Thank you. I don't know if yours is working, Mark. Was it working? It wasn't working.
How's that? No, not working, but we can. As long as this one's working, that's all
right with me. I'd like to thank Mark Fishkin for putting on such a terrific festival year
in and year out. His staff, the programmers, and especially the volunteers, which without
them a festival like this could not exist. So congratulations to you all. We're so proud
of this film and so grateful that you have asked us to come here tonight. We would be
remiss if we didn't mention that someone who's not here, Ben desperately wanted to come
here. He's planning to come here, and yesterday he was diagnosed with a little strep throat,
and his doctors grounded him and told him, you can't go anywhere. So he's in bed, but
he sends his love, and he would want us to say, first of all, we thank Warner Brothers
for being such a terrific studio partner in developing this story and bringing it to life.
Also to the entire casting crew who worked so hard and so diligently on making this
happen, especially Tony Mendez, a real person who you'll get to know very soon. We want
to keep this rather short so that afterward Chris and I can come back up here and have
a lively Q&A. So Chris, do you have anything to add? Okay, so what we're going to do is
I promise you Ben will be texting me in about a few minutes saying, do they like it? I will
report back. And yeah, thank you all for coming, and we'll see you after the movie.
All right, Embercy has been seized and More than 60 American citizens continued to be
held as hostages. What happened? The six of the hostages went out of back exit. Where
Where are they?
The Canadian ambassador's house.
We got revolutionary guards going door to door.
These people die.
They die badly.
White House who wants the six of them out.
What we like for this are bicycles.
Deliver the six bikes, provide them with maps.
Or you could just send in training wheels
and meet them at the border with Gatorade.
It's gonna take a miracle to get them out.
Buddy man, what are we watching?
I got an idea.
They're a Canadian film crew for a science fiction movie.
I fly into Tehran.
We all fly out together as a film crew.
I need you to help me make a fake movie.
So you want to come to Hollywood Act like a big shot
without actually doing anything?
Yeah.
We'll fit right in.
We need a script.
Argo, science fantasy adventure.
Lowenscape, Mars, desert.
We need an exotic location to shoot.
You need a producer.
If I'm doing a fake movie, it's gonna be a fake hit.
You don't have a better bad idea than this?
This is the best bad idea we have, sir.
By far.
You have 72 hours to get them out.
They're getting a visitor.
You gotten people out this way before?
No.
They're asking us to trust you with our lives.
This is what I do.
And I've never left anyone behind.
I know who they are and they know they're hiding out.
It's over, Tony.
If they stay here, they will be taken.
Probably not alive.
We're responsible for these people.
I'm responsible.
You really believe your little story is gonna make a difference
when there's a gun to our heads?
I think my little story is the only thing
between you and a gun to your head.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back
Brian Cranston and Chris Terrio.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Does that work better than this one?
Well, congratulations.
It's a wonderful, wonderful film.
It's amazing how few people, I think,
I include myself as one of them,
really didn't know this story.
The question is for both of you.
Did you know this or did they bring you this story
and you go, wait a minute,
they wanna make a movie about a CIA agent
who takes a movie and what did you think?
Well, they were produced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov,
but they're company Smokehouse Pictures
and they came to me with a Wired Magazine article
that sort of had described this, the Argo operation
and I didn't know anything about it
and then so after reading the article,
I read the chapter in Tony Mendez's book.
He wrote a book, sort of memoirs of his time
in the CIA and one of the chapters is about this,
but it really wasn't well known in spite of these things.
Even though, as you saw, it was declassified in 1997
during the 50th anniversary of the CIA,
they sort of pointed out various successes
in their history and this was one of them.
So yeah, just as you hear in the film,
it was very deliberately kept hidden for a long time.
And the CIA owns the rights to it, I'm sure, right?
Yeah, well, they own the rights to everything in some way.
But Brian, I mean, it's a fabulous script and story
and what was your first reaction on it?
I remember reading the article back in 97 or 98
and then it went away and I'd forgotten about it.
And about a year and a half ago,
I got a call from my agent saying,
Ben and Grant would like to meet with you
about this role of Jack O'Donnell and I read the script
and I thought, oh, my God, this is so fantastic.
