Once upon a time, I had the privilege of playing JFK speech writer Ted Sorensen, in, Thirteen Days, a film about the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the five months of shooting we would sometimes wonder among ourselves what the project would amount to. Sure, we were depicting a critical moment in contemporary history, albeit as a cast of almost entirely middle-age, male actors, debating at the tables of Washington’s inner-sanctums, and smoking as if in a Camel ad. No car chases, no sizzle-scenes, and no explosions. In fact, avoiding the big kaboom was pretty much the whole point.
At a private screening with Bruce Greenwood, (superb as JFK), we bated our breaths as the lights went down. When they came back up, we turned to each other in a mutual marveling, “Where were we when this movie was being made?!” Whatever liabilities we had perceived had been eclipsed, and director Roger Donaldson’s vision made vivid by the unseen hand of inspired editing. The final product, hewed close to history, captured a sense of the story’s massive scale, yet failed to gain the box office audience it deserved.
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