- Notes provided by Summit Entertainment -

The Hurt Locker, winner of the 2008 Venice Film Festival SIGNIS Grand Prize, is a riveting, suspenseful portrait of the courage under fire of the military's unrecognized heroes: the technicians of a bomb squad who volunteer to challenge the odds and save lives in one of the world's most dangerous places. Three members of the Army's elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) squad battle insurgents and each other as they search for and disarm a wave of roadside bombs on the streets of Baghdad-in order to try and make the city a safer place for Iraqis and Americans alike. Their mission is clear-protect and save-but it's anything but easy, as the margin of error when defusing a war-zone bomb is zero. This thrilling and heart-pounding look at the effects of combat and danger on the human psyche is based on the first-hand observations of journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal, who was embedded with a special bomb unit in Iraq. These men spoke of explosions as putting you in "the hurt locker."
Acclaimed director Kathryn Bigelow brings together groundbreaking realistic action and intimate human drama in a landmark film starring Jeremy Renner (Dahmer, The Assassination of Jesse James), Anthony Mackie (Half Nelson, We Are Marshall) and Brian Geraghty (We Are Marshall, Jarhead), with cameo appearances by Ralph Fiennes (The Reader), David Morse ("John Adams"), Evangeline Lilly ("Lost") and Guy Pearce (Memento). The Hurt Locker is produced by Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Greg Shapiro and Nicolas Chartier. The screenplay is written by Mark Boal (In the Valley of Elah, story). Barry Ackroyd, BSC (United 93, The Wind That Shakes the Barley) is director of photography. Production designer is Karl Juliusson (K19: The Widowmaker, Breaking the Waves). Editors are Bob Murawski (Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3) and Chris Innis. Costume designer is George Little (Jarhead, Crimson Tide). Music is by Academy Award Nominee Marco Beltrami (Knowing) and Buck Sanders (3:10 to Yuma), and sound design by Academy Award Nominee Paul N.J. Ottosson (Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3).
In the summer of 2004, Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) of Bravo Company are at the volatile center of the war, part of a small counterforce specifically trained to handle the homemade bombs, or Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), that account for more than half of American hostile deaths and have killed thousands of Iraqis. The job, a high-pressure, high-stakes assignment, which soldiers volunteer for, requires a calm intelligence that leaves no room for mistakes, as they learn when they lose their team leader on a routine mission.
When Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) cheerfully takes over the team, Sanborn and Eldridge are shocked by what seems like his reckless disregard for military protocol and basic safety measures. And yet, in the fog of war, appearances are never reliable for long. Is James really a swaggering cowboy who lives for peak experiences and the moments when the margin of error is zero - or is he a consummate professional who has honed his esoteric craft to high-wire precision? As the fiery chaos of Baghdad threatens to engulf them, the men struggle to understand and contain their mercurial new leader long enough for them to make it home. They have only 38 days left in their tour, but with each new mission comes another deadly encounter, and as James blurs the line between bravery and bravado, it seems only a matter of time before disaster strikes.
With a visual and emotional intensity that makes audiences feel like they have been transported to Iraq's dizzying, 24-hour turmoil, The Hurt Locker is both a gripping portrayal of real-life sacrifice and heroism, and a layered, probing study of the soul-numbing rigors and potent allure of the modern battlefield.
TRUE FICTION: THE SCRIPT

In 2004, journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal spent several weeks embedded with a U.S. Army bomb squad operating in one of the most dangerous sections of Baghdad, following its movements and getting inside the heads of the men whose skills rival those of surgeons-except in their case one false move means they lose their own life rather than the life of a patient. His first-hand observations of their days and nights disarming bombs became the inspiration for The Hurt Locker and, eventually, a script that simultaneously strips down the classic American war epic and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as universal as the price of heroism and the limits of bravery in 21st century combat.
"It [the experience in Iraq] made a deep impression on me. When I got home, I thought 'people have no idea how these guys live and what they're up against,' and then later I started thinking about it dramatically and doing a fictional story about men who voluntarily work with bombs," says Boal, who also created the story for the drama In the Valley of Elah, for which Tommy Lee Jones received an Academy Award nomination. "On a character level, I was intrigued by the sort of mental and psychological framework that a bomb technician develops on the job. What kind of personality is comfortable with extreme risk and with living so close to death? And in a thematic sense, the bomb squad seemed like a promising entry-point for a war movie."
Coalition bomb squads have played a pivotal but mostly underreported part in the war, and bringing their work to light was also part of Boal's motivation for writing the script. The Army relies on its bomb squads as the first -and last-line of defense against the IEDs that have become the insurgency's weapon of choice. The opening scene in the movie depicts the kind of situation that US soldiers in Baghdad encountered on a daily basis-sometimes 10 or 20 times a day, according to Boal. "Someone finds an IED, they call in the bomb squad and the bomb squad has to deal with it while everyone else in the military pulls back."
"What many people don't know is that although Baghdad was horrifically dangerous in those years, it could have been a lot worse," he adds. "On any given day, for every bomb that exploded in the city, there were probably ten or fifteen that didn't detonate because of a few, secretive bomb squads that were in theater."
In order to capture the tension of Boal's intricately detailed, nuts-and-bolts descriptions of bomb disarmaments, it would clearly take a filmmaker with her own gift for innovative storytelling to bring all the nuance on the page to life with visceral, poetic imagery and powerful performances.
When it came to evoking the hair-raising intensity of bomb squad work, there was no better choice than Kathryn Bigelow, who began her career as an artist, working with the avant guard conceptual art group Art & Language in New York, before becoming one of cinema's leading filmmakers and a director renowned for stylistic innovations, masterful suspense, and ground-breaking action sequences. Bigelow's cult following and reputation as one of the most inventive filmmakers in world cinema began with her vampire noir Near Dark and was cemented by her influential surfer-heist classic Point Break, the science-fiction thriller Strange Days, and the cold-war submarine drama, K-19: The Widowmaker.
With The Hurt Locker, Bigelow marries Boal's screenwriting style - closely-observed characters, and realistic, intense set pieces -with her own unique vision; the result is incredibly suspenseful and action-packed cinema that reinvents the war movie for the post-Vietnam era.
Bigelow had met Boal while she was developing a television series from an article he had written in 2002. They stayed in touch, and Boal contacted the filmmaker when he returned from Iraq. "Obviously, Kathryn is a brilliant director who has a terrific feel for how physical and psychological danger effect character, and so I was pretty much fell out of my chair when she said she was interested."
"I'd been a fan of Mark's reporting for some time," Bigelow says. And Boal's observations of the bomb squad seemed like a perfect fit to a filmmaker known for films that put key characters in extreme situations. "The fact that these men live in mortal danger every day make their lives inherently tense, iconic and cinematic," she adds, "and on a metaphorical level, they seemed to suggest both the heroism and the futility of the war."
Bigelow and Boal decided to produce an independent movie that would be character-driven, suspenseful and "intensely experiential," as Bigelow puts it, by placing audiences on the ground with the bomb squad. "Everything about this movie-the directing, script, camera work, music, editing-was conceived from the beginning with the single goal of creating that heightened sense of realism that underscores the tension, without losing the layering of these complicated characters." says Bigelow.
With Bigelow's guidance, Boal worked on the script on spec for the director, writing in what he calls a "naturalistic style, a sort of true fiction," that seeks to replicate the tension and unpredictability of war itself, and mirror the daily grind of real life bomb squad soldiers who disarm bombs week after week, year after year.
They wanted The Hurt Locker to avoid polemics and instead place the audience in the soldiers' point of view in order to give them a vividly authentic sense of what it was like to walk the high-wire act of a bomb technician. "The dialogue is meant to feel life-like and spontaneous, as if it wasn't written, while at the same time revealing intimate character detail and capturing the excitement of their work," he says. "The portrayals of bomb disposal and urban warfare are pretty faithful to real life incidents that soldiers have faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, although the characters themselves are composites."