And I say it to him behind his back, too.
He's a brilliant writer and actors if...
APPLAUSE
The one thing that actors are good at
and I pride myself in this is being able
to identify well-written material.
It is all about the writing, it starts with that,
It is the foundation of every story, and I can't say it enough.
Your writing is brilliant, and every little nuance,
every little switch back and forth to Hollywood,
to Ron, to the CIA headquarters,
and I'm flipping the pages out of them,
reading all the way through was so exciting.
I called my agent, Mark, and I said,
I know they want to see me next week.
Is there any way we can get in this week?
And they said, why? I said, I know actors.
When they read this, it'll be like catnip to them.
They're going to want to get in and scratch and claw their way
to get this part, and I need to mark it for my own as a friend.
I need to go left, you know.
And so I was able to get in there and tell Ben and Grant
my idea for it and what my take was and the sensibility of it,
and hopefully they responded, and they did,
and they liked the idea, and so we went that way.
Well, it's a great role, and you did a fabulous job.
That's a great role. Thank you.
But, you know, of course you, and I'm not just saying this
to reciprocate, because Brian said nice things,
because my mother gave him $20 earlier, but he, you know,
you write a part like that, and you hope for the best,
and it's a very wordy part, and you know,
and he's bringing you into this subculture and the CIA
full of words that we don't necessarily know at first
and has to bring the whole history of the relationship
with Tony Mendez immediately.
You know, they speak in a tone of guys
who work together for a lot of years.
They, you know, they share a common understanding.
They know the same jokes.
They have a similar view of the organization,
you know, which sometimes doesn't make it easy
for them to do their jobs.
And so, when Brian came on, the part just jumped, you know,
because immediately, you know, the first scenes that I saw,
you got a sense of this character's whole life
and his whole history from Brian's performance.
I mean, Brian, you know, I'll embarrass him
when he'll turn red, but one of my very favorite shots
in the film, there's a reaction shot of Brian
when he, when Jack finds out that,
there are two reaction shots, actually,
when Jack finds out that the operation was a success.
And I don't know any other actor
that could have done those close-ups
in the way that this man did those close-ups.
I was just very lucky because those are my two looks.
And...
Yeah, which were tailored in the script, too.
Those are it.
Well, it's curious. I'm curious.
You know, obviously, a great script is the foundation
and it's there.
And then you have the idea about this,
and you can just see it from the credits,
that there's such authenticity to this film.
So, for you as an actor, and for you as well, of course, Chris,
you know, did you have to dig deep into that
in terms of the sneak of the CFI?
That's us.
Wow.
Was that a Freudian slip?
The clandestine operations of the CFI.
The CIA.
They're brutal.
We don't want to do that.
Mark took out a cyanide tablet, and I go,
don't do that! Don't!
Don't do it!
The CIA.
Well, there's certainly a culture there.
And I was fortunate enough to be able to go back to Langley, Virginia,
and before we start shooting,
a couple months before,
and to do some background research on it.
And I talked to several of the CIA officers there,
and at first they were rather reticent
to be able to reveal themselves
as is their inherent, you know, personality.
But I was more curious to try to...
Jack O'Donnell was a composite character.
And I would like to ask you this,
because I've just made these assumptions.
My thought was that,
for an audience's sake,
if we kept going back and seeing a different face
and name and voice of the CIA,
it might get confusing,
and the audience might not know if we're in the State Department,
the White House, where are we?
And so is that why you created a composite character
Jack O'Donnell as the voice and face of the CIA at the beginning?
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it was...
I mean, right, it was to give Brian Cranston
as much screen time as possible.
But no, the...
And also, I thought it was important,
as you established in the film,
that there's a relationship between Tony and his...
like, Jack is his mentor.
They've been through a lot together,
and you have to feel that they get each other
and understand each other.
So that's why, in the real CIA,
you'd have the deputy director of operations,
the director, the deops.
You'd have all kinds of levels of different people
that were involved in this,
but they were all kind of distilled into the Jack character.
And what's interesting is that I found it not too dissimilar
from any other large company,
is that they have orders that they have to follow,
and they necessarily think it's the right way to go.
