Barry Pepper is an actor you'd never expect to meet, but if you happen to, you'll be thankful. You can tell he's been doing interviews back to back all day, and yet it still seems that he is genuinely looking forward to speaking with you about his new film, "Flags of our Fathers." Soft-spoken yet confident, his answers indicate a real thoughtfulness and true care for his craft.
Tufts Daily: You've had important roles in "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), "We Were Soldiers" (2002), and now in "Flags of Our Fathers." What about the war-film genre interests you the most?
Barry Pepper: It wasn't by conscious design on my part to set out to do war films, let alone three very iconic war films. The stories are just powerful: gripping, riveting stories that you couldn't imagine not being a part of. You're compelled and entertained by what you read ... in the script, and the fact that the backdrop is war isn't really a factor.
It's when you meet and speak with the veterans of World War II, Vietnam or the young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan at various speaking engagements and bases around the country and memorial services and whatnot, you quickly have a much more intimate perspective about what your film has given to people or what men and women in uniform do for a living.
It quickly becomes a much different animal. You come into it open-eyed and bushy-tailed, and you come out with a more intimate perspective of what it is that you're portraying. Especially with "Flags of Our Fathers" and "We Were Soldiers" - you're playing actual men.
TD: You've recently worked with Tommy Lee Jones on "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" (2005) and in "Flags of our Fathers" you were directed by Clint Eastwood. Have you found anything unique about directors who started their careers as actors?
BP: Yeah, Clint especially: He directs the way he likes to be directed. He has a tremendous amount of respect for his actors, and he just instills you with the confidence that you can work your way through the film and problem-solve for yourself.
TD: "Flags of Our Fathers" has been characterized to an extent as a revisionist war film, having more in common with "Saving Private Ryan" than with a traditional war film such as "Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949). What are your thoughts on this idea of the revisionist versus the traditional war film?
BP: The "revisionary" label is accurate in the sense that it is revising past misconceptions in war films that have taken no responsibility in presenting the truth and historical misconceptions and lies.
But you know, you still see that today with Pat Tillman of the Arizona Cardinals and how the military publicity department manipulated his story and the men of his unit, and then you have to hear about it months later that there's an investigation, and it reveals that here's a guy who made a tremendous sacrifice, and you find out that he was killed in friendly fire in an accidental engagement.
You find that it was so unnecessarily manipulated by the military, and sadly, these are themes that just tend to reoccur. So I don't think people will be that surprised by this film. Yet I hope that this film doesn't erode the meaning behind that iconic image - that iconic Rosenthal photograph [of the soldiers raising the American flag at Iwo Jima] - and that it still represents what President Eisenhower intended it to represent when he dedicated the Arlington monument [sic] that was based on the photograph.
He had [the quote] inscripted on the monument - "Uncommon valor was a common virtue" - and that's what it represented to all the men that lost their lives on Iwo Jima and what it should still represent to people. And so I think the film will reveal a fascinating chapter of history that people need to be educated about, but it shouldn't take anything away from the sacrifice that took place on Iwo Jima - on both sides.