He worked on 17 drafts with Bigelow before finding a final version, and the pair continued to tweak the script during filming so that the major set-pieces could be sculpted to fit the available geography of the shooting locations. In the end, the result was The Hurt Locker, in which Boal pays tribute to the spirit and dedication of the soldiers in Iraq with his layered story-telling and sharply delineated, intensely human characters.
Once the script was completed, Bigelow called in favors from her years in the business. "We said to people, the bad news is we have no money, no studio, and no means of outside support," Bigelow recalls. "But that was also the good news, because we had creative freedom and we could work outside the box."
Bigelow and Boal approached financier Nicolas Chartier, who raised funds for the production through his independent company, Voltage Pictures. "It was the best script I'd read since Crash," says Chartier, who had helped sell that Academy Award winning film. "And I had wanted to work with Kathryn for a really long time. She has an incredible eye for action and is one of the top directors in the world."
The Hurt Locker caused a sensation when it screened at the Venice Film Festival, receiving a ten-minute standing ovation, and earning four awards, including the SIGNIS and Human Rights Film award, as well as a nomination for the Golden Lion, the festival's highest honor. It was praised for being a film that "avoids dry ideology," according to the La Navicella Venenzia, "in a controlled but complex style." "An uncompromising approach to the Iraq war and its consequences seen through the experience of the bomb diffusion specialists for whom war is an addiction rather than a cause," stated the SIGNIS committee, "Kathryn Bigelow challenges the audiences view of war in general and the current war in particular [by] demonstrating the struggle between violence to the body and psychological alienation."
Shortly after Venice, the film screened to widespread critical acclaim at the Toronto International Film festival, winning The Screen Jury competition for the best reviewed film of the festival, based on an international slate of newspaper and magazine critics. Shortly thereafter, Summit Entertainment purchased the domestic distribution rights to The Hurt Locker, insuring that the film would reach audiences in America.
IN THE KILL ZONE: CHARACTERS AND CAST

At the heart of The Hurt Locker are its characters - men who risk their lives daily in one of the most dangerous places on earth - fighting the odds to stop bombs from detonating in a city overrun with IEDs and insurgent snipers. Against this deadly backdrop, Sergeant James becomes the heart of the story - a mercurial, swaggering, expert bomb technician with a cheerfully anarchical approach to combat and, paradoxically, a masterfully controlled skill-set, who shocks his new team members with his enthusiastic disregard for established procedures. Despite his teammate's vocal misgivings, James refuses to modify his mood or change his behavior, representing the kind of all American hubris and spirited independence that can spark great sacrifice - and also dangerously misfire.
"James really anchors the movie, he's the galvanizing center of the team in that he instills both fear and admiration, " says Kathryn Bigelow. "a lot of what happens in terms of character development is about how the other guys react to this almost elemental force that comes whirling into their already on-edge lives."
When it came to casting the film's three leads, Bigelow wanted to find breakout, young actors in order to heighten the film's authenticity and boost its surprise factor-avoiding the calming familiarity of an established movie star. "There's a convention that the movie star doesn't die until the end of a film, and I think that in our case having that certainty would undermine the naturally suspenseful, unpredictable quality of being in a war where death can happen anytime, to anyone," explains Bigelow. "With The Hurt Locker, I wanted it to be as tense and real as possible, and that mean having actors who were relatively fresh faces so the audience wouldn't know who among the three main characters was going to live or die by virtue of their public profile."
In considering who might play Staff Sergeant James, Bigelow conducted an exhaustive search of up and coming young talent before finding an actor with the range to realize the role of the wild, alluring, good 'old boy with a surprisingly rich interior life. The search ended when Jeremy Renner came to her attention via his turn playing the notorious title character in the film Dahmer. "Jeremy gave an incredibly nuanced performance in that movie, eliciting compassion and revulsion in almost equal measure," says Bigelow. "I found it an arresting display of major talent, and from that moment forward was determined to work with him."
"It takes an incredibly skillful and intelligent actor to embody James' bravado and allure in a nuanced way that doesn't seem artificial, and Jeremy is as skillful as an actor gets," Bigelow adds.
"The role calls for the ability to command authority while also seeming to be totally reckless," she continues, "that's a very difficult but seductive combination which Jeremy can inhabit with seemingly natural ease."
James is the catalyst for much of the film's conflict. "His solitary focus is on the bomb," says Boal. "That's where he gets his engagement and his sense of being alive. He's most at home when he's working on a bomb and most out of place when he's just with other people. So in a sense, the price of his heroism is his isolation, or loneliness. It's a recipe for disaster to have these three men working together in the same unit."
Jeremy Renner, who grew up in rural California, identified with the character's salt-of-the-earth background, and he was also drawn to a universal quality in the script that transcends its immediate setting. "What attracted me was that it's not simply about the Iraq war," he says. "It could be about bull riders instead of EOD. It's a backdrop for these three guys and how they approach life."
The actor sees some similarities between his hotshot character and himself. "James' philosophies are a big part of me. He's a man of few words and a lot of action. I'm not a big talker. I'd much rather get something done."
Like many people, Renner was unaware of the existence of the Army's EOD squads until he read the script. "I could never do what they do. Just the thought of laying there next to a 155 [artillery round] and my heart starts pounding. They've got to have a switch in their head that they can turn on and off."
Casting the role of Sergeant J.T. Sanborn-the proud, affable, level-headed intelligence specialist who has the toughness to go toe-to-toe with James-posed it's own special challenges, recalls Bigelow. "Sanborn needed to be James' equal in terms of being a strong presence, and he has to adhere to protocol in a way that seems thoughtful rather than rote," the director explains. "It was a very difficult part to cast because we needed someone who projected real solidity and reliability while at the same time having the capacity for great sensitivity, which as it turns out it is not that common."
Anthony Mackie caught Bigelow's eye during his performances in She's Gotta Have It, We Are Marshall, Million Dollar Baby, and especially in his role as a menacing drug dealer in Half Nelson opposite Ryan Gosling. "He completely controlled the screen in a relatively small part," she remembers. "You couldn't take your eyes off him. Anthony has that cunning magnetism that has true star quality."
For his part, Mackie was attracted to the depth he saw in Sanborn's character, which allowed him to find many levels on which to play. "Sanborn hides behind his machismo," says Mackie. "There has to be a kind of superhero aspect to these soldiers. If they wake up every day in fear that every minute is the last, they'll drive themselves crazy. Down deep though, he's very humble." In contrast to James' consuming passion for his work, Sergeant J.T. Sanborn is the film's Everyman. "He spent seven years in intelligence before joining EOD," says Boal. "He's a smart, capable, reliable, charismatic guy who has never encountered a whirlwind like James before. There's an alpha male component to his personality that runs up pretty hard against James, who's also an alpha male but of a much different stripe, so you have these two versions of masculinity dueling each other as they fight in these really tricky circumstances in Baghdad."
Providing the third side of the film's inter-personal triangle is Specialist Owen Eldridge, the youthful, junior member of the team who is in search of a mentor, and who tries but ultimately fails to find solace in either Sanborn's stoicism or in James' indifference to danger. As the pain of the war creeps up on the young soldier, darkening his innocence, "Eldridge has to be every mother's son," explains Bigelow, "there's a frankness, and earnestness to him that allows him to wear his fear on his sleeve."
Bigelow had been impressed with Brian Geraghty's performances in Jarhead, We Are Marshall, and Bobby before she cast him as Eldridge in this film. "Brian exhibited the fierce and the vulnerable in perfect measure," she says. "He's natural, totally fluid."
