It’s not often that a politician’s name appears in the credits of a movie cast, especially a state politician who isn’t a national figurehead. But it helps if the politician is a former soldier who served in Fallujah, and a producer wants to make a movie about the early days of the war in Iraq.
State Rep. Allen Vaught, whose House District 107 encompasses parts of East Dallas and Lake Highlands, received a call in December 2006 from a producer working on a movie dubbed ‘the Green Zone thriller" as its production title. The producer told Vaught he was working on a film about Fallujah, and had seen Vaught’s campaign website, which highlights his time in Iraq.
At that point, the producer simply asked technical questions, such as what units were stationed there and what the uniforms looked like. But a little more than a year later, Vaught received another call asking him if he wanted a part in the movie, which stars Matt Damon, Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear and other major Hollywood stars.
"It was supposed to be a stand-in part with one or two sentences of dialogue, but once I got there, it turned into something a little but bigger," Vaught says.
The film is described as "a thriller about a pair of CIA agents on the trail of certain Weapons of Mass Destruction and a foreign correspondent following their mission." It’s based on the book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (pictured above with Vaught and Damon). Movie director Paul Greengrass (pictured below with Vaught), who also directed films like "United 93" and "The Bourne Ultimatum", likes to do "quasi non-fiction films," Vaught says, "mixing in actors with real-world people." In this case, Greengrass brought in U.S. soldiers who had served time in the Middle East.
"Everyone in Matt Damon’s Humvee with him had been actual soldiers in Iraq, and just seeing the kids having so much fun doing this, it was such a tribute to soldiers who were there, the hardships that were faced, and things accomplished by those soldiers," Vaught says.
On location in London, Vaught says he filmed a 10-minute scene with Damon, actor Brendan Gleeson and Paul Rieckhoff, executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. The scene involved a briefing, and Vaught says both the actors and soldiers were instructed by Greengrass to make up their own dialogue "reflective of something that could have happened." In between takes, Vaught spent some time chatting with Damon.
"It turns out our kids were born the same day in ’06, so we spent 20 minutes talking about our kids. When you’re talking to the best looking dude alive, or whatever award he got, you would think that’s not what you would be talking about. But he’s the most down-to-earth guy I’ve ever met," Vaught says.
Vaught says Damon readily posed for every photo and signed every copy of "The Bourne Ultimatum" that was asked of him by the soldiers who worked on the set. "He never shirked," Vaught says. "When I finally said, ‘Hey, can I get a picture with you?’ I still felt kind-of awkward, but he said, ‘Yeah, sure.’"
However, the "coolest" part of the entire experience, Vaught says, was one of the dialogue improvisations. All of the soldiers wore their own uniforms during filming, so Vaught’s bore his own name tape. "But the character I played in the movie had nothing to do with what I did in Iraq as Capt. Allen Vaught," he says. "So I said, ‘Mike, when you introduce me, will you introduce me as Capt. Jonathan Vaught?’ That’s my son’s name."
The movie is expected to be released in 2009.