There's crappy coffee in the break room.
And yet, these men and women are very dedicated
and servants to this.
And they do believe in that credo.
We will not leave a CIA agent behind.
They are wonderfully dedicated.
I was asking a lot of questions to them about
how do you go away for two or three months
or four months?
What do you say to your spouse when you come home?
Because you can't talk about it.
How does that segregated type of lifestyle work?
And one guy said, not very well.
I've been divorced twice.
And another guy was there,
and I was talking to him, and he says,
actually, it's worked out all right.
I said, why has it worked out well for your marriage?
He said, well, I married a CIA officer.
And our daughter is a CIA officer.
So it becomes the family business.
And in a strange way, it makes sense, doesn't it?
Because they don't even think.
They don't ask because they know they can't ask,
and they can't tell.
So they just let that be a separate part of their lives.
Very fascinating.
But I wanted to be able to create a character
that that kind of internal tightness.
I wanted Jack to have this kind of sense of a knotted ball inside.
And that's why when the celebration went on,
he's not one to jump up and down.
He just doesn't do that.
He's too controlled and too tightly wound.
And in a way, I sympathize with that for him.
And Brian, in that shot,
you probably don't even want me to say things like this,
but Brian had the whole history of the character in his head
knew where he was from and knew he was Boston Irish
and all this kind of stuff.
And what you don't see in that shot is that
Brian has rosary beads in his hands.
He's so detailed about this man's history
that even if you weren't going to see it on camera,
Brian brought that kind of reality to the part.
Well, for an actor,
and there's probably some actors in the audience here,
for us, the more comfortable we feel,
the more able we are to perform.
So it's almost like you're ingesting information.
The more we can ingest and feel grounded,
the more we feel we can respond honestly to any stimuli
or another actor performing,
and you would respond as that character.
And for me, it just makes me feel more comfortable.
I'll write a backstory on every person I play,
just so it feeds me and makes me feel more secure.
It shows. Thank you.
Should we open up for questions?
Yes, someone who's...
Right over here.
There might be somebody right over there.
We could turn the house lights up, too, if you want.
The three of us went to the American School in Iran
in the 60s and 70s.
Oh, my God.
Some of our classmates were out of the evacuation
of the hostages who were taken.
Our last principal was one of the hostages
who had been born for the hostages.
We have a whole bunch of basic groups.
We're all having a reunion, so you'll see the film
next weekend, and we'll see this now.
There was a rumor around some of our groups
that some of our classmates
had went to the school in Iran,
and they didn't mind the passage of the film.
The question is these three lovely ladies
went to school in Tehran,
and there was a rumor that one of their fellow students
was a consultant on the movie.
Well, word on that, Chris?
There were lots of people who were there,
who were spoken to, I know.
I wish I could more specifically say who spoke,
but Ben talked to dozens of people,
but of course we also talked to the real house guests.
In fact, last night at the premiere,
Mark and Korolejic came, and Lee Schatz was there,
and Ken Taylor's seen the film.
Rocky Sickman, who was one of the Marines.
Sergeant Gallegos, who was another one of the Marines.
They were all there last night.
Of course, there are things that I'm sure we got wrong,
and there are things that we kind of had to change,
of course, as you know.
You were there.
What did you think about how well we did
with getting the mood of the city?
No, I wasn't there.
All of us kids have been back here.
But to us, there's a reason to tell that.
Right, that it was Istanbul.
Sure.
Sure.
Are there questions from other gentlemen right over there?
First of all, I just want to talk about Walter White,
right from the institute.
Great job, Walter White.
Welcome back.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Where did you go with the end, when they escaped?
Was it that tight, or was it that close?
The question is, was the escape that tight and close and accurate?
It's definitely condensed to make it tighter
and to make it more nail biting.
The three checkpoints are absolutely real.
That was exactly the warning that Tony gave,
which was the first checkpoint will be easy.
The second one will be a little bit trickier.
And the third one, the last stop,
is where the revolutionary guards will be.
And those are the people who actually will know
real Americans or Canadians.
Because so many, as I said in the film,
so many of the people involved in the revolution
were educated in the US.