Of the three men, Eldridge is the youngest in both age and his experience in the military. "He's triangulated between Sanborn and James," says Boal. "He's looking to see which of these two older, more experienced men holds the answer to how to survive. He's willing to throw his lot in with either, and he flip-flops back and forth, and eventually becomes seduced by James' decisiveness - and then he comes to regret that choice.
By the end, he's disenchanted with James for very good reason, but there is a point in the movie when Eldridge feels that James' way is the way to go and that he needs to just 'man up' and follow James' example."
"I feel like he's the emotional heart of the film," Geraghty says. "I think Eldridge is over it and he's just trying to get by and get home. Sanborn and James are more lifers and army guys. Eldridge reacts completely different under gunfire than they do."
"I have three tremendously strong actors at the core of the piece," adds Bigelow. "I felt they would meld together into a seamless ensemble, as well as retain their strength individually." Bigelow has earned a reputation for casting newcomers ever since her first film, The Loveless, in which she gave Willem Dafoe his first screen credit, and then later in Point Break, when she cast Keanu Reeves as a rugged FBI agent at a time when the young actor was known for stoner comedy.
With the three leads in place, the next role to cast was Sergeant Matt Thompson, the square-jawed, team leader beloved by his teammates, who opens the movie. "We needed an actor who could immediately convey the ease of command and warmth with his men that good sergeants possess," explains Bigelow. The directors first choice was Guy Pearce: one of the most widely admired actors of his generation for his performances in L.A. Confidential, Momento, and The Proposition.
"Having Guy open the film sets up a sense of credible reality from the very start," says Bigelow. "You need that because the world is so exotic, but Guy just seems like he belongs in it."
"I've wanted to work with Kathryn for years," says Pearce. "And ultimately the material has to be the reason why I go and do any film. This film is packed with action, but it's about people and emotions. It's about people trying to connect with each other. The way in which the script was written is really fascinating and Mark and Kathryn have both done a beautiful job of capturing and realizing these characters."
Director Bigelow's reputation for making exhilarating, original films and eliciting strong performances from her actors attracted some big Hollywood guns who were willing to take on some of the film's more intriguing cameo roles, including David Morse, Ralph Fiennes and Evangeline Lilly.
Morse was electrified by the script's picture of a world that is completely unpredictable and dangerous. "It doesn't care who you are," he says. "Anybody can go at any time. There's a surreal quality to it. I think that says what the experience in Iraq is about."
A REALIST EYE: THE PRODUCTION

Director Kathryn Bigelow is renowned for pushing the filmmaking experience to its limits in order to create vivid, arresting images and powerfully emotional stories. For The Hurt Locker, she took her cast and crew into the Jordanian desert to work under some of the most rigorous conditions possible. With director of photography Barry Ackroyd, she devised an unconventional and remarkably effective technique for filming that simulates the spontaneous feeling of a documentary, while immersing viewers in the nonstop tension of its characters' world.
"Barry is a master of evoking the 'you are there' immediacy that the story demanded," says Bigelow. "At the same time, he's one tough Englishman who put up with ridiculously long hours in the Middle East, in summer-not to mention sand storms and food poisoning."
Since his early days in documentary filmmaking, Ackroyd has refined his in-the-moment style in award-winning feature films including United 93. "Making a feature film is not a documentary and it's not docudrama," he says. "The essence is not to think about it too much, but to try to be surprised in the way that a documentary would surprise you. Yes, we can set things up and we can redo it, but it's still possible to be surprised when the performance happens."
Bigelow made the choice to film The Hurt Locker with four handheld cameras simultaneously. She has shot with multiple cameras on each of her films, using as many as 12 at a time. "When I storyboard the entire film, every scene is broken down to its essential elements," she says. "I look at the boards shot by shot. It's at this point that I realize what the technical needs of the shoot are. I can determine the camera needs, as well as the blocking of each scene. Even before we've chosen locations, I have basically 'shot' the entire film in my head."
To meet the ambitious schedule of shooting The Hurt Locker's many extended action sequences in only 44 days, the crew worked six-day weeks and blitzed through complicated, highly choreographed blocking that Bigelow would outline in her head well in advance. "I look at each sequence like a three-dimensional puzzle that has to be translated to a two-dimensional surface," she says.
It all starts with the script, she says. "In this case, it was the logic of bomb disarmament. Early on, I realized geography would be central to the audience's understanding of what the bomb squad does on a daily basis. Military protocol for a bomb disarm in the field is approximately a 300meter containment. That's a big set."
On The Hurt Locker, the filmmakers used multiple points of view and constantly moving cameras to create the kind of immediacy that places the viewer in the center of the fog of war. "We were always asking ourselves, "'What can you do with the camera that can make you feel like you're a participant?'" says Ackroyd. "How do you put yourself in the middle of the scene or put yourself right on the edge of the scene and participate in what goes on? You can give the actors the space to do long takes with continuous action. The art department gave us big sets for the explosions. People were doing their stunts as big long takes and the camera was just participating in it. You don't ever stop; you just keep going with it. Kathryn gave us the space to do that. She said go ahead and keep shooting, keep shooting, keep shooting, We would be waiting for 'cut' sometimes and it wouldn't be coming, so we knew the shot was working well."
At times, the set seemed as chaotic as the film's Baghdad setting. "With four units covering a particular scene, an actor might not realize that a camera was suddenly 40 degrees off his left shoulder," says Bigelow. "The crew sometimes didn't know where the actor was going to go. It created this tremendous situation that heightened the realism and the authenticity."
"We had cameras everywhere," says Renner. "We called them Ninja cameras, just hiding all over the place. We never knew where anything was. Barry was out there himself running around. It was absolutely amazing seeing him run as fast as we did, carrying his camera down these dirty alleys full of syringes and kids throwing rocks and he always had a big smile on his face. That inspired me."
Shooting in this way required flexibility on the part of the actors. "There was only so much you could prepare for," says Geraghty. "But if you've done your homework and you know your character, all that stuff falls into place and you can just put your trust in it. There are so many technical things outside of your performance. Lights, camera, heat, camels, goats-you have to just keep going."
Ackroyd also used the camerawork to punctuate the often frenzied activity with moments of quiet. "Kathryn encouraged the cameras to be active," he says. "I was always thinking about the moments of stillness that you have as well and how those things go together. If those things come together in the right way, motion is one dimension, and silence and lack of motion add another element. If you get those things right, the whole film will have balance."
In order to simulate the troubled landscape of war-torn Baghdad, Bigelow decided to film in Jordan, which borders Iraq to the west. Some of the locations were just a few hours drive from the combat areas. "It adds a certain x-factor that just permeates every aspect of the performance and the production to be that close," says Bigelow, "and it becomes part of your reference points if you actually spend time off set within an Arabic culture."
The production took place in and around the poorer neighborhoods in the city of Amman, which had architecture similar to Baghdad's. The climate and geography of the two countries are also comparable, with the added bonus of the presence of ethnic Iraqis who could fill small parts and work as background and bit players, further heightening the realism of the film.
"There are about one million Iraqi refugees living in Jordan who have fled the war, and as it turns out among them is a pretty big pool of professional actors, and it was great to be able to cast them - it was good for the movie, and it was good for the set," explains Bigelow.
"I remember speaking to the two men who play Iraqi POWs in the desert sequence-and asking them what they did in Iraq. They said, we were prisoners of the Americans. I thought maybe there was a problem with the translation because they played prisoners in the movie. Then I realized that no, they actually were prisoners in Iraq, and now they are playing prisoners. It was surreal, and a little uncomfortable, but then they laughed and said they were happy to have the work-but I thought 'maybe we are taking this authenticity thing a little too far."
