WAMG Interview: Jason Hall – Writer and Director of THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE

Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jason Hall adapted David Finkel’s book Thank You For Your Service, about the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder syndrome that is becoming a major issue for vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The film version of THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE starring Haley Bennett, Miles Teller and newcomer Beulah Koale, opens this Friday, with Hall behind the camera as director as well as screenwriter. Hall’s next project is The Virginian, about the young George Washington. Hall’s ambition is to show Washington as a rough man driven by extreme ambition in a violent frontier, and the film will show how one man’s battle to conquer himself enabled him to liberate a nation.

Jason Hall was in town recently promoting THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE and answered some questions for We Are Movie Geeks.

We Are Movie Geeks: Do you think that soldiers who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan or damaged mentally in a distinct way as opposed to soldiers who came back from other wars?

Jason Hall: The majority of the soldiers come home and they are not damaged. To look at our soldiers, you have to say that these guys are assets, but one out of four of these guys come home and they have some sort of PTS. The distinct difference between this and, say Vietnam, are the blast waves. Once you start dealing with the IED’s and the way that that affects the brain and of the trauma, is closer to World War One with all the shelling in the concussive nature of that. It’s not the explosion that does the most damage. It’s the blast wave, a wave that comes at you at the speed of sound that’s like a brick wall.

WAMG: I recently saw a film called LAST FLAG FLYING about three Vietnam vets reflecting on their service decades later and some of their regrets about being drug addicts during the war and catching STDs in whore houses in Vietnam.

JH: Yes I think the differences between what these guys experienced and with the guys in Nam experienced could fill a book.  There was a lot of boredom. You see things in the movies that are very exciting and visceral but there was a lot of downtime for these guys. A lot of times they would drive around and they wouldn’t even see the enemy, or see who’s shooting at them, or see who’s trying to blow them up. It seemed to them like they were fighting an invisible enemy. Or they were disguised or dressed like civilians. It’s a real challenge to know who you’re fighting.

WAMG: As a director, what did you learn from working with Clint Eastwood?

JH: Clint is such a personality. I guess I was the first writer that he let stick around. I was around for the entire shooting of the film. He was so generous with me. He would ask my opinion about things, which is not a common character trait for him. Such a charming guy and what I learned from him to just keep it loose and being flexible. If he has any instinctive idea, he would just take change the tone of a scene or turn it on its head and goes in a different direction.  What I learned from Clint too is truth. Clint is always trying to put truth up on the screen. That’s his whole goal. That differs from Spielberg in the sense that Spielberg is about trying to make the audience feel from a scene while Clint wants to give us the truth about a scene.  Two different ways and very interesting for me to have experienced both schools of thought.

WAMG: Who would you love to see star in your George Washington project?

JH: Whoever I can get that mostly resembles that young George Washington. But he was 22 at the time of the story that I’m telling so that could be a challenge