One Soldier's Story: The Journey of American Sniper

You're the one they're calling the Legend. You've got like 24 confirmed kills.

Well, who's counting?

That's fucking badass.

We took this guy who was iconic in the world that he lives in and moved in.

And they called him the Legend.

And we told his story in as human a way as possible.

Your hands feel different.

This is a human story about people...

...who struggle within the world of war and within the world of family.

And this is about a man who saved many, many lives.

I think it really brought home the idea...

...that it's not just the soldier that goes to war, it's the whole family.

It's not about them.

It's about us.

You have to make it back to us.

It's not just a big pro-war picture.

It shows the toll war takes on you.

American Sniper is about the soldiers' sacrifice...

...and what we're asking them to give when they go to war...

...and what war takes from them.

You're my brother...

...and they're gonna fucking pay for what they did to you.

It's an exciting movie. It has humor. It's a good love story.

But at the end of the day, you also felt...

...we were doing something special, we were doing something true...

...and maybe doing something hopefully profound.

The journey that led to American Sniper...

...began with producers Peter Morgan, Andrew Lazar...

...and screenwriter Jason Hall...

...and the provocative stories they'd heard...

...about a legendary military sniper named Chris Kyle.

We were interested in Chris's story...

...because we had heard about the exploits of Chris...

...and the incredible things he did in four tours of duty.

So we were very, very excited about his story...

...even before the HarperCollins book came about.

I was interested in a warrior of that caliber.

He had been in the service and in the SEALS...

...and at war for almost a decade.

And so the idea of someone who had gone to war that many times...

...and sounded like Achilles and then had come back...

...and the effect of war on men is interesting to me...

...and I wanted to see what it'd look like on him.

Jason went down to Texas...

...and found Chris to be really a hard nut to crack, but also fascinating.

I got to this hunting ranch that he was working with some guys...

...and I walk in and there's Chris and 50 Texas cops.

And so it's me, the Hollywood screenwriter, and, you know, 50 pretty grizzly guys.

I think that Chris and the fellow law enforcement officers there...

...wanted to kind of get a piece of the kid from Hollywood...

...and see what he was made out of.

Chris barely spoke to him.

He wasn't very talkative, he wasn't very chatty.

And I asked his friends, I said, "I keep asking him questions.

Why won't he talk to me?"

And they're like, "He's a sniper. You know, he sits and he waits."

Jason had to really work to get Chris to open up to him.

That night, they got a little-- Everybody got a little rowdy.

And there was a SWAT guy who was calling me all kinds of names...

...and just, you know, giving me a rough time.

And Chris still wasn't talking to me.

And so this guy said one too many things and I threw him in a headlock.

And I took him down.

They didn't know he was actually a pretty good wrestler. Ha, ha.

State-champion high-sohool wrestler.

So he was able to gain the respect, I think.

And then Chris was like, "Hey, you're all right. What do you wanna know?"

NARRATOR'. Having gained Chris Kyle's trust, screenwriter Jason Hall made it his mission...

...to discover the true character of the man whose story he yearned to tell.

I came in looking for something, and it was there...

...and it was like, "Wow, this guy has seen something.

This guy has been to the other side, and he's not quite entirely back."

There was a torment, you know, in his eyes, and it wasn't comfortable.

NARRATOR'. Jason Hall's initial screenplay painted a portrait of Chris Kyle...

...drawn from classic archetypes of warriors throughout human history.

Jason started to form a story around it.

And it was really like a modern-day Achilles, is what we came up with.

Chris is the very extreme of what a soldier is.

Chris is Achilles. He's that guy.

And so everybody looks up to him.

And what Jason and I decided to do was not try to dress it up.

Not try to make it nonlinear, not try to add anything to it.

Jason always says--

In developing his material, he says, "Just tell the truth."

And so we created a very straightforward narrative...

...and a very straightforward character which serves Chris.

NARRATOR'. With their first draft in hand, Peter Morgan and Jason Hall...

...began looking for the right actor to play Chris Kyle.

We had a list of guys that we were thinking about...

...and Bradley's name popped off that list as somebody who...

...if he's willing to dive into it, could just hit this thing out of the park.

And I pitched him what I thought that, you know, the story was that I wanted to tell...

...and he responded to it immediately.

And he and I talked about it quite a bit.

I hadn't read American Sniper: The Autobiography at that point.

And I just loved the idea of this.

I've always been in love with the genre, the war genre, since I was a kid.

Movies like The Deer Hunter, and Apocalypse Now and Platoon...

...were things that always resonated with me.

And I was always obsessed with the plight of a soldier when I was a kid.

And he was elemental in finding the moments for Chris...

...and the transformation of this character...

...and who he becomes and what he almost loses in the process.

