Director Bryan Singer on how Stauffenberg compares with the superheroes he's dealt with before
Director Bryan Singer on how Stauffenberg compares with the superheroes he's dealt with before
Valkyrie is your first film since Superman Returns in 2006. What drew you to this World War II drama coming off a superhero film? 
Well, I'd just done three big comic-book films back to back (X:Men, X2, Superman Returns), so I thought I'd do a small character piece with my old friend Chris McQuarrie who I'd made The Usual Suspects with, and that was what the original thought was going to be. With Tom Cruise joining the cast, and the evolution of the movie, it became a much bigger movie. So we always joke about it... I think it was always destined to be a big suspense thriller but at the time I thought, "Oh, I'll do a little movie in between the big ones."
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Were you familiar with Stauffenberg's story before you entered this film?
Yes. My mother is an environmental activist, and back in the early eighties, she was doing an investigation of the European environmental situation based in Bonn, and she was hosted by the family of a guy named Helmut van Moltke who was part of the intellectual wing of the conspiracy.
So when my mom returned home, when I was a kid, she told me of this plot to kill Hitler the bomb and the briefcase but that was it. But I was very intrigued as a kid that Germans had tried to kill Hitler. And that memory stayed with me, but that was all I knew of it until now, until getting into this movie.
Now, this may be a stretch, but hear me out: You did the three superhero movies before Valkyrie. Do you see perhaps any similarities, any parallels between Stauffenberg and those superheroes?
Sure. They're extraordinary people doing extraordinary things; I mean they're not imbued with any power beyond those of humans, but they're doing extraordinary things with a lot of adversity, and often in disguise. You know, there are issues of identity, and here you have Stauffenberg, you know, a man wearing a German uniform, but with a deep sincere desire to oppose Hitler and get rid of him. And yet the vast difference is that these people (in Valkyrie) really lived, they're very real. So yes, sure, I see those similarities.
What are the challenges involved in making a film about a real person?
Well, initially, the goal is to make a film that's as entertaining and thrilling as possible. Once I moved to Germany to start the pre-production process, because it was my first historical drama, accuracy became a kind of obsession for me. So because they really lived and their intentions were so noble, and what they did was so extraordinary and the story itself was so incredible, the more I realised that the less I needed to invent. And in the end, the movie is what pretty much happened right to the last frame, shot in the actual locations, many of them where those events happened.
I'm curious to know why and when you thought of Tom Cruise to play Stauffenberg?
It was after the deal was made at United Artists to make the film. I'd had a creative meeting with Tom and I always wanted to work with him since we met at the premiere of Mission Impossible. And I decided I'd give it a try and offer it to him at that time.
Now both Tom Cruise and you are known as the go-to-guys for blockbuster movies. Did you see the irony in the fact that both of you were collaborating on a project that was completely different from that. This was a character period piece...
Well no, because at its core, both of us saw the wide appeal of this story and the thrilling nature of the story, where we both make films for audiences. We care about the audience, and we both knew inherently that this film would have a big audience if they watched it.
Apart from the fact that he can open this film, and that he has such a loyal fan base globally, what do you believe Tom Cruise brings to a film? And specifically to a film like Valkyrie?
Well, a terrific collaboration, a great working experience and a lot of care in the filmmaking. As far as this character goes, Stauffenberg in real life was an extraordinary military student, he had a lot of dimensions to him, he was like a rising star of the German military if you will.
He was incredibly charismatic, he looked very much like Tom; and I think it's the same with Tom's stardom as well as Tom's acting talent because initially in Taps, Tom started as a character actor; he just became a movie star. So all that stuff combined made himu00a0 right for this role creatively.
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