I don't have much to say about his death, bless his soul, but man, he was born to act. In the past 2 weeks I've been watching the Sopranos, and the actor in the main role, he was great and looked familiar, so looked him up and finally connected the dots. I know how movies like to portray characters of senior stature in certain ways but when he walked into that room in that film, he just radiated the power he wielded, and I felt like a bunch of actors got into a room with a real government official. Later I watched Zero Dark Thirty, and this CIA (?) director character near the end of the film, he had 2 minutes in the movie I think, was the second most memorable part of the movie (after the final shootout scene). There must have been an amazing amount of research put into this screenplay. Consider that Osama Bin Laden was killed just over 18 months ago. Never heard of the man much, but considering the substantial media attention (that got to me), I figured that he was probably a good actor. Grade: A- Kudos to director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal for putting together a great story that must have been a tremendous challenge.
But I wanted to understand the experience.Long ago I was aware of a TV show called The Sopranos, and later I was made aware of someone named James Gandolfini passing away. “I did,” the Australian actor replied, ” and I can tell you, it’s not something you ever want to do. “You really tried it?” she said to Clarke. This time, actress Jessica Chastain–who plays the real life CIA agent on whom the movie is based– overheard us. Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal were nearby, and they confirmed it. We’d started the conversation a few days before, at the Governor’s Ball for the Motion Picture Academy. It was actually the second time the affable actor and I had discussed this. “Of course, it’s a lot different when you know it can be stopped, and people are there to make sure nothing bad happens.” But Clarke told me at a lunch for “Zero Dark Thirty” last week at the 21 Club that it is dangerous and life threatening. There’s been a big debate here over whether waterboarding is effective, and/or actually dangerous.
It’s come up because in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, about the hunting and killing of Osama bin Laden, a prisoner is waterboarded at the start of the movie by a US agent played by actor Jason Clarke. ‘Waterboarding’– a form of torture used by the US military on captured suspects and criminals accused of terrorism–has been much debated here in this space.
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