Nevertheless, the desire for authenticity extended to the actor's living arrangements as well. In order to instill the military's close camaraderie, Bigelow housed all the actors on set in a basic communal tent with a dirt floor, rather than in air-conditioned trailers. "You could meet them for a coffee on the weekends, and they'd still be in character," recalls Boal. "They'd be in a café talking military jargon to the waiter, "we need three cappuccinos by oh-six-hundred. Roger that."
Before the shoot, Renner, Geraghty and the other principals spent time learning from Army EOD teams at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin. Located near Barstow, California, the NTC is the army's premier training camp. Its Mojave Desert location makes it perfect for instructing troops headed for the Middle East. "It's just crazy," says Geraghty. "When there's a bomb, most people want get as far away from it as possible. These guys are trained to do the opposite. Their job is to go in as close as they can get."
But what cast and filmmakers remember most about shooting in Jordan was the summer heat. "There was something incredibly immediate about shooting in an environment that was unforgivably hot and putting the actors in a very arduous situation on a day to day basis," says Bigelow. "Just sand, wind, sand, heat, sun and sand."
Not surprisingly, the actors found the conditions challenging. "It would be 130, 135 degrees," says Mackie. "It was so hot you could feel your brain cooking in your head. Everything was magnified by the level of body armor we had to wear."
Renner adds: "Working in Jordan was extremely difficult in the sense that conditions were very hard. But it made my job as an actor easier. That sweat is real sweat. Those tears are real tears of pain, so I'm glad we weren't on some soundstage. I feel like I got just a sliver of an idea of what an EOD or anybody in the military might go through every day. It's unbelievable how tortuous it can be.
"It was the hardest thing I've had to do physically as an actor," he continues. "I love to be challenged and I was really, really challenged on this. I think we all had a nervous breakdown or two or three-I kept telling my mom to FedEx my dignity back to me. But the most awful days I had were the most memorable. I look back and I know it was the most spectacular experience that I've had as a man, not even just as an actor."
Boal's on-the-ground experiences as a journalist in Iraq familiarized him with the specifics of EOD operations, like the protective suit worn by the team leader when he needs to gets up close and personal with a bomb. "There is a whole ritual to unpacking the suit," says Boal. "Getting into the suit signifies the moment when the war becomes a solitary encounter between one man and a deadly device that's been created with the express intention of causing harm. Once the team leader is in it, there's no going back. He faces that lonely walk down to the bomb and it's just him and this suit."
Made of Kevlar fabric with ceramic plates, the suit is designed to protect the wearer from the impact of a blast, but it cannot withstand the largest explosions. "We thought of it like a suit of armor that a knight would wear in medieval times," says Boal. "They have to put on, because it's the only thing they have, but it certainly doesn't offer foolproof protection from the enemy."
Renner spent significant time wearing the suit for his role. "My feelings about the bomb suit are mixed," he says. "You're definitely alone once you get into it, but there's something really peaceful about that. I felt like that was a womb for James. That's the only time when he really felt safe, as a human being, not just as a soldier."
Still, the actor says he had a love-hate relationship with the protective outfit. "It's heavy, it's hot, it's hard to move in, but it put me right in the moment. Just the idea of getting into it-I wanted to dry heave whenever they said it was time to get suited up. I started sweating instantly and I knew I wasn't going to get any hotter than I was in the first 30 seconds."
For Guy Pearce, who plays the doomed Sgt. Matt Thompson, the bomb unit's first leader, wearing the suit intensified his admiration for the members of the real EOD squad. "Our suit weighed about 70 pounds and I think the ones they actually wear are about 140 pounds. The heat was pretty intense, so you're always on that edge of feeling faint. Maybe the adrenaline actually enables them to get through it, because it's a life or death situation. I don't know how they manage to be so dexterous in the fine work they have to do."
Once the movie moved into post-production, renowned sound designer Paul Ottoson, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Spiderman 2, went to work layering in the thousands of sounds that sound mixer Ray Beckett had recorded in Jordan. "From a sound perspective, this movie was incredibly difficult and unusual, definitely the hardest I ever worked on, because the score was very spare and ambient and there was so much detail in the sound. Practically every frame of the movie has a sound attached to it-it's wall to wall sound-to give you that feeling that you are in a real war," says Ottoson. "Every single sound of the movie is an organic base to it. We didn't use any synthetic sounds because they are kind of unnatural, thin, slicing sounds. It is easier to get synthetic sounds to be loud. Staying organic the entire movie was difficult but we did it, because in the end it helped tell the story best."
In the end, Boal hopes audiences will come to appreciate the sacrifices made daily by American troops. "If there is a message to the movie, it is that there's a high price to heroism," says Boal. "We see men who do these extraordinary things on TV and read about them in the newspaper. They get a medal pinned on their chests, but what we don't often know is the interior life of these men. It's not to say that everybody who's a hero gets lost to war, but it's a high price to pay to be a hero. James is a genuine hero, but his heroism doesn't translate into personal happiness. He's so damaged that he can't see any outcome for himself other than disarming bombs."
US ARMY EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE DISPOSAL: FAST FACTS
In 2004, there were only about 150 trained Army EOD techs in Iraq.
The job was so dangerous that EOD techs were five times more likely to die than all other soldiers in the theater. That same year, the insurgency reportedly placed a $25,000 bounty on the heads of EOD techs.
Bomb shrapnel travels at 2,700 feet per second. Overpressure, the deadly wave of supercompressed gases that expands from the center of a blast, travels at 13,000 miles an hour-at a force equal to 700 tons per square inch.
Separations and relationship troubles are so common among EOD teams that soldiers sometimes joke that EOD stands for 'every one divorced."
Bomb-disposal teams were first created in World War II. Starting in 1942, when Germany blitzed London with time-delayed bombs, specially trained U.S. soldiers joined British officers who diagrammed the devices using pencil sketches before they attempted to defuse them with common tools.
Bomb techs are trained at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The Army looks for volunteers who are confident, forthright, comfortable under extreme pressure and emotionally stable. To get into the training program, a prospective tech first needs a high score on the mechanical-aptitude portion of the armed forces exam. Once the school begins, candidates are gradually winnowed out over six months of training, and only 40 percent will graduate.

ABOUT THE CAST

JEREMY RENNER (Staff Sergeant William James) recently starred in 28 Weeks Later, the highly anticipated sequel to 28 Days Later, for director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and costarring Rose Byrne and Robert Carlyle. He played the heroic soldier Doyle, who goes against military orders to save a group of survivors. Renner also starred in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, directed by Andrew Dominik. In the film, Renner stars alongside Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck in the role of a key member of James' gang, Wood Hide. He also costarred opposite Minnie Driver in the independent film Take, scheduled for release later this year. In North Country, Renner starred opposite Academy Award winner Charlize Theron in a fictionalized account of the first major, successful sexual harassment case in the U.S. Renner is at the center of the unfolding drama as miner Bobby Sharp. Renner also starred in the acclaimed independent film 12 and Holding, which was nominated for the Independent Spirit Awards' John Cassavetes Award.
Other recent credits include the independent film Neo Ned, in which Renner starred opposite Gabrielle Union. Neo Ned was screened at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and swept the feature film category at the 11th Annual Palm Beach International Film Festival in 2006. Neo Ned was awarded Best Feature Film and Best Director while Renner won the Best Actor prize. The film also was awarded the Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking/Best Feature Film Award at the Newport Beach Film Festival in April 2006, in addition to the audience awards at the Slamdance, Sarasota and Ashland film festivals.
Renner's other credits include A Little Trip to Heaven, in which he starred opposite Julia Stiles; The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, directed by Asia Argento as adapted from the critically acclaimed novel by J.T. Leroy; Lords of Dogtown, for director Catherine Hardwicke; and the independent film Love of the Executioner, written and directed by Kyle Bergersen.
