Writer/director David Ayer joined his FURY cast Michael Peña, Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf and Jon Bernthal for the film’s press conference ahead of the closing night gala screening at this year’s London Film Festival. The panel certainly had plenty to discuss, including their commitment to the roles and the personal impact the film had on the people involved.
‘I just wanted to make a film that spotlighted the moral hazards, the psychic hazards, of war itself and the impression it leaves on the human soul,’ said Ayer, adding that this is not your average war film. ‘This is about a family,’ he said. ‘It’s a character study.’
Pitt (and, also, the rest of the cast) clearly went above and beyond for this project, researching tank life and war stories. Pitt explained that he read a book called On Killing to help prepare and received emails regarding his character’s backstory at 3 a.m. from Ayer which ‘never makes the film but certainly informs the character’. He also managed to compare notes on war stories with wife Angelina Jolie who was working on her own war film at the same time – a rarety in the Pitt/Jolie household so he says and ‘a lovely experience’. When asked what he hoped audiences would take away from FURY, Pitt said that he hoped ‘the soldiers themselves walk away feeling that they were respectfully recognized’.
Youngest of the group, Logan Lerman, explained that his character was ‘the eyes into this world, into their world’. He also went on to say that they sort of assumed their character roles off set and he really was treated like the liability that his character is.
As intense and challenging as the film seems to have been to make, it seems everyone took something positive from it. Pitt said that his experience has made him a better father, while LaBeouf said ‘it’s been the most rewarding, incredible experience of my life – both in work and in life’.
With the film having been shot in the UK, the panel were clearly pleased to be in London to close the London Film Festival, with Ayer calling it a ‘privilege’.
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