American Sniper: Bradley Cooper and writer Jason Hall talk about Chris Kyle, film's protagonist
'American Sniper' star Bradley Cooper tells Rebecca Keegan about the compelling need to honour sharpshooter Chris Kyle
On February 2, 2013, Jason Hall had just turned in his first draft of a script about Chris Kyle, the deadliest sniper in US military history. The same day, Bradley Cooper, who was producing the film and had agreed to star, was at a screening of for a group of veterans in Washington.
Kyle, still acclimating to life in Midlothian, Texas, after his fourth and final Iraq war tour, had just texted Hall a "LOL" in response to a raunchy joke. Their project together, , was lurching along in development at Warner Bros.
Cooper and Hall had pitched it as a western with Kyle pitted against an equally gifted enemy sniper in the sandstorms of Iraq. But Kyle's story took a bizarre and devastating turn when he was killed later that day at a gun range near his home, allegedly by a veteran he was trying to help.
"The gears just went off for a second," Cooper says, recalling the moment he learned about Kyle's death. "Everything just kind of stopped. Your brain takes in the information, but your body hasn't quite caught up. Chris and I, we're the same age, the same height, the same shoe size. You're just reminded anything's possible in life."
Less than two years later, is ready for release in cinemas in many territories, including Hong Kong. But instead of a straightforward tale about an elite warrior, it now is, by necessity, a complex story about the heavy burdens that a veteran carries home.