In 2003, Renner was seen in the action hit S.W.A.T. opposite Colin Farrell and Samuel L. Jackson. But the role that put Renner on the map and earned the actor an Independent Spirit Award nomination was his unforgettable portrayal of a real-life serial killer in the indie film Dahmer.
With a background in theater, Renner keeps his acting chops in shape by performing in plays throughout the Los Angeles area. Recent credits have included the critically acclaimed "Search and Destroy," which he not only starred in but also co-directed.
Between film and theater, Renner finds the time to write, record, and perform his own brand of contemporary rock. He has written songs for Warner Chapel Publishing and Universal Publishing.
ANTHONY MACKIE (Sergeant J.T. Sanborn) who was classically trained at the Julliard School of Drama, is a great and talented young actor who is able to capture a plethora of characters. Mackie was discovered after receiving rave reviews while playing Tupac Shakur in the off Broadway "Up Against the Wind". Immediately following, Mackie made an auspicious film debut as Eminem's nemesis, Papa Doc, in Curtis Hanson's 8 Mile. His performance caught the attention of Spike Lee, who subsequently cast Mackie in the 2004 Toronto Film Festival Masters Program selection Sucker Free City and She Hate Me. He also appeared in Clint Eastwood's Academy Award-winning Million Dollar Baby, opposite Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman and Eastwood, as well as in Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate, alongside Denzel Washington and Liev Schreiber, and the comedy The Man, starring Samuel L. Jackson.
Mackie earned IFP Spirit and Gotham Award nominations for his performance in Rodney Evans' Brother to Brother, which won the 2004 Special Dramatic Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. In 2005, he appeared opposite David Strathairn, Timothy Hutton and Leelee Sobieski in Heavens Fall, based on the historic Scottsboro Boys' trials, an independent feature that premiered at the 2006 SXSW Film Festival in Austin.
Mackie also had five features on movie screens in 2006. In addition to We Are Marshall, he starred in Half Nelson, with Ryan Gosling, adapted from director Ryan Fleck's Sundance-winning short Gowanus Brooklyn; in Preston Whitmore's Crossover; in Frank E. Flowers ensemble crime drama Haven, opposite Orlando Bloom and Bill Paxton; and in the film adaptation of Richard Price's Freedomland, starring Samuel L. Jackson.
Intertwined throughout his film career, Mackie was seen in several theatrical performances both on and off Broadway. Mackie made his Broadway debut as the stuttering nephew, Sylvester, alongside Whoopi Goldberg in August Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom". Next he was seen as the lead in Regina King's modern retelling of Chekov's "The Seagull," starred in Stephen Belber's "McReele" for the Rounabout Theatre Company, and starred in the Pulitzer Prize winning play "Soldier's Play" as a character made famous by Denzel Washington 20 years prior. Most recently, Mackie was part of the production of August Wilson's 20th Century at the esteemed Kennedy Center where they performed stage readings of all 10 plays in August Wilson's cycle. Mackie participated in 3 of the 10 shows and hopes to return to the stage soon.
Most recently, Mackie was seen in Dreamworks film Eagle Eye, starring Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, and Billy Bob Thornton and revised his role as Tupac Shakur in Notorious, a biopic of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G directed by George Tillman Jr. and starring Jamal Woolard in the title role. Mackie will tackle a couple more biopics with Bolden!, an account of the great New Orleans cornet player Buddy Bolden and Jesse Owens, a feature based on the late-great Olympic star.
BRIAN GERAGHTY (Specialist Owen Eldridge) was last seen starring opposite Shia LeBeouf in the Emilio Estevez-directed film Bobby, a story that revolves around the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Co-stars included Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Lindsay Lohan and Elijah Wood, among many others. Geraghty also completed work on the independent dramas Easier with Practice and Krews.
Recent film credits include roles in We Are Marshall, directed by McG and starring Matthew McConaughey and Matthew Fox; The Guardian, directed by Andrew Davis and starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher; and Jarhead, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx and Peter Sarsgaard. Additional film credits include Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential, with John Malkovich and Max Minghella; When a Stranger Calls, with Camilla Belle; Love Lies Bleeding, with Christian Slater and Jenna Dewan; Conversations with Other Women, with Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter; The Optimist, with Leelee Sobieski; Stateside, with Val Kilmer and Jonathan Tucker; and Cruel World, with Edward Furlong. Prior to launching his film career, Geraghty had guest-starring roles on several top television series including "The Sopranos," "Law & Order" and "Ed." Originally from New Jersey, Geraghty graduated from The Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York City. His stage credits include roles in productions of "Berlin," "Midnight Moonlight," "Snipers" and "Romeo and Juliet."
Geraghty began his professional career in New York before re-locating to Los Angeles. An ardent surfer, he has been a surf instructor and is an ongoing, active supporter of the Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit environmental organization working to preserve our oceans, waves and beaches.
RALPH FIENNES (Contractor Team Leader) was born in Suffolk and grew up in England and Ireland. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), after which he began his professional acting career on stage. He performed at London's Regents Park in both The Theater Clwyd and the Oldman Coliseum. Two years after graduating from RADA, he joined Michael Rudman's company at the Royal National Theatre. He later joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where for two seasons he appeared in such plays as "Henry VI," "King Lear" and "Love's Labour's Lost."
In 1991, Fiennes landed his first television appearance in a small but telling role in the award-winning series "Prime Suspect." Fiennes was then cast by David Puttnam as T.E. Lawrence in the telefilm "A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia."
Fiennes made his feature film debut starring opposite Juliette Binoche as Heathcliff in Peter Kosminsky's Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Steven Spielberg was so impressed by his performance that he cast Fiennes as the sinister Nazi Aman Goeth in Schindler's List, opposite Liam Neeson. This performance earned Fiennes an Academy Award nomination and awards from BAFTA, the New York Film Critics Circle, National Society of Film Critics, Boston Society of Film Critics, Chicago Film Critics Association and London Critics Circle (Best Supporting Actor).
Other notable performances include Robert Redford's acclaimed Quiz Show, Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days, Gillian Armstrong's Oscar and Lucinda and Martha Fiennes' Onegin opposite Liv Tyler, which Fiennes also executive produced, Neil Jordan's The End of the Affair, The Good Thief, The Avengers and Istvan Szabo's Sunshine.
In 1994, Fiennes played the title role in "Hamlet" for a sold-out production by Jonathan Kent and the Almeida Theatre Company at the Hackney Empire. The production moved to Broadway and in 1995 Fiennes won a Tony Award for his performance.
Also in 1995, Fiennes starred in the Academy Award-winning epic The English Patient, directed by Anthony Minghella, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA.
Fiennes then returned to the theatre in Jonathan Kent's acclaimed production of "Ivanov" at the Almeida Theatre in London. His performance won rave reviews, which took the play to Moscow. During 2000, Fiennes appeared triumphantly on the London stage in the title roles of "Richard II" and "Coriolanus" for the Almeida Theatre, and shone in a guest cameo role in Kenneth Branagh's West End production of "The Play I Wrote."
In 2002, Fiennes starred in David Cronenberg's film Spider, as a disturbed schizophrenic in search of his past, and in Red Dragon, as a psychotic but vulnerable serial killer, opposite Emily Watson and Edward Norton. He had a cameo role in Neil Jordan's The Good Thief and also starred opposite Jennifer Lopez in Maid in Manhattan.
In 2005, Fiennes appeared in The Chumscrubber, opposite Rita Wilson and Glenn Close, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival that year. Fiennes was also seen in Martha Fiennes' Chromophobia with Kristen Scott Thomas and Penelope Cruz. Chromophobia premiered as the closing-night film at the 2005 Cannes International Film Festival. Fiennes' voice was also featured in the animated feature Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. That same year, Fiennes starred in Fernando Meirelles' The Constant Gardener, opposite Rachel Weisz and Danny Huston. For this role, Fiennes received a London Critics Circle Award for Best British Actor and a British Independent Film Award for Best Actor.