In fact, Tehran Mary, who you see there giving the press conference,
she has such a good American accent
because she went to college at the University of Pennsylvania.
She was a diplomat's daughter.
And so it wasn't inconceivable that there would be,
in fact, there were lots of people who were caught,
because there was a very educated population
of very savvy people who knew,
who had traveled around the world and knew what was what.
I mean, we show some of the most extreme examples,
obviously, of the revolution.
The true believers, the commutee,
the people who are trying to come into your house
and take you away.
But the revolution was a whole,
many of you know, I'm sure,
a whole stew of different types of people.
You know, there were idealists who thought
it was going to be a Berkeley sit-in, you know,
and wanted to sit in the embassy.
There were obviously people who were armed who were there.
You know, there were communists.
There were just all kinds of people who were united against the Shah.
But then, of course, once the revolution happened,
as so often happens with revolutions,
the most extreme elements took over.
And then all the moderates were marginalized
or put in jail or executed.
And then the Ayatollah, obviously,
and the religious extremists sort of take over completely.
And then people, you know, some,
and some joined the government.
Tehran Mary went on to become a cabinet minister.
And others found it, you know,
found that so extreme that they didn't take part
in what happened after the revolution.
Yes, over here.
Chris, I got asked the catchphrase,
Argo, fuck yourself.
No, it's absolutely real.
It was John Chambers.
That was sort of a gift from beyond from John Chambers.
Did everyone hear the question?
Because I really like to say, Argo, fuck yourself.
I wanted to repeat that.
They absolutely did.
And John Chambers, you know, played by John Goodman,
he was apparently a hilarious,
a surrogate, witty guy who used to hold court
in Burbank drinking giant margaritas
and, you know, would work on these films
and everybody loved him, you know?
So, in a way, the tone of that film,
I feel was some gift from John Chambers,
because I, yeah, so...
This is John Chambers' cousin.
Oh my God, see, I didn't know you were here.
But I, thank you.
Thank you to your family and to Mr. Chambers.
So you've, I'm honored, you've met him.
I mean, Tony's met him, obviously,
Tony knew him and I spoke with Tony, but a lot.
But I, well, thank you.
I hope you...
Thank you.
I understand there's also some family members
from Tony Mendez's family in here.
Is that correct? Anyone there?
No?
I'm right here.
Oh, right over there, in the back.
That's my uncle Tony.
Sorry.
He's great.
I met him last night and, you know...
He's a big thing like an athlete, but...
Yeah.
But Tony didn't complain, I understand.
He's like, yeah, that's me.
That's me.
That's how I looked.
But he's a great, great man
and a terrific, terrific service.
We much knew him until 15 years ago.
You didn't know him or didn't know about this story?
Yeah, but we didn't know him yet.
Until really 97, no one knew him.
Well, it's interesting because you talk to him now
about certain situations and you go, Tony,
you know, when you got to that point
and you had that AK-47 pointed at you,
and what was that like?
It was rather difficult.
He's like, he underplays everything, you know?
He's like, well, there were some tough decisions
to be made and, you know...
Wow.
Cool.
Yes, in the way, in the back.
I was born in Tehran, and I was raised in Tehran.
And the movie was incredible.
And the movie got...
But the introduction to the movie
and the introduction to the show was very unfair.
We all had the time
for some of the best countries in the world,
for the kind of U.S.
and an important country in the Middle East.
And now that it's the worst country in the world,
anything out of the U.S.
you should have given the shot separately.
Well, I appreciate the point of view, definitely.
There was a lot of talk about
whether or not there would be an introduction.
An introduction was not originally planned for the film.
I think the introduction actually...
I mean, it's not a secret in the United States
that the Iranian government is extreme
and is full of hardliners.
What seems less well-known is the fact
that there were very complicated reasons
why the revolution happened.
So we felt like we don't need to bring the audience up to speed
on the fact that Iran is repressive
and is all those things you say, which I agree with.
But that's in the headlines constantly,
and we thought that would be on the minds of people immediately.
