Tom Verica – Flags of Our Fathers

Q.  What are some of the recent projects that you’ve been working on?

A.  I’m on a new series called “The Nine” right now.  I’ve been doing a number of episodes for that, I play a deputy district attorney opposite Kim Raver.  That’s Wednesday nights at 10 p.m.  I have been filming that, I appear in the Clint Eastwood movie Flags of Our Fathers, which is coming out soon.  I filmed that in Iceland last year in the fall.  Another film is Zodiac and it’s by David Fincher, I have a role in that and that I believe comes out in December or January.  I am also directing a bit, I’m going to be directing an episode of “Boston Legal” this month.  So, I’ve kind of got my hats in a couple different areas.

Q.  How was getting to work with Clint Eastwood, the director, on the film?

A.  It was amazing; he’s legendary!  The opportunity to work with him alone; I jumped at!  To do a war movie about Iwa Jima had particular resonance for me because I had an uncle who was a lieutenant marine at Iwa Jima.  This kind of goes right to the specific point and time in which he went through the same experiences that this film covers.  So, it was a special job in that sense and we shot this in Iceland because of the black sand beaches, they are similar to the ones at Iwa Jima.  Recreating this epic battle was really thrilling and to be able to go through training, and again work with Clint Eastwood.  There are not many legends in the business today living and he is certainly one of them.  What a great guy; it was just a tremendous honor to work with him.

Q.  What about the role was challenging for you?

A.  I think the most challenging was realizing that we had the fortune of knowing that these explosions, as dangerous as it was for us with their rubber bullets and the pyrotechnics and everything, just trying to imagine the reality of this being live ammunition and what these guys went through and what was going through their minds.  I think the challenge of putting our place in that mindset was petrifying, it was very sobering too.  I think it put a lot of us in a place that maybe we hadn’t realized, or even today, it gives us a little bit of insight on what the men and women of the armed forces in Iraq are going through.  Or, different confrontations in the world that we’re so guarded throughout our daily lives and we have so many things going on that we check in with the news periodically and hear something .  But, we don’t really understand or put into that the time and place that these people are going through.  So, the challenge of it was to really experience that and understand what these men went through.

Q.  Do you have a memorable moment from your time working on the film?

A.  There were so many!  We kind of bonded as a platoon, I was a lieutenant to a lot of these guys – Ryan Phillippe and Adam Beach.  I just remember all of us had spent so much time together working as a unit and we were in the middle of filming one day.  It was one of those moments when it was really slow and I remember we were sitting around in a circle.  Everyone was kind of tired because we had gone through this physical training and one person started telling a joke.  We were just completely drained and all of a sudden everyone was telling jokes.  We were laughing and they were wondering where we had gone.  They had kind of drifted off to another area of the beach where we were filming.  I remember all of us sitting around in a circle laughing and trying to top each other’s jokes. 

Q.  What kind of training did you go through for the role?

A.  I know that other films have had lengthy boot camp.  We kind of had one day of training where we were thrust into it.  We had weapons training, in fact, the military advisor we had was the military advisor on “American Dreams.”  So, it was nice to have somebody who I knew sort of to handle that comfort of having someone I knew in my “family.”  He was a marine and he was really wonderful in helping us get acclimated to the machine guns and the artillery that we were working with.  But, that was it, I think part of Clint’s plan was to have us not so polished and organized where we were sort of professional fighters.  I think the realism of catching kids who were kids, you can go through training but once you’re in it, there is kind of this fear that they’re just a kid like any other kid.  While they may be trained in certain aspects, they’re just trying to keep up, so there was a bit of faltering and I think that realism was really what brought forth what these guys were like and what they went through.

Q.  What can you tell us about your character on “The Nine?”

A.  I play Deputy District Attorney Ed Nielson, Katherine Hale (who is played by Kim Raver), I am her boss and also having an affair with her.  Most of my stuff is with her, we go through the challenges of relationship and workplace.  Particularly with what she went through with this bank hostage situation and how that effects our relationship.  The challenges of us taking it to another level will be forthcoming in the upcoming episodes as well as the professional barriers that we face.  We have a lot of those challenges that will be forthcoming.  I can’t really talk a whole lot about it, they are very protective of the stories getting out.  That, coupled with I don’t really know what’s happening, they don’t tell us what’s happening in the future.  They want us to go with the flow.

Q.  Why should viewers take the time to tune in?

A.  Well, I think it takes a genre that is kind of timely right now about bringing strangers together for a particular incident.  I know it happens in a couple different formats and scenarios but this particular scenario is a bank robbery.  It’s a fresh idea and a fresh perspective from that standpoint.  I think there is something really appealing about people connecting in a random situation which brings them together.  I think this particular show, these lives are completely splintered in different directions.  This particular incident makes us all wonder that life is fragile and to stop and take other people in around you.  This is a pretty dramatic situation for that to happen but I think the appeal is that people’s own lives, as we go about work or what we do in our play time, that we don’t really take each other in.  I think the appeal is that sort of fascination with other people’s lives, their experiences, what they go through and how we all connect.

Q.  What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

A.  My wife and I love to travel, I think that’s probably our primary thing to do.  We enjoy that the most; traveling.  Our goal is to try and do two countries a year and we’ve been pretty good about doing that.  We’ve traveled to some remote countries, we traveled to some big countries.  We spent our honeymoon in Thailand and Vietnam, we had a terrific time doing that. We always have a thirst for going out there and seeing parts of the world that we are not aware of and learning about other cultures.  But, I also like playing spots, I play golf and watch football.  I’m a big sports fan!

Q.  What would you like to say to your fans and supporters?

A.  I would like to say thank you for their support, particularly for “American Dreams.”  I am just very grateful, I guess I’m always amazed at how much television and film can reach people and how much it can have meaning.  We kind of lose sight of that when we do what we do but when it hits somebody, and effects them in a way that sort of reminds them of their own lives, it’s incredibly gratifying that it can touch and effect someone.  The fact that they come up and say something or take the time to sit down and write a letter, that is really very important.  It does mean a lot to me to know that somebody has taken the time to do that and I have great appreciation for that.