Original-Cin Q&A: The Outpost's Rod Lurie talks about war, his second-generation famous-name cast, and a pre-shoot personal tragedy
Director Rod Lurie has some memorable and well-crafted films under his belt (The Contender, The Last Castle, Nothing But the Truth). But a filmmaker wasn’t something he always thought he would be.
A West Point graduate and a soldier, he soon turned his attention post-military to film criticism in Los Angeles before deciding he wanted to make movies and not just talk about them. Lurie’s latest film, The Outpost, is a fact-based account of a battle between U.S. soldiers and the Taliban in Afghanistan, under seemingly unsurvivable conditions.
Based on Jake Tapper’s best-selling book, the film is intense and features a talented ensemble cast including Orlando Bloom and second generation actors Scott Eastwood, Milo Gibson, James Jagger, Will Attenborough and an award-worthy performance from Caleb Landry Jones.
Preparing to go into battle in The Outpost
Our Bonnie Laufer spoke with Rod Lurie from his home in Los Angeles about this hard hitting and ground-breaking film.
The Outpost is available for streaming July 10 on Video on Demand.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Being a West Point graduate and having served in the military yourself, I imagine this event was already on your radar when Jake Tapper's book came out.
ROD LURIE: “It certainly became an instant part of American military folklore. Everybody knew that it was the bloodiest battle of the Afghanistan war - and there are a few candidates for such a thing. But it was also the most heroic battle. Two men received the Medal of Honor and so yeah, it was definitely on my radar.
“A few years later, I was approached by Sam Raimi who was the original director on the film. He’d dropped out as director and wanted to produce, and he asked me to come aboard. He eventually dropped out as a producer as well, but I was very eager to get to it and tell the story as best I could.”
OC: Once you got the script and started to dive in, you're probably thinking this is probably going to be the most important film I'm ever going to make.
LURIE: “That is absolutely accurate and it's very important to me for many reasons. But I think that the strongest of it is that I'm telling the true story.
“There are several men who survived this battle. But also, there were several men who fell in this battle and I owed it to the Gold Star families to get this right. The pressure on all of us was to not screw it up and to tell the story accurately. To properly portray these kids was extremely important.
“I'll tell you when we showed the film to the Gold Star families, Jake Tapper and I were both very stressed by how they would react. But they reacted with a lot of graciousness and a lot of gratitude, which is what we have toward them as well.”
Director Rod Lurie
OC: A couple of the guys who served in that battle are in your film. One of them is one of the stars, so I can't even imagine for you what it was like having them there. To get their first-hand accounts must have been invaluable.
LURIE: “Yes that was really significant. And not only did we have them there to help us get it right, but none of the actors, none of the crew, nobody was going to complain. Nobody was going to whine, while these people who lived this thing were right up there.
“That that was never going to happen in this movie. Everybody toughed this thing out like you can't begin to imagine.”
OC: Tell me a little bit about that, because everybody in this movie is so good - from Scott Eastwood to Caleb Landry Jones, who in my opinion should get an Oscar nomination for his performance.
LURIE: “Yes, I completely agree. Caleb Landry Jones who plays Ty Carter, in my opinion is worthy of the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the Critic’s Choice Awards, right across the board.
“But Caleb is the guy who was furthest away from the guy he is playing. If people don’t know who Caleb is, he was in the movie Get Out and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and he is such a versatile actor.
“Where I first met Caleb I was at Mel’s Drive-In in Los Angeles and he was like that skinny guy from Scooby-Doo, Shaggy. And let's just say that he was sort of celebrating the legalization of marijuana with hair down to his ass.
“When I sent him to meet Ty Carter, Carter called me and said, ‘Is he going to go to the gym?’ I knew that he didn't have the physical resemblance and he didn't have the life experience. But one thing I knew about Caleb instinctively as a director and from watching his other performances, he's one of the best actors in the country.
“Not only that, and here's something that's not widely known. His brother was a Marine who lost both his legs in Iraq. And his brother told him, ‘You're going to do this movie and you're not going to screw it up.’
“That was all Caleb needed. His brother actually came to Bulgaria where we shot. And what was there was what I would call a presence in Caleb's life.”
OC: It was a long and difficult journey for you, Rod, to get this movie made. And there were a lot of obstacles that you had to face getting there from the personal to the professional. From Scott Eastwood breaking his ankle just before shooting, to your limited surroundings in Bulgaria, what was the biggest challenge for you?
