JASON BIGGS – CPL. RUDY SPRUANCE
Jason Biggs quickly became one of Hollywood’s most talked-about young actors after his breakthrough role in the American Pie trilogy. The three films combined to make over $350 million in the United States alone and helped cement Biggs as a household face in the industry.
The Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey native started acting at the age of five, with national commercials and modeling. At age thirteen, he made his Broadway debut opposite Judd Hirsch in the critically acclaimed Broadway play, Conversations with My Father. Other Broadway credits include the U.S. production of The Graduate opposite Kathleen Turner. Biggs was most recently seen on the New York Stage in Daniel Goldfarb’s play, Modern Orthodox, opposite Craig Bierko and Molly Ringwald.
In 2004, Biggs co-starred in Jersey Girl, written and directed by Kevin Smith, alongside Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler for Miramax Films. The fall of 2003 marked the release of the last in the trilogy of the American Pie series, The Wedding. His film credits also include the Woody Allen project, Anything Else; the film adaptation of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s best-selling biography, Prozac Nation, opposite Christina Ricci; the romantic comedy Saving Silverman with Jack Black, Steve Zahn, and Amanda Peet; the Amy Heckerling film Loser; and the romantic comedy, Boys and Girls opposite Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Claire Forlani. Biggs began his career in television on the soap opera As the World Turns, for which he won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series. He also appeared on the shows Drexel’s Class and Total Security.
“It’s been a wonderful collaboration. It’s been fantastic to see how the script has morphed from when I first got involved and then subsequently with rehearsals and then cast additions and it’s really come to life so beautifully.
I think the biggest thing is that Rudy thinks things are a lot simpler than things really are. When we meet him at the beginning of the film he’s pretty confident, pretty sure of his ways. And at the end he comes to realise that things are a lot more complex than what they seem to be.
Compared to recent movies I’ve done there’s a lot more dramatic opportunities for me in this. And I get to dress in fatigues - I haven’t done that in a movie yet. My mother’s going to be so proud of me.”
NATASCHA McELHONE – SGT. IRENE TEALE
Natascha McElhone studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art for
three years, she performed in "Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Richard III" at
Regent's Park, where James Ivory saw her and cast her in Surviving Picasso
starring opposite Anthony Hopkins.
She went on to perform in The Devil's Own opposite Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford, John Frankenheimer's Ronin with Robert De Niro, The Truman Show with Jim Carrey, Ken Branagh's Love's Labours Lost, Lisa Cholodenko's Laurel Canyon, Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, the improvised BBC film The Other Boleyn Girl and Ladies In Lavender opposite Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. Natascha will next be appearing in the NBC flagship mini series Revelations
“Acting is about listening and hearing what the other person’s saying and whether you’re being affected or not by that. Saul's so interested in seeing us interact and seeing the relationships between our characters develop. And however hard and resilient Irene comes across as at first, we see by the end of the movie this woman is actually clinging onto a lie just because it made her life more liveable. And you see that she’s not as strong as she makes out. At the end of the day she’s got as much vulnerability as anyone else but she just has a very thick shell which by the end of the movie, I think, gets chipped away at.”
JEREMY NORTHAM – CNL. LANE WOOLWRAP
Jeremy Northam trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and worked his way through regional theater to the London stage. Northam was the recipient of the prestigious Olivier Award for Outstanding Newcomer, for his 1990 performance as Edward Voysey, the moral pivot of the Royal National Theatre revival of "The Voysey Inheritance." In 1994 he made his first big splashes in film in the thriller The Net (1995) with Sandra Bullock, and in Gulliermo del Toro’s Mimic (1997) with Mira Sorvino.
Other performances include Mr Knightley in Jane Austen’s Emma (1996) opposite Gwyneth Paltrow, his hilarious turn as American ex-con Harry Sawyer in Happy, Texas (1999) with William H Macy and as Sir Robert Morton in David Mamet’s The Winslow Boy (1999). More recently he starred in Michael Apted’s Enigma (2001) opposite Kate Winslet, as Ivor Novello in Gosford Park (2001) in Vincenzo Natali’s Cypher (2002) and Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (2004). He recently played Dean Martin in CBS's biopic, Martin and Lewis with Will and Grace's Sean Hayes. Jeremy will soon be seen starring in Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of Tristram Shandy A Cock and Bull Story.
“I like comedies that invest themselves with feelings. But this is also quite a scary, unsettling movie at times.
I think the story recognizes that whatever people’s point of view towards conflict and combat, there must be respect towards soldiers as individuals, regardless of view point. They do an amazing job for incredibly little recognition really in contemporary society. I think we judge at our peril.”
MICHAEL IRONSIDE – GUY X
A seasoned character actor with a devoted cult following, Michael Ironside has starred in more than 120 feature films. Born in Canada, he studied at the Ontario College of Art and Canadian National Film Board. After working on numerous Canadian film and television productions, both in front of and behind the camera, he came to the forefront in David Cronenberg’s sci-fi hit Scanners (1981), garnering a Genie Award for Best Supporting Actor. This success was followed by roles including leads in Top Gun (1986) and Total Recall (1990). His many films include Free Willy (1993), Starship Troopers (1997), The Perfect Storm (2000), Crime and Punishment in Suburbia (2000) and, most recently, he starred with Christian Bale in Brad Anderson’s cult hit The Machinist (2004).
In 2002, Ironside starred as Bob Durelle in the Canadian mini-series The Last Chapter, for which he received a Gemini Award nomination, and he recently reprised the role in The Last Chapter II: The War Continues. Aside from his regular appearances on the hit drama E.R., he also starred in the series Nuremberg, V and Smallville. He will next be seen starring as the lead role in the sci-fi series Ice Planet.
“Saul and I were on the same page from the first time we talked. We first talked and the phone, then he flew in and met with me, we had lunch.
There’s a saying that you measure society by how it deals with its’ invalids, its’ paranoid, its’ damaged people, and the fact that Guy X is in a room with all these unnamed and unknown soldiers and the way they’re being kind of warehoused, reflects in a lovely way on how the bureaucratic powers that be deal with human beings.
The interesting thing is that in the military, the first thing you do is you take away a person’s personality, you take away their hair, you make everybody look alike, so you can make them less spontaneous, and start thinking of themselves as a unit. The thing I first got a hold of was that Guy X gets his personality back by losing his physicality. It kind of reinforces the case that he is not similar to everybody else around. I think he’s got some of his identity back through the damage.”