Fiennes also starred in the final Merchant-Ivory film, The White Countess, opposite Natasha Richardson. And played the pivotal role of the dreaded Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
In 2006, Fiennes reunited with director Jonathan Kent to star on stage in Brian Friel's Tony Award nominated play "Faith Healer," which originally premiered at Dublin's Gate Theatre. During its limited run at the Gate Theatre, for the first time in the venue's history tickets sold out before previews began. Fiennes and the play received Tony nominations.
Fiennes reprised his role as Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth installment of the blockbuster series. In February 2008, Fiennes starred in the critically acclaimed HBO telefilm "Bernard and Doris," opposite Susan Sarandon and directed by Bob Balaban. Next for Fiennes was In Bruges, opposite Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, which follows two hit men forced to spend time in Bruges, Belgium after a job gone wrong. Fiennes was next seen in The Duchess, opposite Keira Knightley.
Fiennes recently starred in a production of Yasmina Reza's "God of Carnage" at London's Gielgud Theatre. "God of Carnage," a new comedy that has opened to rave reviews, follows what happens when two sets of parents meet up to deal with the unruly behavior of their children. Fiennes was seen in Samuel Beckett's one-man show, "First Love," performing at New York's Lincoln Center Festival and presented by the Gate Theater of Dublin. Fiennes was then reunited with director Jonathan Kent to star opposite theatre legend, Clare Higgins, as the title role in "Oedipus Rex," staged at the National Theatre in London.
Fiennes has been an avid supporter of UNICEF since 1999 and became an ambassador for the organization in 2001. He currently resides in London.
GUY PEARCE (Sergeant Matt Thompson) recently portrayed Harry Houdini in Death Defying Acts, appeared in Bedtime Stories with Adam Sandler and starred in Traitor with Don Cheadle. Pearce was born October 5, 1967, in Cambridgeshire, England. His father, a member of the Royal Air Force, moved the family to Australia when Pearce was three. Interested in acting from a young age, he wrote to various members of the Australian television industry requesting a screen test when he was 17. His efforts proved worthwhile as he was invited to audition for a new daytime drama called "Neighbours." Pearce won a significant part on the show, where he remained from 1986 to 1990. After additional TV roles, Pearce made his big screen debut in the 1992 film Hunting. He acted in a few more small films and in "My Forgotten Man," a 1993 television biopic of Errol Flynn, before coming to the attention of film audiences everywhere in the 1994 sleeper hit The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. As the flamboyant and often infuriating Adam/Felicia, he gave a performance that was both over the top and immensely satisfying.
The role led to his casting in Curtis Hanson's 1997 adaptation of James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential. The film was an all-around success and drew raves for Pearce and his co-stars, which included Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Kim Basinger (who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance) and fellow Australian Russell Crowe.
After the success of L.A. Confidential, Pearce went on to make the indie A Slipping Down Life, which premiered at Sundance in 1999. He followed that with Ravenous, Antonia Bird's tale of chaos and cannibalism, which cast Pearce alongside David Arquette and Robert Carlyle. Though his role in the following year's military drama Rules of Engagement would offer a commendable performance by the rising star, it was another film the same year that cemented his status as one of the most challenging and unpredictable performers of his generation. Cast as a vengeance seeking, tattoo-covered widower whose inability to form new memories hinders his frantic search for his wife's killer, Pearce's unforgettable performance in Christopher Nolan's backwards-structured thriller Memento drove what would ultimately become one of the biggest sleepers in box office history.
Pearce was now officially hot property on the Hollywood scene, and producers wasted no time in booking him for as many upcoming blockbusters as they could. A memorable performance as the villain in The Count of Monte Cristo found Pearce traveling back in time and his subsequent role in The Time Machine sent him so far into the future that mankind had reverted to prehistoric ways. A return trip to the land Down Under found Pearce next appearing as a hapless bank robber in the crime effort The Hard Word, and the actor would remain in Australia for the 2002 elliptical drama Till Human Voices Wake Us. In 2004, Pearce played a lion hunter in the familyoriented epic Two Brothers. The following year, Pearce won acclaim for his portrayal of the pop artist Andy Warhol in the film Factory Girl.
DAVID MORSE (Colonel Reed) is an Emmy nominated actor whose versatility and talent make him one of the most well-respected performers working in film, television and theater. In 2008, Morse played George Washington in the acclaimed HBO mini-series "John Adams," opposite Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. He also recently Morse starred opposite Anne Hathaway in Rodrigo Garcia's Passengers.
Morse played James "Sharky" Harkin in Conor McPherson's "The Seafarer," which went to Broadway after receiving its world premiere at London's National Theatre in 2006, receiving two Olivier Award nominations, including Best New Play.
Earlier stage credits include the 1997 Off-Broadway production of Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prizewinning drama, "How I Learned to Drive." His performance won him the Drama League Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Drama Desk Award and the Obie Award. He made his Broadway debut in the role of Father Barry in the theatre adaptation of "On the Waterfront" and won a DramaLogue Award for his performance in the Los Angeles production of "Of Mice and Men." Other stage appearances include the Off-Broadway productions of "The Trading Post," "Threads" and "A Death in the Family."
On the silver screen, Morse was most recently seen in the hit thriller Disturbia and Richard Donner's action-thriller 16 Blocks, opposite Bruce Willis and Mos Def. The film marked Morse's reunion with Donner, who directed him in his motion picture debut, Inside Moves, more than 25 years ago.
In 1991, Morse starred with Viggo Mortensen in Sean Penn's directorial debut, The Indian Runner. Morse re-teamed with Penn a few years later to star opposite Jack Nicholson, Anjelica Huston and Robin Wright Penn in The Crossing Guard. The performance earned Morse an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Male.
Over the next several years, Morse appeared in multiple films that grossed over $100 million, including The Rock, with Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage; Robert Zemeckis' Contact, opposite Jodie Foster; and Frank Darabont's The Green Mile, with Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan, based on the novel by Stephen King. The ensemble cast was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Theatrical Motion Picture.
Morse has starred in films by some of Hollywood's most acclaimed directors. Other credits include Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys, opposite Bruce Willis; F. Gary Gray's The Negotiator, opposite Kevin Spacey and Samuel L. Jackson; Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, with Catherine Deneuve (which won the Palme d'Or at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival); and Taylor Hackford's Proof of Life, opposite Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe.
Additional film credits include Desperate Hours, with Anthony Hopkins; Joseph Ruben's The Good Son; Michael Apted's Extreme Measures, opposite Gene Hackman; The Long Kiss Goodnight, with Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson; Crazy in Alabama, directed by Antonio Banderas; Antoine Fuqua's Bait, opposite Jamie Foxx; Scott Hicks' Hearts in Atlantis, with Anthony Hopkins and Hope Davis; Alex and Andrew Smith's The Slaughter Rule, opposite Ryan Gosling; Kuo-fu Chen's Double Vision (which broke box office records in Taiwan and garnered Morse a Golden Horse Award nomination, the Chinese equivalent of the Oscar, for Best Supporting Actor); Down in the Valley, opposite Edward Norton and Evan Rachel Wood; Dreamer, with Kurt Russell and Kris Kristofferson; and Deborah Kampmeier's Hounddog.
On television, Morse was recently nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his multi-episode story arc as Detective Tritter on the hit FOX show "House." But Morse is probably best known for his role as Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison on the Emmywinning ensemble drama "St. Elsewhere." He also starred for two seasons on the CBS crime drama "Hack."
CHRISTIAN CAMARGO (Colonel John Cambridge) is a graduate of Juilliard who began his career in New York and London theater. His Broadway debut was in David Hare's "Skylight" with Michael Gambon. Other theater credits include the title role of the Public Theater's "Marlow," the world premiere of Steve Martin's "The Underpants" and multiple plays for New York's Shakespeare in the Park. He was back on Broadway in 2008 for Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" with Dianne Wiest, John Lithgow and Katie Holmes.
