DreamWorks Pictures’ Bridge of Spies Press Junket NYC

Recently I had the chance to screen DreamWorks Pictures’ Bridge of Spies and attend the Press Junket in NYC. Through the years I have become accustomed to being in the same room as some pretty awesome celebs, but this one took the cake! It was a total Pinch Me moment! The Press Junket interviews included Tom Hanks (“James Donovan”), Alan Alda (“Thomas Watters”), Amy Ryan (“Mary Donovan”),  Mark Rylance (“Rudolf Abel”), and Steven Spielberg (Director). Okay, I admit it, I may have dreamed about this moment forever. 

During our chat Steven Spielberg revealed that Bridge of Spies was tossed around back in 1965 and then squashed by MGM. I’m certainly glad it was brought back to the table and made it to the big screen. Then asked why he thought the movie was shelfed.  Speilberg replied, ” It was 1965. Many big things had happened. The Cuban Missile Crisis was averted almost a year and a half before, and the tensions were too taut between the Soviets and the United States. MGM did not want to get into the politics of this era”. When asked how the movie fits into the adult movie film industry, Steven Spielberg let us know that he feels there is room for every kind of movie nowadays – “There is an audience for every movie out there”.

Steven Spielberg captivated me with his take on the movie. “Make a movie relevant to our times because the cold war is coming back. There is a definite frost in the air. History seems to be repeating itself. There is an open season during our current time for spying through cyber hacking”. 

Tom Hanks who plays James Donovan entertained our minds letting us know that he googled his character, James Donovan to find out whatever he could about him. “The key to the guy, for me, because he wrote an awful lot about his own life.  There’s a substantial – as a matter of fact, he wrote a book about his experience with Rudolf Abel that goes so in depth into the trial, I felt like I was, you know, a court stenographer after a while, reading  it.  It just goes on, and on, and on – this motion and that motion”. Tom Hanks was incredible as a Brooklyn lawyer that finds himself in the middle of the Cold War when he is sent to negotiate the release of the captured American pilot as he defends Russian spy- Rudolf Abel. 

Mark Rylance (Rudolf Abel) was just as personable in person as in the movie giving us a bit a chuckle with is casual movie line he repeated for us, “Will it help?”. Loved him! 

If you haven’t heard about Bridge of Spies yet here you go: It’s a dramatic thriller set against the backdrop of a series of historic events. DreamWorks Pictures- Fox 2000 Pictures’ “Bridge of Spies” tells the story of James Donovan, a Brooklyn lawyer who finds himself thrust into the center of the Cold War when the CIA sends him on the near-impossible task to negotiate the release of a captured American U-2 pilot. Screenwriters Matt Charman and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen have woven this remarkable experience in Donovan’s life into a story inspired by true events that captures the essence of a man who risked everything and vividly brings his personal journey to life.

Alan Alda was asked about the make up of the family. “I loved how they were able to develop the home life so believably, so un-movie-like, but like two people who are running a family together – that that gave resonance, I thought, to the moment where I said to him, “Don’t do this.  Think about your family.  Think about what it’s gonna cost them.”

As a final note Spielberg commented, “I don’t really distinguish between a fictional hero and a real life hero, as a basis for any comparison.  You know, to me, a hero’s a hero.  And I like making pictures about people who are – who have a personal mission in life, or at least in the story, the life in the story, and who start out in a certain, with certain low expectations, and then overachieve our highest expectations for them.  That’s the kind of character arc I love dabbling in as a director, as a filmmaker.”

DreamWorks Pictures’ Bridge of Spies will be in theaters Friday October 16, 2015. Check out my full review on the movie opening day. For now let me just tell you that if you have any interest from what you have read above you need to see this movie. I can’t wait to go back with hubby and see it again.

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Disclosure: Diane Sullivan was invited to the  Bridge of Spies Press Junket. No compensation was given for this post. All opinions are that of my own and honest. They do not reflect the views of anyone else. Please contact me at Diane@3decades3kids.net and everywhere else as @3decades3kids. Thanks Bridge of Spies team.