This might be a stretch to start off things, Matthew, but your work with the Russo brothers on 21 Bridges — writing that screenplay, did that serve as a springboard of sorts to the director's chair, or in this case, writing and directing? Because you've been writing for so long and have done so many terrific films, you must feel that at some point you have to get a chance to direct.
Yeah. Believe it or not, I did a pass [rewrite on 21 Bridges], so that screenplay was in existence, and Chadwick [Boseman] had signed on and this was all happened while I was editing Mosul. So Mosul had been shot and they came to me and said, "Can you spare a couple of weeks and punch up the [21 Bridges] script for us?" So, that was actually after they had gone and said, "Yeah, let's do this crazy thing and shoot this movie [Mosul] in Arabic in that part of the world with a cast from that part of the world." So [21 Bridges] didn't have an effect on them in terms of, "Let's give this guy a shot."
I think they were compelled by the idea that there was a different way of telling the story [of Mosul], more so than they were looking "to give Matthew Michael Carnahan a shot at the director's chair." I think the idea of doing the most justice possible to this SWAT team and the lives that they were forced to lead, and doing it in as close to their mother tongue as we could get with a cast from that part of the world, some of whom had lived versions of those events, similar events. That, I think, put the hooks in them, like, "Look, Mogelson's article put its hooks in me."
Matthew, I just talked with the Russo brothers just a little bit ago and I was telling them how it's great that they are using their clout to make a movie like Mosul when everybody's beating on their doors to produce the next superhero franchise. But I look at it like, "You know what? This film, Mosul, is about superheroes, too, and it's about real-life superheroes."
You're so right, and they're just spectacular. I could soak up all our time heaping praise on them. They're just gutsy. They're really smart, and they're fearless. It's one thing for me to read an article and say, "This is how I think we should do it." It's another thing to find people who can actually make that happen and who want to do it in the same way. So yeah. I adore those guys.