Camargo is also a founding member of Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London, where he performed in "Henry V" and "A Chaste Maid in Cheapside." His film and television roles include K19: The Widowmaker, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, Showtime's "Dexter" and the upcoming film Happy Tears, with Demi Moore and Parker Posey.
In addition to his acting, Camargo founded the Fast Ashleys vintage car shop, where he restored classic cars and produced reality-based docudramas including MTV's "Fast, Inc.," History Channel's "Full Throttle" and New Line's "Sunday Driver."
EVANGELINE LILLY (Connie James) has earned a reputation as one of the most promising young actresses in Hollywood through her combination of irresistible, playful charm and natural talent.
Lilly was discovered by a Ford talent agent on the streets of Kelowna, British Columbia. Six months later, she moved to Vancouver to attend the University of British Columbia and study international relations. After appearing in a few commercials, she chose to give up acting and focus on studying. A couple of years later, a friend urged her to give acting another shot and soon thereafter she landed the non-speaking roles of a corpse in both an episode of Stephen King's "Kingdom Hospital" and the film The Long Weekend.
Lilly landed her first speaking role on a television series in January 2004 as Kate, a strong-minded survivor in ABC's hit show "Lost," which has become a worldwide phenomenon. Created by J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Jeffrey Lieber, "Lost" won the 2006 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Drama Series as well as the Screen Actor's Guild Award for Best Ensemble in a Drama Series. Lilly was nominated for a Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress in a Drama Series and also received a 2007 Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series.
When not in Hawaii filming the show, Lilly is wholeheartedly devoted to philanthropy, traveling and gaining a higher knowledge of various cultures around the world. During her college years, Lilly founded and ran a world development and human rights committee. She later spent three weeks living in a grass hut in the jungles of the Philippines and has been a volunteer for children's projects since the age of 14.
Fluent in French, Lilly loves reading, writing, painting, music, nature, staying active, learning, tea and travel.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

KATHRYN BIGELOW (Director and Producer) has distinguished herself as one of Hollywood's most innovative filmmakers.
In 1985, Bigelow directed and co-wrote the stirring cult classic Near Dark, produced by Steven-Charles Jaffe. The film was critically lauded as a "poetic horror film." As always, Bigelow's visual style garnered positive reactions from the press, who described it as "dreamy, passionate and terrifying, a hallucinatory vision of the American nightworld that becomes both seductive and devastating." Following the release of the film, the Museum of Modern Art honored Bigelow with a career retrospective.
In 1991, Bigelow directed the action thriller Point Break, which starred Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. Executive produced by James Cameron, Point Break explored the dangerous extremes of a psychological struggle between two young men. The Chicago Tribune commended her astonishing filmmaking sensibilities and described her as "a uniquely talented, uniquely powerful filmmaker...Bigelow has tapped into something primal and strong. She is a sensualist in the most sensual of mediums."
When Strange Days was released in 1995, Roger Ebert called it a "technical tour de force." In the film, Bigelow explored the unsettling prospects of computer-generated virtual reality and the impending new millennium. Strange Days received rave reviews and was highly praised for its energy and unique, intense visuals. Janet Maslin, in The New York Times, stated that "the furiously talented" Bigelow was "operating at full throttle... using material ablaze with eerie promise... she turns Strange Days into a troubling but undeniably breathless joyride." Starring Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett and Juliette Lewis, Strange Days was co-written by James Cameron and released by Twentieth Century Fox.
Bigelow also directed The Weight of Water, starring Sean Penn, Sarah Polley, Catherine McCormack and Elizabeth Hurley. Based on the bestselling Anita Shreve novel, The Weight of Water made its world premiere in a gala screening at the 25th annual Toronto International Film Festival in 2000 and drew praise from critics and filmmakers alike. Variety described the film as being "Bigelow's richest, most ambitious and personal work to date; imbued with suspense, benefiting from Bigelow's penchant for creating a visual sense of menace and an atmosphere of fear."
On the release of K-19: The Widowmaker, The New York Times declared Bigelow "one of the most gifted...directors working in movies today." Starring Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson and Peter Saarsgard, it was one of the more critically well-received films of the summer of 2002. The film tells the true story of a heroic Soviet naval crew who risked their lives to prevent a near nuclear disaster aboard their submarine. Critics praised Bigelow as "an expert technician who never steps wrong" (Roger Ebert).
Bigelow went where no other filmmaker has gone before, making Soviet soldiers from the Cold War era the heroes of a major American production. For Bigelow, there was a larger purpose to telling this important forgotten chapter of history. "...At times I allow myself to hope that K-19 will also have another role to play, that it can help to throw open the narrow ideological window through which we, as Americans, have viewed a particular past and culture. In those moments I'm thinking back over the many disquieting things I saw in Russia, and most of all the people I met there: Our former enemies whose great courage we may now, finally, after all these years, be prepared to acknowledge."
MARK BOAL (Writer and Producer) is a journalist, screenwriter and producer. Born and raised in New York City, he graduated with honors in philosophy from Oberlin College before beginning a career as an investigative reporter and writer of long form non-fiction. An acclaimed series for the Village Voice on the rise of surveillance in America led to a position at the alternative weekly writing a weekly column, "The Monitor," when he was 25. Boal subsequently covered politics, technology, crime, youth culture and drug culture in stories for national publications including Rolling Stone, Brill's Content, Mother Jones, The New York Observer and Playboy. He is currently a writer-at-large for Playboy.
In 2003, Boal's article "Jailbait," about an undercover drug agent, was adapted for FOX television's "The Inside." In 2003, he wrote "Death and Dishonor," the true story of a military veteran who goes searching for his missing son, which later became the basis for Paul Haggis' follow up to Crash, In the Valley of Elah. Boal collaborated with Haggis on the script and shares a co-story credit on the film, deemed "a deeply reflective, highly powerful work" by the Hollywood Reporter.
NICOLAS CHARTIER (Producer) is the owner and president of Voltage Pictures. He began his entertainment career as a screenwriter, selling his first script when he was 18, before changing careers and going into distribution. Prior to forming Voltage, Chartier was VP of sales and acquisitions at Myriad Pictures where he was involved in the sales of a diverse range of films including Van Wilder, People I Know with Al Pacino, The Good Girl with Jennifer Aniston and the Olsen twins' TV movies. As the President of Vortex Pictures, he sold such titles as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Man from Elysian Fields and Sonny, Nicolas Cage's directorial debut. As head of sales and acquisitions at Arclight Films, Chartier acquired the sales rights for Dean Devlin's The Librarian, 2006 Academy Award winner Crash and The Matador, with Pierce Brosnan. During his time at Arclight, Chartier also sold Lord of War with Nicolas Cage, The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino and Wolf Creek. He then partnered with Dean Devlin (writer and producer of Independence Day, Godzilla and Stargate) to launch Voltage Pictures.
In the last three years, Chartier has distributed more than 60 movies internationally, including Dean Devlin and Bryan Singer's The Triangle; Flyboys; Spread, with Ashton Kutcher; Personal Effects, starring Kutcher and Michelle Pfeiffer; and George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead.
GREG SHAPIRO (Producer) is an independent producer whose recent credits include Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, written and directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, starring John Cho and Kal Penn.
Past credits include Rise, written and directed by Sebastian Gutierrez, starring Lucy Liu and Michael Chiklis; Neverwas, written and directed by Joshua Michael Stern, starring Ian McKellen, Aaron Eckhart and Brittany Murphy; Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, directed by Danny Leiner; The Rules of Attraction, based on the book by Bret Easton Ellis, adapted and directed by Roger Avary, starring James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon and Jessica Biel; Investigating Sex, directed by Alan Rudolph and starring Neve Campbell, Dermot Mulroney and Julie Delpy; and Simpatico, based on the play by Sam Shepard, directed by Matthew Warchus and starring Nick Nolte, Jeff Bridges and Sharon Stone.
