Movies Features

Friday Night Lights’ Taylor Kitsch Goes to War

By Anne Brodie Apr 30, 2011, 15:15 GMT

A drama based on the true-life experiences of four combat photographers capturing the final days of apartheid in South Africa. ...more

Taylor Kitsch has jumped to movies after a hugely successful five year run on Friday Night Lights. And he’s picked a doozey to start. 

He stars with Ryan Phillippe and Malin Akerman in The Bang Bang Club playing the late Kevin Carter, one of four combat photographers who waded into the civil unrest in South Africa at the end of apartheid. 

They risked life and limb to images of the atrocities out to the world.  Carter became infamous for shooting the shot of a vulture stalking a dying African child and it sparked deep difficulties in him related to his feelings about his work. 

Kitsch took on the role, after intensive research which included learning to use a camera, and says it drove him to sleeplessness and therapy.  Monsters and Critics spoke with Kitsch in Toronto.

M&C: The combat photographers in the film did nothing to help the war victims they saw every day, all day.  I guess the overriding consideration was getting the pictures out to the world media.

Kitsch: That’s what drove Kev. There’s times where you’re growing up you’re feeling guilty because you’re white and this was their way of making a difference. They had the power and spearheaded this whole thing. They couldn’t go do something for a victim. That’s doing the job, you can’t interfere.  And who’s to say they haven’t?  

I know for a fact that they have saved lives, so it’s different not black and white, people want to think that way but also there are certain things you know that.  It’s very possible to jeopardize the person’s life even more if you do get in there in the middle of it. 

There are people who are paid and their profession is to do this.  What you’re doing is your job; there shouldn’t’ be any guilt.

M&C: It really is a fine line, any of us would want to pick up or help a person that’s hurt.  But at what cost?

Kitsch: It’s hard to explain, it depends on the situation. It’s an endless debate; we had debates all the time about it. Obviously, I’m biased because I’m playing the character.  And you gotta think any of them, if they truly engaged, they’d be dead. Where is the line? 

They’re in the situation in the first place on moral grounds, to go in and expose it.  So they do what they do and they let the other guys do what they do.

M&C: It’s a haunting film.  I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about it.

Kitsch: I can’t even explain the pressure you put on yourself to do justice to who Kev was and what he left and his memory. That is something, and seeing it for the first time, and I’m so close to him, if I can be happy with that because I know everyone will judge who Kevin was by his film, who didn’t know him and I’d do the same, when people play someone else, a true story.

So you’re going to take judgment and that’s my story.  This is my kick at my take on Kevin and  you only get one so you have to do whatever you can to make that truthful; and I think I did that and I’m very happy. 

Joao and Kev were very close. Kev had night terrors and he’d go to Joao’s house and just sleep on the ground and drink himself to sleep a lot of the time. That was a big thing for Joao for both of them.

M&C: You were lucky to have the real photographers on hand, minus Kevin of course, to help.  How was it playing Kevin?

Kitsch: It’s gotta be bizarre. I come in and say “your best friend killed himself fifteen years ago and here I come over playing him”.  So just to have those guys behind camera to help made it better tenfold.

M&C: All of the emotion, the politics, the history, you’re in the place. Have to not think about that.  When did you do your thinking about it?

Kitsch: Prep. That what drives you in prep, I wanted to be honest and I’d love to hear what they said, and it’s a good script.  You could do a whole film on Kev. With the scenes I’m given to do Kevin Carter I want to knock every single one out. 

And that comes in prep, losing the weight, shadowing a photographer, living and sleeping with a Leica M6 before you go to camera, all those things, as small and as much as they take to do, they’re going to add up.

M&C: Was it distracting to use an accent? The South African accent?

Kitsch: I love it. I love accents. I jump all over it.  It helps you envelope yourself in the character and create specific beats. It helps you not think about yourself and this and that. It helps you encompass the whole guy. I love it.  I played more accents than I have without and I’m blessed to have done that.

M&C: Next you’re John Carter of Mars.  Another Carter!

Kitsch: I know, and I was close to playing another Carter before that.  Andrew Stanton, Wall-E director and co-writer. Brilliant, The cast is incredible. It a film that under the radar now but I won’t be for long.  It’s an incredible story. He’s an incredible storyteller and people are truly going to be blown away by it.

Visit the movie database for more information.