And so our biggest fear was depicting...
depicting the circumstances of the protests
as just another scene from the Middle East
of crazy people that are demonstrating
because they hate America and they hate freedom,
this kind of thing that is sort of in the national consciousness here.
So we felt like our job was to remind people
that there was a very complicated colonial history,
there was a complicated history involving oil,
that the Shah was repressive.
I mean, look, the Shah did some very good things.
He did great things for women.
He took away the veil,
which for some people they didn't like that,
but other people did very much, obviously.
He did do good things,
but we felt like it was more important
to contextualize the rage that you're about to see
in the opening scene with the prologue.
So anyway, I appreciate your point of view,
but I hope you didn't hate what came after the prologue.
Way in the back.
Thank you.
That film was captivating, stellar,
and it's obviously going to be a blockbuster
and very patriotic.
And I think in times like these particularly
or when we're at war, we need the patriotism,
so I have a question that I'd like you all to think about.
Perhaps a percentage of that blockbuster film
could go towards even the smallest percentage,
towards veterans organizations.
I work with a lot of them.
We're so low in funding for so many different areas.
I'd be happy to be involved,
but even if I'm not, it would be great publicity.
It's a good business idea.
People would support it,
but it would also be a wonderful way to start in Hollywood.
Thank you for your comment.
I want to remind people,
as much as we want to hear their comments,
this is a Q&A, so we'd like to get some questions.
Way in the back.
For both of you gentlemen,
could you speak a little bit about working with Mr. Affleck
and in terms of how early was he involved
with your choices in the script
and then your development of the character?
Affleck?
Do you want to go first?
Tell bad stories about Ben.
Bad stories about Ben.
How long do you have?
He directs with a writing crop,
and if he doesn't like what he sees,
he gives you a swat.
You know, I get that question a lot,
and understandably so.
At first I was starting to say,
well, for an actor-turned-director,
I think he's going to be as important as Clint Eastwood.
And then I realized,
why am I prefacing that?
I think his work stands on his own.
As a director, he is insightful,
passionate about the story,
compassionate about dealing with the actors and the crew,
about creating an atmosphere.
For actors, we need to feel relaxed
to be able to do our best work.
And in that, it means also that
if we're relaxed and comfortable,
we can take some chances and try some things.
And we need to have an environment
where we're supported to do that,
so that you're not ridiculed for trying something,
but he, with a deft hand,
guides you into the fine-tuning of it,
and into a direction that he needs to go.
To be a director, you really love,
you need to love puzzles.
And to put a story like this together,
despite the complexity
and the brilliance of the craft of how he's structured,
it's like seeing 100,000 little pieces
without the advantage of seeing the picture on the box.
It's all up in here for him.
And he has to make sure that this movie was filmed
in a segregated manner in that they shot,
I think the first was the house guest,
the interior of the house guest, I think.
First was John Goodman.
The Hollywood section was first.
They did all of that by itself first, done with that.
Then they went off, and I think we did the CIA next.
Right, and then the house guest interiors,
and then the CIA.
So with four different sections,
so he had to keep clear in his mind the tempo,
the sensibility that when it all comes together
in the editing room,
does it all feel like it's part of the same movie
or else he's really in trouble?
And he has that sensibility, and he has that control
and knowledge.
I was mostly surprised of the level of intelligence
that he brings to it.
He's a very, very smart man.
And it's a complicated movie in so many respects
because you're dealing with humor,
and you're dealing with history,
and all these things,
and I think that's personified in the script as well.
Yeah, and the scene where I felt finally that I,
and Ben, you know, I was on set looking at an early cut of it,
the scene where, at the reading of the screenplay,
we're beginning cutting around the world
and seeing all these different stories
that are happening at the same time,
that was the scene where I think I threw my arms around Ben
because I was like, somehow,
you made this all look like the same movie.
And you could feel that the wallpaper of this fantasy story
was now having consequences that were all over the world,
and so Ben not only was in total command of the tone,
but hires great collaborators like Rodrigo Prieto.
Rodrigo is a genius that I've admired since film school,
but he created a lot of documentary in a way,
but also has its own kind of poetry,
and also, you know, he can shoot Hollywood in a way
that looks like the 1970s,
but then also go to scenes in, you know, in the Mushroom Inn,
which was the space where the hostages were kept in the dark
in the embassy, and you still feel like you're watching the same film.
