The military has been actually remarkable at dealing with race, but gender is an issue.
From Edward Zwick
When I first thought about the military - and this goes all the way back to 'Glory' - I learned really quickly that it isn't a monolith. It is really an institution made up of some people with very different personalities and people of different backgrounds.
In the necessary memorialisation of the six million dead, there had been precious little attention paid to those who survived and how they survived.
The funny thing is, when you look at photos of Tuvia Bielski, he was fair, blue-eyed, and could pass for a Gentile.
One reason why in Hollywood we are so often inventing heroes is that real heroes are vexing.
In my experience of the men of action I have met - whether from the Second World War or Iraq or Vietnam - they often had to do things that they would rather not reflect upon afterwards. This is perhaps one reason why the story of the Bielskis remained untold for so long.
I like to do everything I can to avoid rehearsals, even while we're rehearsing.
Every day and every scene, it's never the scene that you expect.
Sometimes when an actor and director work together for the first time, it's not as if there's a suspicion, but there is tentativeness, a certain amount of a right of passage you have to go through in order to get there. When it's already there from the beginning, it's such a plus.
If you don't know each other you spend time doing research together, having dinner, and talking about your lives. You try to find common ground. Once you're shooting, the pressures are so intense; you really want to have a channel of communication open to you already.
5 perspectives
4 perspectives
3 perspectives
2 perspectives
1 perspectives