As he prepares to start shooting his next film, true tale The 15:17 To Paris, Clint Eastwood has revealed the cast for the movie. And in addition to the likes of Jenna Fischer, Judy Greer and Ray Corasani, the director has taken the unusual step of casting the real-life Americans whose story he will tell as themselves, with Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, and Spencer Stone all aboard.
More usually when the actual people in films based on their lives show up in films, it's for tiny roles or wordless cameos. But according to Variety, Eastwood, who worked with a mostly unknown cast on Gran Torino chose to eschew any potential actor choices after a hefty search and have the three men re-enact their brave actions helping to stop an ISIS terrorist attack their train. They were traveling between Brussels and Paris when the man boarded. Armed with an AK-47 and loaded up with ammo, he planned to kill as many people as possible, but the three Americans – Stone was trained in martial arts and an airman in the US Air Force, while Skarlatos was part of the Oregon National Guard – charged the man and overpowered him.
Don't expect the three to appear all through the film, though, as the script – adapted by Dorothy Blyskal from the book they wrote with Jeffrey E. Stern – will follow their lives from a young age up to the attack, with Paul-Mikel Williams, Max Ivutin, Bryce Gheisa, Cole Eichenberger, and William Jennings all playing younger versions of the trio.