm like trying to get out of the conversation so I can answer my phone because it keeps ringing over and over and over and over. And I'm backing out. And he's like, dude, don't you need a ride? And I'm dropping off my truck, and I have no ride. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm good, I'm good. It's like the last thing I want is someone else. I want to answer my phone. And so I back out of this place, and he's like, all right, see you.

And I'm like, where the fuck are you going, dude? And I pick up my phone, and I like hey and he's like dude you're not gonna believe it steven spielberg's doing your movie he's doing your movie i was like oh my god i just get goosebumps i'm like so wait tell me and my phone dies oh it's just like right before i can ask any questions or anything else my phone dies and i'm like oh my god at least you got that part like what if it was like you're never gonna believe this click right you know right at least i got that part so i got to live with it and i had to walk like a mile and a half to starbucks and then i get there and i don't have a phone charger and i'm like oh shit i don't even have a charger and i'm like

i just want to call my wife and tell her like you're not gonna believe it or call my agent back and like just like have a moment and i'm like i can't find a phone charger and i'm asking everybody in the place and nobody has a phone charger i'm like oh my god and so i you know i'm like i just sit down i'm like well i guess i'm just supposed to sit with this and uh i just want to tell somebody so bad and i'm sitting there and this guy across from me is dressed up and like he's got a rolling suitcase but he's dressed kind of nice but you can tell he's been living, you know, a hard knock on the streets a little bit and place to place. And, and he's on the phone and he's talking to somebody who's like, no, no, no, no.

Tell him I don't need the money anymore. I don't need your money. I don't need your money. They're making my movie. And he starts screaming, they're making my fucking movie. Guy's screaming the whole place is like, what is he talking about? Oh, my God. And I'm like, you know, this guy's totally batshit crazy.

Right. But I'm like, and I would sound exactly like him if I had juice in my phone right now. You're like, they're making my movie, too. I would be that guy. I was like, oh, my God, I'm so glad I'm not that guy. And I had, you know, I just to yeah i got to i was saved from that and i got to sit there with it for a moment that's crazy i mean i think that that you know for people that are listening like i mean that obviously that's not how you know he didn't end

up making your movie but but that doesn't happen that way you know what i mean like the idea that like somebody like him would read the script and then instantaneously decide that that was going to be the movie that he was going to make. I mean, that's not how it goes down. No, I mean, I don't have the experience of how it goes down otherwise, but I can tell you that it changes everything. His attachment changed the course of this movie, and without him having done that, barring Clint,

it probably wouldn't have gotten made. I don't think the studio had any intention of making this movie. Right, because making war movies are not necessarily profitable. No. Especially an Iraq war movie. Yeah, they're hot potatoes, right? I mean, you have movies like The Hurt Locker,

but they're the exception. But even The Hurt Locker didn't make money. I mean, Hurt Locker made some money because of how small the budget was but this was a bigger budget movie and it wasn't um wasn't something they wanted to do but when steven put his name on it it kicks into high gear you know and then obviously he came off it a couple months later we'd worked on the script quite a bit what were the changes that he wanted? Like, what did he want to see that wasn't in the draft that you had at the time? You know, a lot of specificity, a lot of clarity, a lot of getting the details right, a lot of investigation into these characters. You know, the draft ballooned up about 30 some odd pages.

And, you know, there was more war in it there was there was more details of the war that were that were explicit and and drew out sort of the narrative of the war and it you know in a bigger way um so less it would have been less through the eyes of chris and a more expansive it would have been less about the archetype of the warrior and a more kind of like global. Well, there was more of the point of view of the Iraqis.

You know, there was more the butcher narrative went further, the Mustafa. Because you don't really know anything about these guys. No. Really. No, and you know, there these guys. No. Really. No. And there was a tribal leader that was introduced that managed to capture the butcher. And the true story is they captured that guy, the butcher, and they dumped him at the gates of the forward operating base. And they were like, here's your butcher.

We can take care of ourselves now. And so in a way, they kind of took back the power. And it was sort of this release from the war for, for us. And it happened at the very moment that Chris was driving back out to, to try and find the sniper and to get getting caught in the sandstorm. So it added this futility to it that, that was interesting,

you know, and it was interesting for me to see them take back the power in a way. Right. But that's more of a, like an... In Zarkawi, in the loop of Zarkawi and the drone strike that eventually happened on his compound. And all of this happening sort of in the background for Chris. Right.

