CS Interview: Bridge of Spies’ Austin Stowell

Austin Stowell plays U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies

As he’s done to critical acclaim many times over, Steven Spielberg turns attention to a very specific era of American history with his latest, Bridge of Spies. In theaters today, the film takes a look at the 1960 U-2 spy plane incident, following Tom Hanks as James B. Donovan, the lawyer tasked with negotiating the release of American pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell).

Austin Stowell, who has appeared on the big screen in films like Dolphin Tale and Whiplash, stars as Bridge of Spies‘ Powers. As he reveals in the below interview with ComingSoon.net, quite a bit of preparation went into getting ready for the role and there was even a demand Stowell made to honor the real Powers. What’s more, Stowell even shares us with us exactly what his all time dream role would be.

Austin Stowell: I don’t know if I’d say daunting. Daunting implies something that you’re not looking forward to. I think it’s more exhilarating and exciting. To get that opportunity. To have the challenge of bringing to life a character with such historical meaning. I look at it like I did when I was an athlete. You enjoy getting to play against better players. You enjoy getting to play with somebody who is such an icon. That really makes you up your game.

CS: How familiar were you with the story behind the U-2 spy plane incident?

Austin Stowell: Not at all. I had never heard about it. Which I felt bad about, but what are you going to do? I wasn’t alive at the time and it was about 24 years before I was born. But as soon as I heard about it, I started doing my due diligence to research who Powers was. I read his book, “Operation Overflight.” Then his son was able to give me these hours of recorded interviews that he had done for the book. A lot of stories that never made the page. I was able to hear the voice of the man I was going to portray and hear his personal account of the whole ordeal. To have that is just invaluable as an actor. You get to take an inside look at the man you’re trying to play.

CS: Is that level of research something you’d try to put into any character based on a real person?

Austin Stowell: Yes, I think I probably would. I think voice is such a unique thing. To get to hear the way that somebody speaks tells you so much about them. Even the most basic of things. Volume. Inflection. Accent. Things like that. Not to say that I’m trying to mimic his voice, but it tells you certain things about the man that he was. You can hear the passion in his voice about his country. If you got a chance to listen to the tapes, you’d hear what a sense of humor he had about the whole situation. For a guy that was alone for three years, for him to be able to crack jokes about the fish soup he got every morning [is great]. “They say there’s fish in it, but I think maybe a fish swam through it.” That speaks volumes about his character and about who he was as a man.

CS: Because there’s such an ensemble cast and because Francis Gary Powers is, by nature of his imprisonment, not interacting with a lot of the other characters, does it feel anything like a smaller, separate film?

Austin Stowell: Well, nothing seemed small. I definitely knew that I was working with the big boys when I arrived on sets. You’ve got Tom Hanks and Janusz Kaminski and, of course, Steven himself. So nothing seemed small. Nothing at all.

CS: When you sit down with Steven Spielberg for the first time, what’s the first conversation the two of you have about Powers? Not necessarily playing the man, but the character in the film.

Austin Stowell: Most of our conversations had to do with his patriotism. I made it very clear that, if they were going to have him portrayed as anything other than patriotic, they were going to have to find another actor. Down to the bone, the guy really bled red, white and blue. There was a lot of talk about Powers when he got back to the states. There was soviet propaganda that he was really Russian and he was going to stay in Russia. It wasn’t true. He really didn’t give them any information because he was so afraid that any information he gave them would lead to the death of one of his friends. The other pilots that were running the U-2 flights. He had no idea then that he had run the last overflight. They scrapped the project after that.

CS: What’s a dream project for you?

Austin Stowell: I’ve always wanted to play Mickey Mantle. I’ve been a Yankee fan my whole love. Mickey has always fascinated me. He was my father’s favorite player. There’s a great quote about Mickey Mantle. “When you’re talking about Mickey, you’ve got to find the light within the darkness.” I think that says a lot about him. I think that would be the role of a lifetime for me.