AMERICAN SNIPER 5
a tactical training com pany for U.S. military and law enforcement personnel. On
2 January 2012 William Morrow published Kyle’s memoir (co- written with Scott
McEwen and Jim DeFelice): American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal
Sniper in U.S. Military History, a book that stayed on The New York Times bestseller
list for over nine months. Screenwriter Jason Hall— who had been working with
Chris Kyle on a Kyle biopic script since March 2010— successfully pitched the proj-
ect to actor Bradley Cooper. On the strength of Cooper’s involvement, Warner
Bros. teamed with Cooper’s production com pany to purchase the rights from Chris
Kyle on 24 May 2012. On 2 February 2013, the day after Hall finished a first draft
of the screenplay, Chris Kyle and a friend named Chad Littlefield set out to take
ex- Marine Eddie Ray Routh to a shooting range in Glen Rose, Texas, as post-
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) therapy. Before they reached the range Routh,
25, shot both men dead in order to steal Kyle’s customized pickup truck. (Routh
was subsequently convicted of the double hom i cide and sentenced to life without
parole.) Shortly after Kyle’s murder Steven Spielberg signed on as director but quit
the proj ect three months later after he and the studio couldn’t come to a bud get
agreement. In September 2013 Clint Eastwood took over as director, and Cooper
began a rigorous, six- month diet and exercise regimen to transform himself into a
credible likeness of the heavier and more muscled Chris Kyle. He also watched
dozens of hours of home movies that Kyle’s widow lent him to master Kyle’s
demeanor and body language.
Production
On 14 March 2014, Sienna Miller was cast as Kyle’s wife, Taya. By the end of March
most of the rest of the principal cast had been hired. Principal photography began
on 31 March 2014 in Los Angeles and then relocated to Rabat, northern Morocco,
for 12 days of location shooting. From 23 April to 6 May shooting took place at a
simulated Iraqi village at the Blue Cloud Movie Ranch in Santa Clarita, California.
In the latter half of May domestic scenes were shot in Culver City and Los Ange-
les. The 44- day shoot wrapped on schedule in early June in order to meet the film’s
limited- release Christmas 2014 deadline. Notorious for being a very fast- working—
some would say slapdash— director, Clint Eastwood kept to his customary six or
fewer takes per shot (usually two or three). Also typical for Eastwood was the mini-
mal amount of time he spent on rehearsal— a good thing in some instances,
because it can enhance spontaneity in actors, but it can just as easily result in some
shoddy per for mances.
Plot Summary
Chris Kyle’s father, Wayne (Ben Reed), teaches the youngster how to shoot a rifle
and also teaches him that the world is composed of wolves (predators), sheep (prey),
and sheepdogs (protectors of the weak) and that the strong and righ teous assign
themselves to the third category. Years later, Kyle is a rodeo cowboy when he watches
a news story about the U.S. embassy bombings (7 August 1998) and immediately
decides to join the U.S. Navy. After rigorous training, he becomes a U.S. Navy SEAL
sniper. Kyle meets Taya Renae (Sienna Miller) in a San Diego bar, they marry, and