That's like white noise to him. Right. So in other words, what you're saying is that Spielberg's idea was a more overtly political movie. I think it was... I don't know if it was more overtly political. I think that it put more effort into understanding the war in a way that opened up the POV a little bit. So yeah, maybe it was less xenophobic in a way. Right.

And sort of... What about tonally? Because Clint has a very specific tone. No, I mean, look, the draft didn't change that much. It became smaller, but the tone of what was said on the page didn't change. I think certainly Spielberg shoots action differently. Right. You know, it would have been a more,

it would have been a lot more detail in that regard to like, you know, the gun and how the gun works and some of that. What I love about what Clint did is it feels authentic to Iraq. It feels authentic to the war that these guys fought. He stands off it a little bit. He lets it happen. It doesn't feel like a movie. And I think that's the danger of this

and the danger that people have stepped into before, that the veterans kind of blow it off as something other than their experience because it's all so fascinating. The fascination with war and the gears of it becomes more important than the message of the movie and the story you're telling. of the movie and the story you're telling.

Yeah, that's a tricky balance because on the one hand, you have your war movies, you have your Saving Private Ryan's and all of that, and then you have your coming home movies. You know, you have your, you know, the sort of post-traumatic stress, you know, guys coming back.

But to have a movie that's doing both of those things and how do you strike the right balance in terms of how you're tipping the, you know, how much air, how much screen time are you giving each of these and how do you kind of make sure that you're striking the right emotional cord with each of those? And that's what Clint and his editors found, I think is they found the right balance of how much, you know, to keep it equal because

you put too much more war in there and it feels like absolutely just numbing. Right. You know, you, you become numb to the experience in a way that's, um, antithetical to everything else that's happening to, to the character. Then you get the call that Spielberg's out. Yeah. A bad day. That was not a good day, right? No, not a good day. I was on vacation, too. I always get bad calls on vacation. Were you back at the Clare Brover? Full power that day.

Full power on the day that Spielberg drops out of the movement. You're just like, no. and you're like, you know, digging your heels in and scratching and clawing and like going way above, you know, beyond your depth of, of, of the people that you should be calling and making promises to. And, you know, just like crazy. And, and I mean, do you think like, is there some sort of promise? Like, don't worry, we're going to get this with somebody else. Or is it like, yeah, this, this might be it, you know? No, you kind of felt like that might be it.

Cause who are you going to get that matches spielberg right and the way hollywood works is once there's kind of a taint on something then it's kind of over with yeah right yeah except for between those two guys between steven and clint steven's developed a few movies that clint he drops out of that clint comes on to you know bridges of of Madison County being another one. And, um, there was one more. I can't remember what it was.

Oh, it was, uh, it was, uh, flags of our fathers. So those were both movies that Stephen was attached to. I didn't know Stephen was attached to that one.

Yeah. Interesting. But it's not, it's never like, don't worry, we're going to send this to Clint. No, right.

No, it wasn't that at all. And how much time passed between like six weeks? It wasn't that long. That's actually not that long though. But it was a really depressing six weeks though. It seemed to last forever. Yeah. I mean, are you, you know, what's a day in the life like, are you working on other projects? Are you keeping busy with, you know, do you have other scripts that, you know, no, I had another script with Steven at the time and he handed me a book, you know, and it was, it was, uh, thank you for your service. It's a PTSD story of these guys coming home. So you would lock that in. I locked that in and I was, I was already working on it with him. Um, so it

wasn't like I missed him. I was like, all right, I got another, I got another, uh, at bat with him here. Right. So it's not like, oh, this is my, you know, the death knell of my career. Right. This was my one shot. That's no, I got another shot with him. Yeah. Um, so six to eight really slow weeks.

And then Bradley calls. He's like, you're not going to, you won't believe who's going to do our movie. I was like, who? And you know, I had talked to David O. Russell at some party and And he was like, oh, hey, man, I read your script. Yeah, I can't do that shit. Some guy on a rooftop shooting people? Like, no. And he was like, ah.

He's so wild. And he was laughing. It would be a weird choice anyway after Three Kings. It doesn't really seem to make sense. Right. And he's got a tone that's not this tone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, Bradley, just tell me.

I was so depressed. You're not going to believe who's doing it. I was like, just tell me. Because I was sure I wasn't going to be that excited. And then he's like, Clint Eastwood. Like, what? Wow. Really?

You know, because we talked about it as a Western. So Clint coming on was like, wow. It's kind of too good to be true. I mean, from the Western perspective, that's the better fit. Yeah. Unless you're going to get Sergio Leone. Just like, step on up. Spaghetti Western version.

It was cool. It was really cool. And it was like, yeah, he said he's on. Don't worry about it. He'll call us in three months. And he went off and made Jersey Boys and then called in three months. And yeah, it was a real. And then in three months, it just went from zero to 120 in two and a half months.

And they started shooting in March. Yeah, I mean, that's what you always hear about working with him, right? Like it's just this well-oiled machine. There's no, there's no fluff, there's no time wasted. And it just is a machine that moves forward at an incredibly quick pace. Yeah. Yeah. They were off location scouting like immediately and casting just rolled through and it was like bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, you know? I mean, they cast late

don't get me wrong bradley was the only one who had you know a real serious amount of time to train for this right and uh some of those other guys were like got the call and were like hey you got to be in morocco tomorrow you know so you shot you shot here and in morocco right like kind of all over la and then were you were you on set the whole time i right? Yeah. Kind of all over LA and then Morocco. Were you on set the whole time? I was on set for all of it except for Morocco because I owed Stephen a draft. On the other project. Yeah.

Right. I was stuck. I was grounded. So for somebody who's listening who's not familiar with kind of the world of Hollywood and screenwriting, what is your kind of job when you're on set? I mean, are you performing rewrites? Or are you just like staying out of the way? Don't let Clint see you.

Like, don't stay in his eyeline. Don't be the guy caught in the eye. Is it really like that? No, you know, you don't know. At first, there wasn't a, like, I didn't get a hand written invitation to come or is he like stay away from me oh no it's kind of like you have to earn your way and and your you gotta put them in a headlock and don't wear converse right you gotta earn your place on set by like what you're doing or if you're gonna stand around and get in the way and just eat treats off the craft service table or if you're gonna do something and be helpful helpful or if you're going to you know who you're going to be and so you kind

of have to earn your stripes because nobody wants anybody else there because the more people that are there the bigger clusterfuck it becomes uh if you're not doing something but fortunately for me i knew chris i i knew teo really well i knew all these people. I knew the script like nobody else did. Well, the other thing also that I think people might be not appreciating completely is that, you know, Bradley Cooper wasn't just some actor that got cast. Like he came on as a producer and he's been your collaborative partner on this all along. So there's a relationship there. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. And he trusted me and he trusted that I knew Chris and he trusted my opinion on if he had become Chris Kyle or not and if he was Chris in every moment. And he was also obsessed with like, am I big enough? Do I look big enough? And so it was a lot of like eating his face off.

He gained like 38 pounds and he looked huge in a lot of like eating his face off, eating his face off. He gained like 38 pounds and, uh, you know, he looked huge in a lot of shots and he looked huge at certain angles. And he also looked like Chris at certain angles. And I was like, all right, here's the angle. Like that's the angle of your shoulder this way. And, and you know, he, he, you stood behind the monitor and like I'd get goosebumps because it was just, he appeared as Chris and it was like this spiritual kind of transformation where you were just like, holy cow. This guy became Chris without ever having met him.

He used hundreds of hours of video and watched his stuff over and over. But it was, there was some kind of, he found a way to bring him back to life in a really bizarre way. Yeah, I mean, that's the gift of a truly you know talented actor right yeah but i mean you know i've only seen that a few times right and like channeling something right maybe a handful of times and three of them were daniel day lewis you know right exactly yeah uh and that's something you're i mean you're your pedigree isn't that's something you're, I mean, you're, your pedigree is, that's how you started as an actor, right? Yeah.

Unfortunately. Yeah. So we can, we can talk about the Buffy days. Have you, yeah, I got recognized off of Buffy the other day. Oh,

did you? Pleasure. Yeah. Was it at the DGA screening? Where was it? I can't remember where it was. Oh no. It was at a,

it was at the Santa Barbara film festival. This girl was like, were you Devin McLeish from Buffy? yeah she's like oh my god you were in that band with set dingoes ate my baby i was like oh man i know it keeps getting brought up you needed it for well for whatever reason you needed to be reminded of that i needed yeah i need the i need the daily dose of humility yeah my buffy days no it was a great show i mean it's a great show yeah well i mean i think pacific blue was was a bigger dose of humility luckily nobody remembers me from that i got my sad card on

pacific blue yeah we were like stole a hot dog or something from a hot dog stand on venice beach and went running right, there's this idea. I don't know if there's really this idea, but, but, you know, perhaps this sense that, that, uh, you know, like, who is this guy, Jason Hall? He just comes around and suddenly, you know, he's an Oscar nominated screenwriter. He came out of left field, but I mean, you've been doing this for a long time. Yeah. I mean, I remember being at Sundance in 99, 2000. Like, I think I met you through like Eric Feig maybe or John Gatins or somebody like that, like way back, right? Like you've been pursuing this for a very long time.

This is like 96. Yeah. And I was acting at first and I produced a movie and then you know stumbling around finally started writing like 16 years ago right right right right so since you're a 16 year like overnight yeah and how many scripts like in the meantime probably 20 26 24 yeah a lot Yeah, a lot. Something like that, a lot. I mean, if you could go back and...

At first, they took longer. You know what I mean? The first one took a year. Of course. Second one took nine months. Third one took six. But you need to take your time to get the first one right. Because the first one's your calling card.

And if you think, oh, I got all these great ideas. I'm going to write this one. And then I'm going to write that one. I'm going to write that. You're going to get three mediocre scripts. If you take time and write I got all these great ideas. I'm going to write this one, and then I'm going to write that one, and then I'm going to write that. You're going to get three mediocre scripts. If you take time and write one that's personal to you and take a year to do it, you get one great script, hopefully. And then doors open.

Yeah. Opportunities. Even if the story is batshit crazy and nobody wants to tell it, if you write it well, they can see that the writing is great. What was your first script? It was called The Iceman. It was a story about a kid who goes to prep school who's a child prodigy piano player

who hates playing piano and has this sort of strangely like whiplash. He has a teacher like the guy in Whiplash. And the kid hates playing piano, meets a hockey player who loves playing hockey and is an older guy. And the kid teaches him to like, they smoke pot and they they get busted and and the older kid gets kicked out and commits suicide skating onto the thin ice on the river and uh the piano player

decides he wants to play hockey they're like no you came here to play piano and he's like you know he's this crazy kid and he ends up cutting off one of his fingers. Oh, wow. He's like, I'm not playing piano. They're like, all right, you can play hockey, and he's terrible. Then the dead kid comes to him in the middle of the night and takes him out on a pond in the middle of the woods and teaches him to play hockey. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, it's trippy.

I mean, has this experience compelled you to like pull any old scripts out of the drawer? Absolutely not. Those are dead letters. It sounds cool. But yeah, I'm sure if I went back and read it, I'd be like,

whoa. I mean, if you can go back and, and 15 years, 16 years to when you were first starting, what kind of advice would you give yourself, knowing what you know now? That's a good question.

You know, I was really resistant. I wrote scripts for myself for a long time. I wrote three or four scripts that I wanted to act in. The blind wrestler script. Yeah, the blind wrestler script. And basically any time they said, what if so-and-so wants to be in this? I'd say, so-and-so can fuck off. Right, because you were going to do a Sylvester Stallone.

Yeah, I was pulling my Matt Damon. And yeah, Matt Damon was a better actor than I was. That's a problem. We don't know, Jason. We don't know. How many episodes of Pacific Blue? Just one. Just one. we don't know jason we don't know how many episodes of pacific blue just one just one so i mean do you think so that what you're saying is that you think that held you back like yeah i

think you know ride the ride the horse in the direction it's going like there's a lot of ways to succeed and you don't always know what's going to make you happiest what's the most fulfilling if you can't get past your ego and and own idea of what you're supposed to be? We all kind of are on that road to discovering who we're supposed to be and who we're meant to be. And I think sometimes our ideas of that get in the way of actually achieving that. Yeah, I think that's very well said. So in other words, I mean, that's been my very well said so so in other words i mean that's my you know that's been my path i was just telling your story so when you finally got to that point

where you're willing to kind of let go of this idea of being the actor yeah how long ago was that uh years ago that was uh uh maybe nine years ago eight years ago and then I went back and someone called me up and was like, hey, did you quit? And I was like, no, I'm writing. She's like, well, come down and audition. I'm doing this show. I was like, ugh. And I went down and auditioned and I got the role.

I was sitting on the set of CSI Miami. I was like, wow, I never want to do this again. Really? Yeah. So you've had an opportunity now that arose. You were just not interested? I don't know probably not not if not unless it was really cool and working with an interesting director on something that was artistic and wasn't wasn't you know silly procedural tv you know it's boring yeah those guys are bored out of their minds sitting at the same table

interrogating a different person with the same storyline every week it's like that's not that's not artistic when you're doing something like bradley's getting to do that's that's absolutely thrilling when you're getting to explore a character and and you know he's working every day he's on scene he's got he's got new stuff every day that's advancing the film. When you're a big player on a TV show. Yeah, but like being Chris Maloney on Law & Order for however many years or whatever. Look, he did fun, and that's great. I'm sure that they get bored of it, but those are the golden handcuffs.

Right. I mean, yeah, that's a good gig. It's a great gig. As gigs go. Yeah, Mariska Hargitay has done all right. Yeah would think so right yeah how many years is that show i mean like 13 or something 13 you make an obscene amount of money yeah it's crazy but but you know it's also like is it artistically fulfilling at that point probably not you talk to people that are on those shows and they're just a lot of times they're miserable.

They're hammering huge checks, though. Right. And you're like, oh, poor you. But the reality is, as artists, we have to find something that keeps us alive and keeps us fresh and keeps us hungry or you die inside a little bit. So the advice that you're giving your younger self is? Let the ego get out of the is get the, let the ego get out of the way. Yeah. Let the ego get out of the way and, and, and, you know, follow it, follow what you believe in and, and don't try and write stuff for other people, you know,

do it for yourself. And when you were, when you're on set with Clint and you're making this movie, I mean, did you have the sense that this was something special that this could break out the way that it has or has this been like a crazy just sort of unpredictable ride no you know it was the first i've had a couple movies made and i've been on set and watched everything like you walk away from a scene being shot and you're like wow that wasn't what i wanted at all um and this film it would turn around it was like you'd feel like oh i don't know i don't know and then the camera would turn around onto bradley and the lens would go closer and you get a you know a close-up shot on him and you'd be like boom that's it right it's exactly what i thought this was supposed to be that was my question was you know looking at the film now

i mean is this the movie that you had in your mind? Does it track with what you imagined? Yeah, it does. Yeah. That's gotta be super gratifying. And I'm sure that's not the typical experience of the screenwriter. Yeah, no, I don't think it is. It's, um, you know, every other experience I've had getting a movie made was like, yeah, I need to direct or I'm going to lose my mind. And this was, this was different because you felt the intent of the scenes of what you were trying to say was accomplished. It's not always accomplished in the way that I imagined it, but it was accomplished through Clint's style and his integrity and his instincts.

And he has a real nose for the truth and how to get to it. And I think that, I mean, from what I've read, that the SEAL Team guys and Chris's widow, like everybody feels like the movie really honors his memory pretty well, right? That's got to feel good. Yeah. Especially after getting in some scruffs and more headlocks and being told that you better get it right or you're in big trouble. The SEAL Team 3 is going to. I know.

Like, really? And having them, like, know that not only that they can, but they probably will. Yeah. I mean, you know, they never would. But when a guy says that and he looks at you and he's like, that's how much you means to me and I don't have that much to lose. Right. Like, wow, that's dark. Right.

If you weren't putting enough pressure on yourself already right you know right but you know what pressure is good i like pressure it helps me work harder and and you know you there was a like i said at the beginning this felt like a burden and then it became a privilege like that burden of of doing this right became the privilege of getting it right. I think you did, right? I hope so. The head hits the pillow feeling like he fulfilled that task. It feels good. I wrote this in a big way for that wife and those kids.

Right. And when she came out of the movie, she said, speaking of Bradley, she said, he brought my husband back to life. I just spent two hours with my husband, and you guys brought my husband back to life. You're like, mission accomplished. That was it for me. That happened before the film released.

