Robert Kojder chats with Kandahar director Ric Roman Waugh…
It’s safe to say that readers are likely more familiar with Ric Roman Waugh’s films than they are with him as a filmmaker. That’s because he typically works with action star Gerard Butler, including taking over the Has Fallen series with Angel Has Fallen. The duo reteamed with the grounded natural disaster survival thriller Greenland and now have Kandahar on their resume, another somewhat serious effort that contains equal amounts of character work as it does bombastic action.
Kandahar is not mindless, though; a worthwhile story is told about the Afghanistan war, and the bond between agents and their foreign translators is being told here. It’s also evident that he and regular collaborator Gerard Butler respect one another and have a working relationship worth inquiring about. There are some breathtaking, stunning action sequences here that Ric Roman Waugh discusses creating and executing.
It was also fascinating to learn indirectly about Ric Roman Waugh’s many cinematic influences, film on-location in the Middle East, prying into what makes him and Gerard Butler such a good unit, and a couple of nuggets about a potential Greenland sequel. Despite its flaws, Kandahar is also worth checking out in theaters, which became another topic of conversation here, in that people need to keep returning to multiplexes for more adult-skewering works. There are explosions galore here, but they are in service of a story, and competently made mid-budget works such as this do deserve to turn a profit. Enjoy the interview below:
It’s a pleasure to meet you. I had fun with Kandahar. Between this and Guy Richie’s the Covenant, this is the second movie I’ve seen within a month about the deep ties that form between soldiers/agents and their translators. And I love seeing that; watching war and action movies play up that connection is refreshing. So why do you think this has become a trend out of nowhere?
I don’t know about a trend. We are almost at the end of US withdrawals out of Afghanistan, so we’re probably starting to see this whole thing wind down and seeing things from new angles. This script was originally written pre-that, and what was interesting about it is that the writer, Mitchell LaFortune was in the Defense Intelligence Agency for over a decade. And he knew about this story of a CIA operator that was outed by the press and had to go on the run. Then he wrote this script, and when I read it, it reminded me of Sicario, the way that film took on the war on drugs and humanized things. That’s what I loved about this; it was the spy world and what happens in the spy game.
Sicario is an amazing movie. So, out of curiosity, do you look up to Denis Villeneuve for inspiration?
I’m a big fan of Denis and many different filmmakers. But the thing that I’m always looking at in the material is what is the point of view of it and what makes it unique. And I think that’s what I loved about Kandahar; it showed the Middle East differently. It showed the cycle of violence, the cycle of war that continues after decades and centuries, and how now that the US has withdrawn, all the world’s players are doing a land grab in Afghanistan and how everything is changing at the minute.
One of my favorite scenes in the film is the quiet bonding moment where Gerard Butler’s Tom tells Navid Negahban’s Mo that translators inform him of the different languages and cultures and that they wouldn’t be able to do their jobs without them. So besides the screenwriter Mitchell, who and what are some things you turned to for advice and knowledge?
We had Delta Force with us as well, British SAS, and they gave many different unique stories. But it was the firsthand experience of being in the Middle East for 18 months in a country like Saudi Arabia that is going through a significant change right now with culture and watching the culture clash between the ultra-conservative movement and the new progressive movements of people that want change. So for me, it was more of a firsthand point of view of seeing how culturally things are changing and trying to humanize all sides and that there are people on the other side that we consider the enemy that isn’t the policymakers.
They’re just the ones trying to enforce policy, and they’re just trying to get home back to their families like we are. Then try to show empathy to people you wouldn’t normally have empathy for or think of empathy for, but do it in a big action ride. So it’s tough because these movies are getting harder and harder to get out theatrically given the marketplace with the big animation movies and the Marvels and so forth. Hopefully, we can spread the word and keep these movies going to have popcorn for two hours with your date and have a good time.
I’m glad this is getting a theatrical release, and I hope it succeeds.
Thank you.
I’ve also noticed that with Greenland and now Kandahar, you’re interested in attaching more character-driven storytelling to the mayhem and fleshing out several side characters. Is that part of your growth as a filmmaker, or is there another reason for doing so?