I really got excited about it. I thought I hadn't really seen a character study...

...about a soldier in a long time, since maybe Born on the Fourth of July.

And then after that is when I actually got to know Chris.

When Chris first talked to him, Chris was on the phone and said:

"All right, then.

Only thing I'm gonna have to do is...

...tie you to the back of my truck and drag you down the street.

Gonna have to knock some of the pretty off of you."

Bradley just kind of came in and was able to Convince Chris.

Like, "Listen, I'm gonna take this real seriously.

If I'm gonna play you, I'm gonna do it rough...

...and I'm gonna want you to roll me around in the dirt...

...and put me through the paces."

And that meant a lot to Chris.

With Bradley Cooper on board, Jason Hall and Peter Morgan...

...reached out to fellow producer Andrew Lazar...

...hoping to find a home for the film at Warner Bros.

And then the unthinkable happened.

I got the draft on a Friday.

Wasn't gonna share with anyone. I was gonna read it and do notes with Jason.

I just had a great day at the beach and was gonna start my weekend reading.

And at around 5:25 I got a text from Jason.

And it just said, "Chris has been murdered."

And I said-- I--

I didn't even know what to-- How to react.

It hadn't even hit the news services, and I kept on going online.

And by about I would say 7:00 Pacific Standard Time...

...the news started to report that there was a shooting at a shooting range...

...and then later that night it identified it was Chris. And it was heartbreaking.

Wasn't gonna share with anyone. I was gonna read it and do notes with Jason.

...and I, like-- I, like, opened it, and I start bawling.

Jason Hall called me and I thought, "Wait, what?"

It just didn't-- Nothing-- Nothing made any sense.

"He's already home. Wait, no, he's already home. He made it.

He did four tours. He's okay."

"No, he was killed by another vet." "What?"

The tragic murder of Chris Kyle changed American Sniper...

...from a story with a happy ending into something else entirely.

As the creative team tried to regroup...

...Chris Kyle's widow, Taya, made a fateful decision.

She ended up calling 10 days after the funeral...

...and said, "If you're gonna do this, I want you to do it right.

And this means more to me and to us now than it did 10 days ago."

And so we started talking on the phone...

...and we spent a lot of hours, countless hours...

...let's say a couple hundred hours on the phone.

And it was this chance for her...

...to secure his legacy and make sure that it was done right.

I was a grieving widow in the midst of the biggest trial of my life...

...and he was part friend, part writer, part therapist.

He also did not have to stay up till 2 in the morning...

...to talk to me on the phone.

It meant that much to him to get it right.

I was very inquisitive...

...and I didn't pull any punches, and I was asking really hard questions.

And she was able to provide another side to Chris that wasn't in the book.

And so I got to hear this whole other side of his story.

And it changed the entire movie.

The movie wouldn't be what it is without Taya Kyle.

Without Taya opening up their life to us.

Jason went back and we talked about reframing the story...

...and making it much more about the relationship between the soldier and the family.

And the almost schizophrenic nature of having to go from tour to home, back to tour.

What I got from talking to Taya in those hours and hours and hours on the phone...

...was how beautiful this story was between this man and his wife.

Because you saw this guy who was sacrificing so much...

...and who was under these extreme, extreme situations...

...and was still able to be the kind of husband that he was able to be when he came home...

...and still be the kind of father that he wanted to be.

That was the key to making this movie very human and real...

...unlocking those areas where people can relate to...

...who have gone through that experience and say:

"That actually has a glimmer of reality to it." It's because it actually is real.

Armed with a more sophisticated screenplay...

...that balanced Chris Kyle's military career with his home life...

...the producers began to look for the right director.

The first director attached to the project as far as I know was Steven Spielberg.

And he had worked with Jason on the script.

They were going to do it at Warner Bros. and for some reason that deal fell apart.

Clint and Steven have a close relationship. They really enjoy each other's company.

So I think that Steven was quite pleased...

...that if anyone was gonna take over the project, it would be Clint.

ironically, Chris Kyle had the same instinct as Steven Spielberg.

The only director that Chris ever mentioned as wanting to tell his story was Clint Eastwood.

- The only director. - I think Chris wanted Clint Eastwood...

...like he wanted a Ferrari.

I don't think he thought there was a pig's chance in hell he was getting Clint Eastwood.

The studio called and asked...

...if I'd be interested in being involved with this picture.

And, ironically, I was reading his book.

I was down to about the last 30 pages.

And I said, "Let me finish the book and then call you back."

And I called them back the next day and I said:

"Do you have a script on the project?"

And they did. They had a screenwriter and a script. 80 I read that.

When we first got the script, it was sort of unanimous amongst all of us...

...and especially between Clint and I, that it was extremely effective...