Page 90 - All About History - Issue 38-16

Five minutes with

AUSTIN STOWELL

How did you get into his mind set and what he
WE TALK TO THE ACTOR ABOUT HIS ROLE AS FRANCIS GARY was going through?
POWERS IN ‘BRIDGE OF SPIES’, THE HISTORICAL DRAMA Of course I had no idea what it was actually like to be
in solitary confinement for close to 90 days or three
THRILLER BASED ON THE INFAMOUS 1960 U 2 INCIDENT years in a KGB prison half way around the world.
But you know, I’ve been lonely, so I tried to adapt
those raw emotions. I asked the production team
to leave me in the cell and lock the door when we
When did you get the call? I didn’t initially know who Powers was and weren’t shooting. When you’re locked in, it’s a very
The call came from my agent. Originally I went for that’s a shame as he’s somebody I now hold in the claustrophobic environment. It’s the quiet that really
the part of Donovan (Tom Hanks)’s assistant but highest regard for his sacrifices for this country gets to you. We live in a world of noise – music, the
because of the shape I was in at the time, I was told and the freedom we get to enjoy everyday. Once I buzz of the city, dogs barking – but in there there’s
that I looked more like a linebacker than a clerk in a got the role, I started talking to my older relatives, no sound except the sound that you make. There
law office. I didn’t hear anything more about it but particularly my grandmother, who remembers the is no echo, so any sound that you do make sounds
then all of a sudden my agent called and said we day it happened. She knew exactly who Powers was stale and off-putting.
had an offer to play the pilot, Francis Gary Powers. and you could tell she had questioned his motives.
Of course, I was over the moon and I did my usual When Powers returned to the USA, the Soviets had Did you get to speak to Francis Gary Powers Jr
tradition of jumping in a pool with all my clothes on! released so much propaganda about him: that he about his father?
had been learning Russian and was thinking about I spent quite a bit of time with him and one of
How did it feel to play Powers? staying in the Soviet Union because he had enjoyed the best things he did for me was give me his
He’s certainly somebody who’s been misjudged his time there so much. But that couldn’t have been audiotapes. They had been recorded in the late
and definitely an American hero. This is somebody further from the truth. The only communication he 1960s and early 1970s when Powers was speaking
who spent three years in a KGB prison. The only did have was through his Latvian cellmate, who he to an interviewer about his experience. I don’t think
information Powers gave to the Soviets was always thought might have been a plant by the KGB. there’s any greater tool other than meeting the man
information about the plane that he thought they He knew English and could talk to and translate for in person – hearing the voice of the man you’re trying
could gather on their own anyway. He was very Powers. That was the extent of his social life while to portray, I couldn’t ask for better than that.
worried that one of the other pilots in his unit would he was in the Soviet Union. He wanted nothing more
be shot down because of information he gave. He than to get home and he is quoted as saying on the ‘Bridge Of Spies’ is available to buy on Digital HD,
played everything very close to his chest once he bridge that if something went wrong, he’s just to Blu-ray™ and DVD now, courtesy of 20thCentury
was captured. make a run for it. He didn’t care if he was shot. Fox Home Entertainment.

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