Upcoming projects in development include The Rum Diary, based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson, adapted and to be directed by Bruce Robinson, to star Johnny Depp; and Detachment, written by Carl Lund, to be directed by Tony Kaye and to star Peter Sarsgaard.
TONY MARK (Executive Producer) was born and raised in Manhattan. After Horace Mann High School and Carnegie-Mellon University, Mark spent years in regional theatre, founding and serving as the artistic director for Valley Theatre Company in Poughkeepsie, New York. He also produced, directed, and acted with Abraxas Repertory at the Hyde Park Playhouse. He won the Best Actor award at the New England Theatre Festival for his performance of the title role in "Lenny" and the Best Actor award in the New York Regional Theatre festival for his work in "Girl on the Via Flaminia." During radio's free-form days, he hosted the show "Grotto of the Orange Pumpkin" at WEOK-FM. Mark also worked extensively as a photojournalist for a variety of regional newspapers including United Press International and The New York Times. In New York City, Mark produced television commercials for IBM, GE, Texaco, Coca Cola, Budweiser and other major accounts.
Mark has produced films that range from art house to the commercial and has worked with a wide variety of filmmakers, from edgy young directors like Spy Kids' Robert Rodriguez to the legendary director of West Side Story, Robert Wise. Films that Mark has been involved with as a producer have been nominated for Academy Awards (The Fisher King) and Emmy Awards (HBO's "Witness Protection," "And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself") while being featured at film festivals such as Sundance (Zelly and Me), Toronto (Billy Galvin), Telluride (Go Tell It on the Mountain) and others. He has shot films all over the United States and in 14 countries including Mexico, France, Italy, China, Greece and Jordan. Mark has written for MGM, ABC, NBC, Showtime and USA Networks and has directed second units on numerous films for Sony, HBO, CBS and Dimension. He also directed a documentary for the Guggenheim Foundation on the art collections of Solomon and Peggy Guggenheim.
Mark co-founded and serves as president of the board of directors for Assistance Dogs of the West, an organization that provides service dogs to the disabled.
BARRY ACKROYD (Director of Photography) was born in Manchester, U.K. and attended the Portsmouth College of Art, where he majored in film. After relocating to London, he started his career as a camera assistant on documentaries and commercials before his talent as a cinematographer was recognized. He then went on to supervise cinematography on a broad range of television movies and documentaries as well as independent films.
In 1996, he was nominated for a Camerimage Golden Frog for his work as director of photography on Carla's Song, a romantic drama set in Nicaragua. That same year, he directed a critically acclaimed short, The Butterfly Man, for which he received several awards and nominations including a BAFTA nomination for Best Short Film. He won several technical awards for his work on the powerful Sweet Sixteen (2002).
Most recently, Ackroyd has shot feature films such as the Oscar-nominated United 93, the drama Battle in Seattle and The Wind that Shakes the Barley, winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. His contribution to United 93 earned him a BAFTA nomination for Best Cinematography. He had previously been nominated for a BAFTA television prize for Best Photography and Lighting on "The Lost Prince" (2003). He most recently reteamed with United 93 director Paul Greengrass on the upcoming Matt Damon thriller Green Zone.
KARL JÚLÍUSSON (Production Designer) honed his skills in production design by working on a number of Icelandic television shows and films. His contribution as production designer for the Oscar-nominated Dancer in the Dark, directed by Lars von Trier and starring world-renowned Icelandic singer-actress Bjork, earned him much critical acclaim and offers to work on high-profile feature films. His next project was the thriller The Weight of Water, starring Catherine McCormack and directed by Kathryn Bigelow.
Júlíusson continued to build a reputation for inventive production design through his work on Bigelow's action-drama K-19: The Widowmaker, starring Harrison Ford, and Dear Wendy, starring Bill Pullman. He served as creative consultant for production design on Lars von Trier's Dogville and continued to work on Icelandic and Scandinavian titles such as A Little Trip to Heaven, The Beautiful Country and The Kautokeino Rebellion.
His latest endeavor is the historical thriller Max Manus, a Norwegian film about one of the most brilliant saboteurs of WWII and his battle to overcome his inner demons.
BOB MURAWSKI (Editor) was born in Detroit and grew up in the northeast area of Michigan. He graduated from Michigan State University where he majored in telecommunications. After moving to Los Angeles, he worked his way up in the editorial departments of smaller independent films. In 1992, he edited Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness, which became a cult smash, and later, Hong Kong director John Woo's first American feature, Hard Target.
Following Hard Target, Murawski edited a number of feature films including Last Lives, Uncle Sam, American Hero and the Night of the Scarecrow. He is best known for editing all three of Raimi's blockbuster Spiderman films.
In 1995, while working on the TV series "American Gothic," Murawski was introduced to his future editing partner, Chris Innis, by executive producer Sam Raimi. They have since worked together on Raimi's The Gift and Spider-Man III. The pair has also collaborated on various Grindhouse Releasing and Box Office Spectaculars films.
Bob Murawski is a partner at Grindhouse Releasing with actor and director Sage Stallone, and also runs his own distribution arm, Box Office Spectaculars. He has restored and digitally remastered classic cult horror films Make Them Die Slowly (aka Cannibal Ferox) and Lucio Fulci's horror masterpiece, E tu vivrai nel terrore (aka The Beyond) as well as Cannibal Holocaust, I Drink Your Blood and director Juan Piquer Simón's cult horror film, Pieces.
CHRIS INNIS (Editor) graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in film and received her M.F.A. from the Cal Arts Film School. Raised in Southern California, she worked her way up through Hollywood's rank-and-file as a teenage movie theater cashier and popcorn salesgirl at United Artists, Mann and Landmark theaters.
Innis was mentored by Academy Award-winning editor Pietro Scalia, with whom she served as an assistant editor. She worked with Scalia on such films as JFK, The Quick and the Dead and G.I. Jane. Some of her other editorial credits include Indecent Proposal, Dead Beat, I Shot a Man in Vegas and White Man's Burden.
Since 1997, Innis' editing partner has been Bob Murawski. They were introduced by executive producer Sam Raimi on the TV series "American Gothic," where the two worked as editors. They worked together on Raimi's The Gift and Spider-Man III. The pair also collaborated on various Grindhouse Releasing and Box Office Spectaculars films, both companies that distribute cult films for the VHS and DVD markets.
MARCO BELTRAMI (Composer) is an Academy Award-nominated protégé of acclaimed composer Jerry Goldsmith who got his big break scoring Wes Craven's Scream. In his approach to scoring the film, Beltrami threw away conventional horror music clichés. Instead, he likened the film to a Western and, calling upon the influences of his idol Ennio Morricone, went on to write one of the most unexpected and imaginative scores in recent memory. Wes Craven would remark in the liner notes of the soundtrack, "Without Marco's genius, Scream would have been little more than a whisper."
Beltrami scored blockbusters including Live Free or Die Hard, I Robot and Terminator 3 before finding his way back to Western compositions when Tommy Lee Jones hired him to score The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. The film won the Best Director and Screenplay awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Walk the Line director Jim Mangold was a fan of Beltrami's suspenseful and beautiful Western score and hired him to write the music for 3:10 to Yuma. Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "The impressive work extends behind the scenes to... Marco Beltrami's percolating score, which subtly yet effectively signals Yuma's status as a thinking person's Western."
Next, Beltrami re-teamed with Tommy Lee Jones on In the Electric Mist, directed by renowned filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier. He also scored the psychological thriller Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage.