Empire UK

emboldened him to direct rather than

produce — chiefly that Donovan was

willing to scupper the entire Powers-

Abel exchange if he couldn’t get

imprisoned Yale student Frederic

L. Pryor (Will Rogers) out as well.

“There is a moral drive to the

story that really appealed to me

especially coming off Lincoln” says

Spielberg. “People who make strong

decisions based on what they believe

in the most which is constitutional

law. Donovan would sacrifice a lot with

his family with his friends with people

no longer respecting him because he

is certain he is doing the right thing.

And who better to represent the moral

centre of anything...”

“Yeah that’s me man” interrupts

Hanks. “The moral centre of everything.

You guys are such fools.”

“THE ACTUAL MORAL CENTRE OF

everything ” is a pretty apt description of

how Spielberg has utilised Hanks over

theirfour-film collaboration using the

actor’s persona — trustworthiness

decency understated strength — smartly

across a wide range of roles. The pair

first met in 1984 when Spielberg ’s

Amblin Entertainment produced early

Hanks comedies The Money Pit and Joe

Versus The Volcano with Spielberg

considering directing his sister Anne’s

script for Big before deciding he didn’t

want to crash her party. Yet it took some

12 years for the pair to work together.

“I had to get older to tell you the truth”

says Hanks. Given Hanks’ post-League

Of Their Own/Philadelphia gravitas

Spielberg cast him as Captain John

Miller the English teacher-turned-

ranger fighting to keep his humanity

on the battlefields of France in Saving

Private Ryan.

“I had never worked with The Boss

before” says Hanks. “I did not know how

fluid he was going to be. I thought he’d be

this kind of auteur who would be ‘This

is what I want in my shot! Get out of my

shot!’ He never did that. If you are in the

shot you have input in what’s going on.”

If anything binds Spielberg and

narrative” but he thought Charman’s

script needed another spin so sent it to

Joel and Ethan Coen. Back when Blood

Simple came out a deeply impressed

Spielberg had called them in for a meet

and greet — “We sat and talked for

a couple of hours about how they raised

money from doctors and dentists” — and

he later went on to executive produce

2010’s True Grit. Not wishing to reinvent

the wheel the Coens mainly tinkered

with the intense negotiations that form

the meat of the drama.

“Their language is ultra-juicy”

says Hanks a Coens vet following The

Ladykillers. “When they delivered their

stuff you could see their patina to it. The

dialogue was more odd but at the same

time more colloquial buyable.”

While Spielberg admits the pair

“write with a great sense of irony” there

is something heartfelt in the story that

— and math lessons interrupted by

duck-and-cover air-raid drills. Living

in Phoenix Arizona he was close to

Tucson home to US ICBM bases a

“definite target for a 50-megaton hit”.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis with

his parents out at a party he filled every

sink and bathtub in the house fearful

of a poisoned water supply. “I was

absolutely terrified of the end of the

world” he freely admits.

Evincing this atmosphere of

anti-Russian paranoia Bridge Of Spies

started with a pitch from Brit writer

Matt Charman. In 1957 during the

heat of the Cold War American lawyer

James B. Donovan (Hanks) was hired

to defend Russian spy Rudolf Abel

(Wolf Hall’s Mark Rylance) on three

counts of conspiracy for passing secrets

in a hollowed-out coin. Coming under

increasing pressure both professionally

and personally (his house was shot at)

for representing a Red Donovan lost

the case but saved Abel from the death

sentence. Five years later he became the

lead negotiator in a spy-swap exchanging

Abel for captured US pilot Francis Gary

Powers whose U-2 spy-plane was shot

down over Soviet territory during

a reconnaissance mission in 1960.

For Spielberg the real-life story had

“the symmetrical beauty of a fictitious

“I used to be absolutely

terrified of the end of

the world.”Steven Spielberg

BRIEFING

BRIDGE

OF SPIES
RELEASED:
November 27
DIRECTOR:
Steven Spielberg
STARRING: Tom
Hanks Mark
Rylance Amy
Ryan Alan Alda
Austin Stowell
STORY: In 1962
insurance lawyer
James B. Donovan
(Hanks) is hired to
defend Soviet spy
Rudolf Abel (Rylance)
on charges of
conspiracy. He is
later deployed by the
US government to
negotiate the safe
release of imprisoned
U-2 pilot Francis Gary
Powers (Stowell)
using Abel as
a bargaining chip.
CHECKPOINT: The
production shot at
the actual Glienicke
Bridge where the
handover took place.
Even German
Chancellor Angela
Merkel came down
to observe the shoot.

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