Right. Right over here.
This is for the writer.
First of all, thank you.
There's, I mean, all the votes, you know,
Ben after I was not here to say thank you.
But this question is in the process of script.
Did you please perhaps discuss the process
of the start of this article
in the process of research and perhaps timeline to...
Sure.
The question is regarding the script and the timeline in terms of...
Well, in the process, from getting it from an article...
From an article to...
Right.
Sure.
What was the process like in taking it from an article to a script?
Well, the structure I sort of had in my head early on, you know,
and the harder thing was the tone was, you know,
the structure, I kind of knew that you would need
an enormous amount of information really early, right?
And that we would begin with the big set piece,
which is the Siege of the Embassy,
which obviously says everything in motion.
And then when we went to the CIA,
there was an enormous amount of exposition that you'd need.
You need to understand who they are.
You need to understand the State Department in relation to the CIA.
You need to understand Tony's position in the agency.
You need to understand some of the internal politics of the agent.
You know, there's all this stuff.
And frankly, I credit Brian within that walk-and-talk at the beginning.
The amount of information this man is sneaking in during that walk-and-talk
to educate you about everything that's going to happen is incredible.
But so there was that.
And then I think the moment that I began to really understand
what the film would be was actually in that same scene.
It was of the reading of the script where I started thinking,
this is a story that's about fantasy and the stories that we tell ourselves
and how that affects the world, you know?
And so you could have this centerpiece of the whole film
be the reading of this fake script that will affect real lives.
But then, you know, the other stuff is, as Brian said, research is essential
and obviously, months and months of research and reading every book I can get my hands on
and watching all, you know.
The other interesting thing is that this crisis, as many of you know,
is kind of the beginning of the 24-hour news cycle in a way, right?
It's the beginning of the nightline.
Finally, satellite technology is available that could be, you know,
images instantly around the world.
So it was maybe one of the first world crises that there was a ton of footage
for me to watch on.
You know, I mean, obviously, there's a lot of footage going back to the 60s,
but with this one in particular, I could go to the Paley Center in New York
and just sit for days and days and days and watch footage.
So, you know, that footage in the film, it comes out of a lot of...
I mean, we also had a fantastic researcher who added to it,
but a lot of that footage just comes out of hours at the Paley Center.
Like the guy, Jack Stroup, who talks about network, you know.
He says it's like that movie program like network.
And of course, one of the films that I think all screenwriters aspire to
is to write a movie like network, right, because it's so brilliant.
So when I saw that he was talking about network, I said,
oh, that's going in the film, because it has karmic value.
I have a...
I have a comment and a question, too.
There's something that I came away with in reading the script
and also in experiencing the movie.
And that is that, yes, there's a political backdrop to this.
That's the filmmakers, and I'm not included in that.
We're responsible in establishing the culpability of the United States
historically accurate in orchestrating the regime change.
So I thought that was incredibly honest.
And yes, there is a political backdrop to it.
But what I gleaned from it is that this is truly a story of people
who are doing something selflessly because it's the right thing to do.
To attempt to save the lives of human beings is the most noble, worthy endeavor you can do.
And that's what I got from it.
I was fortunate enough to play a character who was put in a position
where he also had to buck the system and protect someone because it was the right thing to do.
And I think if there's anything that I came away with,
is that the marvel that the possibility of what human beings can do
when they work together in cooperation and being able to achieve a higher goal.
And that's not just individually, but look what happened
from a sensibility of country to country.
What are the possibilities when we're not so divisive?
And I hope the Congress of the United States could be listening.
But it is not finger pointing.
And this story is not about, it doesn't divide conservative
and liberal Republican Democrat.
It's a story that is about human beings and saving lives
and there's nothing more worthy than that.
Well, I think that kind of says it all.
I mean, this movie is amazing in how it really shows what, you know,
one individual or two individuals or a group of individuals
who are dedicated to having a better world can do.
So thank you, Brian. Thank you, Chris.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you.
Thank you all very much. We appreciate it.