LURIE: “RPG is a rocket-propelled grenade, and in battle you always yell, ‘RPG!’ when they are coming at you. We definitely felt like we had some RPGs coming at us all the time, from the budget being as small as it was to not being able to have the extras that we needed.
“And yes, Scott Eastwood breaking his leg was not an easy thing to deal with for the entire schedule, because he had quite a physical role.
“I think that what you were getting to with personal stuff is that my son died while I was making this movie.”
OC: I am so deeply sorry for your loss.
LURIE: “Thank you. Yeah, it's pretty terrible Bonnie, but it happened during the preparation for the film and I flew from Bulgaria to Michigan where he was lying in a bed unconscious, hooked up to all these machines.
“His mom and I were there to pull the plug and Hunter spent 20 minutes dying in front of our eyes. My daughter said to me, ‘I know that you don't feel like going to make a movie right now. But you have to go back to Bulgaria and do it for him.’
“Hunter was 27, the same age as these men and I felt I had a kinship with the Gold Star families. They really got behind me and that's what I mean when I couldn't let him down.
“I really understood, my son was just taken from me, he died from a blood clot and died so suddenly. One day you're talking to him on the phone and everything was great, and the next day he's not on this Earth anymore and it was brutal.
“I will say that the cast and crew, the studio and my producers, my writers, were all roaring behind me. Bless them for that.”
OC: I'm sure making this, Rod, you're probably a changed man.
LURIE: “ I am not a changed man. I understand the man that I am though. Extreme situations reveal a man and this was true of everybody on the crew. We find out what we're capable of when we're there.
“Yes, we had many obstacles. But the desire to get this film made and to get it done right was so overwhelming. I had my son's photo up on that monitor every day in the video village where the actors come and the crew comes to talk to you or to complain.
“People came and they saw Hunter’s photo and they said, ‘We’re going to go back out there boss.’ I cannot tell you how much they rallied for me. Nobody was going to let the families down, nobody was going to let down the soldiers who were there, that was for sure, nobody was going to let Hunter down and nobody was going to let me down.
“So as a result I think it’s the best film that I've ever made.”
OC: There is no question that you made the families and Hunter very proud!
LURIE: “Thank you. But I do want to stress something Bonnie. Although this film deals with a very extreme battle and circumstances, this is not a morose movie.”
OC: Absolutely. And what I think you take most from the film is that sense of family and camaraderie being what it's all about when you do have to go to War. Ultimately this is your family.
LURIE: “These actors are playing soldiers. But where we can make the comparison with the actual soldier is that there is a vested interest and that they have to count on one another.
“Everybody who died in this battle died trying to save somebody else. These guys, they all realize that they're all part of the same cog. And if any one of them goes bad, we all go bad.
“Ultimately the battle sequence, which is almost 40 minutes, is very immersive and very intense. And at the end of the film, despite what you've seen, I think that we are inspired by the American Soldier. I was one of them and I am going to stick by them.”
OC: That final battle scene was pretty extraordinary, it was choreographed and executed brilliantly. How long does something like that take?
LURIE: “We really didn’t have a lot of time to shoot this movie. We had about 30 days give or take, but I rehearsed the hell out of those battle sequences. And we really had to, because as you can see, we did them as a series of long shots because we didn't have cutaways.
“We didn't have that luxury at all. Plus, I thought it would be a much more immersive way to present the path. I'm a military guy and had a lot of military people on set with me. And so, with everyone’s input, we were able to be extremely efficient in how we shot the movie and also how we prepared .”
“There was one scene where we had these two soldiers - one played by Caleb Landry Jones, the other by Hank Hughes who plays a character named Brad Larson - and they do a stretcher run at the end of the film and at the end of every take Hank threw-up. It’s just a testament to how much people put into this.”
OC: I can’t let you go without mentioning the second and third generation actors who worked on this movie. Let’s start with Scott Eastwood (Clint’s son), Milo Gibson ( Mel’s son), James Jagger (son of Mick and Jerry Hall), Will Attenborough (grandson of Sir Richard) and Scott Alda Coffey (grandson of Alan Alda). That is quite an ensemble and I have to say these guys were amazing and certainly not resting on their names.
LURIE: “Yes, these young actors give me hope for the future of our industry. They were all so good and such hard working young men.
You know, Alan (Alda) became a good friend of mine because I've made two movies with him and I regard him as one of the great actors in history. So I was thrilled that his talented grandson is keeping up the family tradition.
“I don't know, the film might be more sellable because of those names. But rest assured, they all worked hard and I couldn’t have been happier with their attitudes, work ethic and wonderful performances.”