00:14I see a war.
00:20That will never end.
00:27It was consuming as much as I possibly could.
00:31The scripts were good.
00:34The dialogue in those interrogation scenes were very rich.
00:40And it was all about what was happening between and in the silences and the nuances.
00:46And in just understanding how this guy thinks.
00:53Like, I needed to understand his psychology.
00:55I needed to understand, you know, and from a lot of the reading that I did, I mean, he was
01:00incredibly intelligent.
01:02I mean, he is the kind of person who, and, you know, several sources will have different accounts.
01:08But everybody agreed on this was that he could look at you, walk in the room, and tell you, like,
01:14your whole resume, like, your whole history just by looking at you.
01:17He was an expert in emotional intelligence and very, very intelligent, strategic, and very, very well read.
01:31Like, he spent so much of his years early in Egypt in his 20s just reading and reading and consuming
01:39a lot of information from predecessors, from other world leaders.
01:45And, I mean, this guy was motivated.
01:48And there's a real intelligence that comes with that.
01:53And so...
01:55Did he write?
01:56Did he write?
01:57Well, you know, because they talk about him writing a novel.
01:59Did you read any of what that was?
02:01Or was that, how much of that was true to life in that way?
02:04I didn't have a chance to read any of what he had written.
02:08But I knew that, you know, he, you know, it's like he was always daydreaming of having a different life,
02:18like, always felt like he was an artist, that he was a writer, and that that was his calling.
02:23And he was obsessed with Nebuchadnezzar, and he was obsessed with the journey of Nebuchadnezzar, and that the journey that
02:31Nebuchadnezzar went through when he was in solitude, when he was being punished for all the sins that he had
02:40committed for the, you know, for how he abused power.
02:44And I took that, for me, that was Saddam's reconciling with his soul when he was in hiding, is that
02:53he was reliving Nebuchadnezzar's journey, you know.
02:59So, but he was that kind of person, like, you know, somebody that will believe their own lies, or their
03:06belief on creation.
03:07So, but what he wrote, the themes, I don't disagree with.
03:14Like, he was against colonialism and imperialism.
03:17And the title, I think, I'm blanking on the title, and the scene was cut from the show, but, you
03:23know, he uses analogies where one thing was the, you know, the United States, and the other thing was, I
03:31forget the name of the woman.
03:32And he says that she was raped by the imperialist.
03:39And that is something that has happened to the region, very much so, where, you know, come in and take,
03:49you know, the fruits of this country and, like, kind of leave it, you know, with pennies on the dollar,
03:56so to speak.
03:57So, that, you know, so there was just a lot of interesting things to read, just even the content of
04:07what he wrote, not having to read it itself, you know.
04:11I'm about to interrogate the man who invaded Kuwait, fought against Iran, terrorized Iraq for 23 years.
04:20Saddam Hussein, high-value target number one.
04:26Your mission?
04:27Find Saddam.
04:29Why is it you have to go?
04:31Nobody knows this guy better than me.
04:33I should be there.
04:34You have no field training, John.
04:38Hey, John Nixon!
04:39Say you want in?
04:40Gear up.
04:41We're talking about the intellectual and, obviously, his emotional manipulation with emotional intelligence.
04:47Could you talk about transforming that into the physical?
04:51Because, obviously, you got it that way.
04:53You have a look like him, but the way he moves like a snake at certain times and then pounces.
04:59The thing with the pen, I thought, was really well done.
05:02But those are specific acting choices because those are between the lines.
05:06Can you talk about the physicality?
05:08Not necessarily looking like him, even though you found a way to do that, but physically inhabiting him in the
05:17way that his rage goes up and down, the way he sees these things, the way you sit in the
05:23box in the court and the way that functions, the resistance.
05:28I hired a movement coach, Shelley Maxwell, and it's the first role I've ever hired a movement coach for because
05:37I felt like I really needed it.
05:39Just the difference in our age and physicality was extreme for me that I needed to find something to really
05:49latch on to.
05:49And she really, and this was all the work I did with her was via Zoom.
05:55But she really, she's an expert, and she really helped me with that.
06:01And, you know, I put on about 50.
06:04Was it The Voice, too, did I ask you, Waleed?
06:06Or was that different?
06:08No, The Voice was, I didn't have time to get to The Voice.
06:12So I just, it was something that just kind of came out the way it came out.
06:19I never, I, you know, wasn't, wasn't planned in any way.
06:23But I did feel more like Saddam when I was speaking in Arabic.
06:30That, that was helpful.
06:32But I put on about 15 kilos.
06:36We had a bit of a, of a fat suit, but only just to, for aging stuff.
06:41So, like, the hunched back and, you know, some of the bulk.
06:45Welcome to Baghdad.
06:49One of the biggest manhunts in modern history.
06:53I'm missing something.
06:54John, is it true Saddam built a network of tunnels under Baghdad?
06:59Hey, hey, hey!
07:05That's him.
07:08We're the WMDs.
07:09Who are you?
07:10You are nothing.
07:12Everybody's watching.
07:14I know the stakes.
07:15I'm an angle.
07:16All those Rockies out there fighting.
07:18Nobody's fighting for you.
07:20The two, two animals that we worked with were an elephant in terms of his, his real presence on Earth
07:29and, and a gorilla.
07:31And, and, and just that, so, so maybe that's where some of that physicality came from.
07:40But, yeah, it was, and then we had just incredible makeup artists, hair and makeup, Giorgio Gregorini and his daughter,
07:50Georgiana.
07:51And they did an incredible job.
07:53And I, you know, I have a bit of similarity, physical similarity to him in the eyes.
08:01And, but everything else kind of really just made me feel, feel like him.
08:07And I, I believed that I was, I was embodying him.
08:11I also had, just to add, I also had like a two or three really long and, and great conversations
08:18with John Nixon.
08:19And he, he really, he, he spent so much time with him.
08:24And so he, like, I would ask him just questions about like, you know, how would he respond to things?
08:30And, and, uh, so I really got a sense of who he was as a person, um, from, from those
08:38conversations with John.
08:40And, um, yeah, it was, it was, you know, very, very valuable to have those conversations.
08:45It's because you don't have any power anymore.
08:47Nixon, stand now.
08:49We will fight for every street before we submit to your occupation.
08:58You think the game's over when you take the king?
