In one of the year’s most highly anticipated films, Venezuelan actor Édgar Ramírez plays a crucial role – that of a CIA ground surveillance agent charged with tracking down a contact close to feared terrorist Osama bin Laden. It is his close observation of the contact – Bin Laden’s most trusted courier – which leads to the end of what many have called this country’s most historic intelligence operation. And it’s not without a small amount of emotion that Ramírez speaks about his character and the experience of filming this celebrated – and highly controversial – movie.
“It’s a huge privilege for me to be in a movie that in 50 years will be a reference to how the world changed after 9/11,” says Ramírez. “These events changed the life of everyone on the planet. Whether we like it or not, whether we are conscious of it or not, our lives changed forever.”
For Ramírez, filming “Zero Dark Thirty” was an experience like any other the seasoned actor had ever experienced. For one, due to the sensitive nature of many of the sources used as reference throughout the film’s script, Ramírez was initially only given scenes related to his character.
“Each of us actors held just one piece of the puzzle,” recalls Ramírez, who was personally asked to join the film’s cast by director Kathryn Bigelow. “It was only when we eventually all together on location that we were able to read the entire script.”
And while Ramírez is still unable to disclose the specific process of researching his character (“there are things I just can’t say about building this film,” says the 35-year-old) because of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s approval of a study that “uncovered startling details about the CIA detention and interrogation program and raises critical questions about intelligence operations and oversight,” he was decidedly frank about the atmosphere on set.
“One of the things that was so fascinating about my character was his practice of invisibility; how he was able blend into his surroundings,” explains Ramírez. “It gave me the opportunity to go to amazing locations, get lost in huge markets with a very small crew and shoot guerilla-style. We were told to just go for it, go against the clock with a very limited amount of time to film. And for several of my scenes, we were just four hours from the Pakistani border, which created an incredible amount of tension. I think that helped contribute to the kind of hunter quality to my part in the movie.”
All controversy aside, Ramírez says that what he gathered from the finished film is a lesson he hopes audience members will recognize as well; that in this story, just as in many others about war, there are innocent victims on both sides.
“The fact that there were crying children on either side of this war really stuck me,” says Ramírez, who was filming a movie in one of Venezuela’s remote jungles on 9/11 (“I didn’t find out about the attacks until two days later at the airport,” he says). “They had nothing to do with war. There is no good or bad war – there is tragedy for everyone. And I think that’s a really important thing for people to see in this movie.”
And despite the barrage of questioning by activist groups, politicians, intelligence experts and members of the media about the film’s depictions of torture and methods of questioning used to gather intelligence from terrorism suspects, Ramírez says the is one universal truth about the film no one can dispute.
“This movie speaks so directly to the spirit of the times and about the world we live in,” says Ramírez.
“There are big movies, there are successful movies, but none are guaranteed the quality of influence this movie will have forever.” by Nina Terrero [NBC]