'...To be in the amputee ward and touching a 19 year-old boy's stump, it roots you': Q&A with The Messenger's Ben Foster and Oren Moverman

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'...To be in the amputee ward and touching a 19 year-old boy's stump, it roots you': Q&A with The Messenger's Ben Foster and Oren Moverman

POSTED: Thursday, November 19, 2009, 4:27 PM

Filed Under: Interview | Movies


Oren Moverman	Ben Foster

Directed and co-written by Oren Moverman, The Messenger stars Ben Foster as Sgt. Will Montgomery, a soldier wounded in the Iraq war re-assigned to the Casualty Notification Office. With Capt. Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), Montgomery informs next of kin about their family members who have died in war. When he meets Olivia (Samantha Morton), Will develops a strong connection with her'one that prompts him to make some discoveries about himself. Cindy Fuchs reviews the film in this week's issue but I sat down with Moverman and Foster to discuss The Messenger and what they learned making this film.
CP: Oren, how did you create'and identify with'these characters?
OM: I've had my military experience. We're portraying two soldiers, so my identification with them is my general identification with every soldier ' a built-in empathy and identification with the experience of being in the service over in a combat zone. I understand coming back from that 'other planet,' that combat zone, and how that feels trying to connect back to 'normal life.' That was my primary identification point. I felt we had to honor them, and respect them and play against the stereotypes that people have about the men in the military.

CP: The job is about character, how these men cope with their work'
OM: Woody's character is overcompensating for so much hurt and pain and loss that he develops a strategy for everything'. But he keeps it all together and becomes somebody who has to figure everything out, and have the last line'and that's a type you meet in the military. He uses humor to diffuse everything, and challenge you and poke you and provoke you. He's very good at reading people. I remember doing that as a soldier. It's how you survive. Ben's character is very different. His instincts are just as sharp, if not sharper, but he's much more introspective, and much more about getting the ammunition to survive down the road.

Harrelson and Foster

CP: Ben, did you lose anyone that informed your portrayal?
BF: [Foster whispers] Yeah, we've all lost people. [He slowly returns to normal voice] I've delivered news and I've received it. Working with Oren on the preparation for filming, the opportunity to confront these fears has been very cathartic. Hopefully, the film will inspire people to have these dialogues with the one we still have about the ones we have lost. We can't hide behind our traumas. You can take the military out of the movie and the movie still works. How do we hide from our own universal experience of grief and loved ones? You take these layers off, it becomes a very human experience, and one we can all connect to.

CP: Oren, the scenes of the men delivering their messages with a sense of immediacy. Why did you choose this stylized approach?
OM: The notification [scenes] were all shot hand-held, in one take. We shot the scene in its entirety. The two sides were separated'they never met'I worked with the cameraman so when they open the door for the first time, they are exposed to Ben and Woody and vice versa. There was no rehearsal. The [actors] were encouraged to go off-script. Everyone was thrown off set so we could shoot 360 degrees. It felt very alive, very immediate. We shot everything on zoom lenses, because we wanted the freedom to improvise with the camera as much as the actors are improvising with their lives and behavior, so it was a very raw, live kind of approach. I was willing to live or die with it, because I couldn't think of another approach. Luckily for us, not only the actors are terrific, but the DP was incredibly sensitive and really connected, almost physically, to these scenes. I trusted him to do what feels right, and when in doubt, go to Ben. That was the strategy.

CP: Ben, How did you develop your rapport with Woody and Samantha? What I noticed is how you listened to them. Your reactions'or in some cases, lack of one'spoke volumes when your character said nothing.
OM: [OREN interrupts] Very few people pick up on the point of the listening. It's really important. We created an eye problem' [to Ben] ' sorry, I didn't want to steal your answer ' and a leg problem, but one of the things guys and gals are coming back with are hearing problems, because things blow up very close to them, so it takes an extra effort to be able to listen, and I think that's one of the beautiful things Ben does in this movie, is give a performance that includes a lot of listening.

CP: So, Ben, how did you immerse yourself in the role?
BF: Oren set up a field trip for Woody and myself to go to Walter Reade Hospital before we started shooting, to spend time in the amputee ward. That was a life-changing experience. You can read things in the paper, and see things in the news, but to be in the amputee ward and touching a 19 year-old boy's stump, it roots you. It becomes, in itself, its own kind of humble service trying to get out of the way of yourself and serve these men and women and represent them warts and all, scars and all.

CP: In all the research you did, Ben, what surprised you about the Casualty Notification Team? And what did you discover about yourself?
BF: As Oren has said, it's the only job in the military that deals with feelings. To hear these soldiers say I'd rather be back in combat that have to deliver this news' In terms of my own life, it hasn't fixed anything, but it has certainly made me more present with addressing the inevitable. That grief is a part of this human experience, and it's OK. The sooner we're able to address our own traumas ' and that doesn't mean figure it out ' it just means process, start the processing, the sooner we can get back to connecting. And there is no greater feeling than connecting.

The Messenger opens tomorrow at the Ritz Five.

' 2009 Gary M. Kramer

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