That happened before anything, and that's still a high watermark. So when somebody goes into their local movie theater to see this movie for the first time, what is your hope that they walk away with? Hope they walk away with hope they walk away with the experience of of what these guys sacrifice when they go to war for us and what their families go through and what they sacrifice as well and an understanding of who these soldiers are and and with that understanding a uh you know the expansion of the ideas of how we can welcome them home you know what we can do for them and how we can how we can offer them home, you know, what we can do for them and how we can, how we can offer them a helping hand. Cause you know, there's no reason that this generation of

3 million guys coming home from war can't be our next great generation. You know, they've come home with certain skills and tools and, and an experience that will, that broadens the way they look at the world and at life. And, and, you know, they've seen a lot of things that most of us will never see. And, and they have a high ceiling, you know, this has given them a high ceiling of aptitude and, and, and some of them are bringing some stuff home that needs to be corrected and, and they need help in doing that. But these guys need an opportunity above everything else and they need a fair shot. That's beautifully put. I think that's a pretty good place to lock it down. right thanks so

much for doing this man yeah my pleasure so tell me what's uh going on with your other projects uh thank you for your service i got to do another little touch up for steven i got a movie called uh about rasputin called rasputin strangely enough yeah uh and that's for uh who's doing that that's for leon DiCaprio and Warner Brothers. And I got to do another little tweak on that, but we're pretty happy with that one as well. And then American... Drug Lord. Drug Lord.

Yeah. With Charlie Hunnam. Yeah. Is that Warner Brothers also? No, that's Legendary. And what's the status of that? That's pretty new, right? That's new.

And what's the status of that? That's pretty new, right? That's new. That's about the only American-born citizen to ever become the head of a Mexican drug cartel. That's an insane story. Yeah. Have you read about it? A little bit.

I only know a little bit, but it's pretty crazy. We dipped down into Mexico a few weeks ago. That was pretty crazy. Oh, wow. Wow. Oh, I thought you were just on vacation. No. No. All right. Well, we can talk about that later. Yeah. That's the next podcast. Got some crazy pictures. Yeah. All

right. Cool. Um, so you got, you got a full plate, man. Some amazing things going on. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So, uh, and the siren goes off perfect in time, right? Well, it's inspiring, man. I know how hard you've worked and for however many years. And it's nice to see one of the good guys succeeding. And I'm really happy for you. And this is a really exciting time, man. I hope you're embracing, enjoying all of it. Yeah.

Thanks, Rich. Thank you. If you want to dig on Jason, you're not really like a big social media guy, are you? I got some Twitter and Instagram. You got weird numbers after your name, though, not that weird man jason 86 no jason hall jason six seven five what does that what does that mean you can't fit you can't finish the rest of that 86 8 6 7 5 3 0 9 it's really that cheesy it's really that cheesy it was a prefix for uh 8 6 7 was running springs which is right where I grew up.

So we're always wondering, who's the girl that this guy put it to? Who's he dating? Who's this guy dating that we know that lives in Running Springs? Because it's your local country. I was wondering, yeah, if it was like Brandy or Julie. Never got answered. Never got answered. All right.

Still looking for the answer out there if anybody has it. There you go. So that's the way to find Jason on Twitter and on Instagram. Jason, 8675. There you go. Go to the movie theater. See American Sniper. And that's about it, right, Matt?

Reach out. All right. Thanks, brother. Peace. Blants. All right. I hope you guys enjoyed that. I hope you got something out of it. I hope you were entertained by Jason. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do go to richroll.com. It's your home for the podcast and all your plant power provisions, plus some great information about our new book, Plant Power Away. If you're interested in my online courses,

The Art of Living with Purpose, that's about goal setting. That's about connecting with your inner creative being. And also our other course, The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. Both of those are available at mindbodygreen.com. Easy to find on the homepage there. Hit us up with a review on iTunes if you're enjoying the podcast. Send me your questions for future Q&A podcasts. Credit for the production, audio engineering, music, sound design, and today's show goes to Tyler Pyatt. Thanks, Tyler.

With additional production and editorial support by Chris Swan. Graphic art, as always, done by Sean Patterson. Thanks, you guys. We'll see you next week. Peace. Plants. I'm out of here.