I often get asked how I redefine action and what makes my action different. To me, it’s not about action. It’s about how to set up the audience to want to make them feel what you want them to feel during the action moments. That comes out of character. So I love exploring characters in a way that makes them relatable to an audience and even if they’re the tertiary or supporting characters, so that when you get into the action sequences, there’s an emotional attachment to what’s going on, and that we’re not just watching the action for the sake of action. I don’t know about you, but we could throw 300 million at an action movie, and if it’s just action for the sake of action, my eyes glaze over. But if I’m rooted in action with an emotional thrust through it, then it’s different.
I agree with you. That’s one reason I want this to succeed at the box office. There is a real story here worth telling. Also, you’ve worked with Gerard Butler multiple times before. What about him keeps you casting him as the lead for your movies?
He’s the one guy out of all his peers who don’t mind being vulnerable and showing his sensitivities and raw emotion. We talked a lot about how a lot of our heroes of today have become 10 feet tall and impervious to pain. They don’t have flaws, so they’re not relatable to us. They’re superheroes. And we love the 1970s and 1950s movies, where our heroes were flawed individuals. They were relatable to us and dealt with complexities.
We turned Mike Banning in the Has Fallen franchise into a guy popping pills to extend his mortality and not hang up the gun. We explore the ramifications of that. In Greenland, the mortal man with no special skill set was just trying to survive. And how far would you go to keep your family safe? In Kandahar, it kind of wraps it together. He’s not an action hero, he is a man of action with special skills, but he also has his flaws and demons that he’s trying to overcome. And he’s addicted to war and doesn’t even know his own family because he has given the last 20 years to this campaign.
Those are the interesting things to do with Gerry; we both love these movies that are character-driven, but obviously, they can be huge forms of entertainment with a lot of different action and mayhem that deliver an emotional thrust all the way through.
Before Tom and Mo connect in the story, you must juggle the screen time and lay out their backstories and motives. So was there any challenge in that?
Yeah, the hard part with movies like this that have that Rashomon point of view, and it’s something that I really applaud Gerry for; he was a staunch supporter of not detracting or cutting down the tertiary characters and the supporting characters and their points of view. That is definitely a balancing act to keep a movie that has a thrust, that has a clear point of view, but also just enough without trying to be a documentary, and enough to understand the world’s players and all the different factions and how in the Middle East somebody that is your ally today could be your adversary tomorrow. We wanted to show all that in a very entertaining way and give you enough context of what’s going on in the Middle East, but not try to drag it down to a three-hour movie that’s getting into the weeds of the documentary side of it.
Are there any ways you and Gerard Butler push each other to improve each other’s craft or get more ambitious with each subsequent project?
Yeah, we’re both very passionate guys, and sometimes passion collides, and we’re okay with that friction. We’ll definitely argue out points and have strong perspectives. I love that we always find a way to find that middle ground or let the best idea win. We try to check our egos aside and ensure that we’re never resting on our laurels and always trying to raise the bar. We are talking about doing the sequel to Greenland, and what’s great is it’s not really a sequel; it’s the next chapter. It’s a continuation of what happened after the extinction event, how, who survived, and how they rebuilt. So those types of things are about raising the bar and continuing things at a level that makes us both excited to work versus just phoning it in, so to speak.
Since I’m from Chicago, in Greenland 2, can you put in another shot of Wrigley Field destroyed? I really enjoyed that.
laughs] If you notice, my friend, the one place that wasn’t scorched is Austin, Texas, where I live. We kept that.
Nice! Obviously, you have a very diverse ensemble here. I’m curious about the casting process for actors like Ali Fazal and Navid Negahban.
It was a fun discovery. The movie was already banked between Gerry and me, so then we were able to go out and find the who’s who of each nationality and try to put a diverse cast together that wasn’t all familiar faces that we see over and over and over in Western movies but discover these great actors and actresses that are working in different markets around the world that are maybe big in their areas. For example, Ali Fazal is a big deal in India and has done crossover stuff like Death on the Nile and Furious 7. But this was a great opportunity to show him in a very different light. And guys like Bahador Foladi had never been in a big Western movie like this. So seeing people doing great in their venues and marketplaces on the big world stage was fun.
So there’s car chases, motorcycles, and helicopters, not to mention mortars and rocket launchers and explosions. So just from a stunt perspective, what was the trickiest piece of action to pull off here?
