Jessica Chastain - Movie
By Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist
Jessica Chastain
Recreates The Biggest
Man Hunt In History!
Photos
Courtesy Sony/Columbia Pictures
The hunt for Osama bin Laden stretched for
more than a decade between two Presidential administrations and came to a
bloody and deadly conclusion when a small band of CIA operatives tracked him to
a fortified, 38,000 square foot compound, tucked into a well-to-do suburban
area of Abbottabad, Pakistan, just 100 miles from the Afghanistan border and
less than a mile from the Pakistani Military academy. After verifying bin
Laden’s presence, the CIA deployed a special squad of U.S. Navy Seals to take
him and a few of his cronies and guards out via a top secret operation titled
“Zero Dark Thirty” which is military jargon for the dark of night, as well as
the moment 12:30 a.m., when the Seals first stepped foot on the compound.
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| Kathryn Bigelow (Director) Mark Boal (writer) |
“Zero Dark Thirty” is the project child of
the Oscar®-winning duo of director Kathryn Bigelow and writer/producer Mark
Boal who brought us “The Hurt Locker.” The film’s story is told through the
eyes of a little-known participant in the intel hunt: Maya, a young CIA officer
and targeter whose job is finding terrorist. This character was based on the
real life female CIA operative that led the bin Laden manhunt.
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| Jessica Chastain as CIA Agent Maya |
Maya is played
by Academy Award®-nominated actress Jessica Chastain. Since this is a military
story based on actual events, how did Chastain prepare for this role? She reflects,
“I had three months before we started shooting that I went to school for it I
guess. I nick named Mark (the film’s writer/producer) the professor. I would
sit with him and go through the screenplay and ask a lot of questions about the
character I was playing, about the CIA.
I did some reading. Two books I found
particularly helpful were “The Leaning Towers” and Michael Shure’s book on
Osama bin Laden. But I was never able to meet the real woman face to face
because she’s and undercover agent. I
had to use my imagination to fill in the blanks where the research couldn’t
answer the questions.”
Did Chastain have an opinion about the fact
that the search for bin Laden was led by a female? She smiles, “I’m very
excited that people are now seeing this film and they realize that it is not a
propaganda film. It doesn’t have an agenda. It just tries to show this woman in
history as effortlessly as possible. In regard to the difficult scenes that
these people found themselves in, I just put so much compassion in for this
woman who really sacrificed so much for this mission. In our film, she becomes
a stranger to herself at the end. I just loved her from the moment I read her
from what Mark created from the dry facts, this greatest manhunt in history and
what he was able to do with the dry facts to create this amazing arc and put
the light on the people who worked so hard that never get the acknowledgment
for that. So I have an enormous amount of compassion for it.”
© 2013 Rych McCain
Media/Syndication tm
(You DID
Hear It From Me!)
Twitter@rychmccain