By far, the hardest piece of the choreography and set-piece was the helicopter sequence. We wanted to create this moment of Jaws in the sky, where if a helicopter was trying to take you down in the middle of the pitch dark, you know, what made Jaws so scary wasn’t when you saw the shark, it’s when you couldn’t see the shark and didn’t know where it was as you were dangling in the water. And we wanted that same sense of jeopardy for our heroes as they’re battling this helicopter and trying not to get killed, but also have it where you can’t see it in the darkness. All you can hear is the reverberations of the chopper over the rocks, but not knowing where it’s coming from. So we tried to make it more action-horror in that sequence. But flying a helicopter and all the action in Kandahar is done live and done for real. It’s highly dangerous. So that stuff has to be really well choreographed to keep people safe. Not only the helicopter but the 150 people on the ground filming it.
That is a very tense sequence, and I like how it starts in the car, and then it ends up with Gerard Butler on foot. So can you talk about crafting the sequence before shooting it?
One of the things that interested me about doing Kandahar was that I didn’t want to show the Middle East as I’ve seen for the last 20 years, where it’s always desaturated, dusty, and dismal. I wanted to show the region’s beauty, and there are just amazing, beautiful epic landscapes. But how do you show that when the desert is pitch dark at night? So we incorporated night vision and fusion technology, which Gerry wears with this black and white field of view that shows thermal imaging and infrared. So suddenly, it opens you up to see the desert at night. So there were ways of using the darkness to our advantage when we can’t see things clearly, and it puts us on the edge of our seats because we don’t know exactly where the threat is. Then other times, you can see the threat through his perspective and the beauty of the desert. So it was a big balancing act of finding all the different visual mediums to tell that story together.
You mentioned the beauty and the landscapes, so I will say there is also a shot where Ali Fazal is riding the motorcycle, and we get this stunning bird’s eye view of the desert. So what was it like scouting Saudi Arabia for these locales or places to shoot? You got some gorgeous shots in this movie.
Thank you. It was when we decided to go to Saudi Arabia; it was a huge undertaking. We were the first major Hollywood motion picture to shoot there since Lawrence of Arabia. Selfishly, that proposition was exciting because I could shoot landscapes nobody had seen in the last 60 or 70 years. When you go to places like Al-‘Ula in the middle of the Arabian Desert and point your car in any direction, you just end up with all of these different kinds of amazing historical ruins and sights that nobody’s ever photographed before. It became a huge treasure chest of different locations to play with that you didn’t have to hide with the camera. You definitely know in this movie, we did not shoot it in New Mexico. We are in the Middle East.
Oh, for sure! Also, out of curiosity, what is your stance regarding the ongoing debate about having real firearms on set?
I understand it. I also think that people have to realize that humans have much to do with safety. So it’s not just firearms. We deal with cars, and we deal with helicopters, we deal with electricity on sets. We deal with a lot of different things that are very highly dangerous. But when you put the right technicians and professionals around a movie set, it keeps people safe. We did major, major explosions in Kandahar. We had a lot of guns on set, and many highly dangerous things that we dealt with, but not one person was hurt. Safety was always the main protocol, and you must be able to check all those boxes. Unfortunately, when you deal with the lower-budget stuff, things slip through the cracks, people overlook safety to save the almighty dollar, and people get hurt.
There was, obviously, Alec Baldwin’s situation on Rust, but I’ve heard of people getting electrocuted because cables were plugged in wrong. So things happen all the time, just like they do in anybody’s business, but we take safety very seriously on the movies that I do. We had every protocol in place, including medevac and so forth, to ensure everybody was completely safe and to come home.
That’s a perfect answer. What is one movie from Gerard Butler’s filmography that you wish you could have directed?
I’m a Zack Snyder guy. I like what Zack does. I think he’s a total visionary. 300 would’ve been a blast. There are other movies that Gerry’s done, like dramas. I’m a big fan of his work, but the one thing I’ve never done is that type of comic book feel of what 300 does and what Zack does. I thought that was an extraordinary undertaking and ballsy. Those types of movies with that type of vision weren’t being done at that time. Now we see it a lot. But what Zack did with 300, I thought, was revolutionary.
Thank you so much. It was wonderful meeting you.
You too, my friend.
Good luck with the movie. Thank you for your time.
And Robert, thank you. Thanks for helping get the word out, man; we gotta keep these movies in theaters.
Especially adult action dramas. I hope you have success with this. Thank you again.
Many thanks to Ric Roman Waugh for taking the time for this interview. Read our review of Kandahar here.
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
