Killing Bin Laden on Film

“The training was intense, and sometimes it got a little rough,” he said. “But it was worth the experience, and I came out having a newfound respect for what these people do for a living.”

Miller, a 2007 Albuquerque Academy alum, has a lead role in the film “SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden,” which debuts on the National Geographic Channel at 8 tonight.

The film was made in New Mexico and tells the story of the raid that killed bin Laden in a compound in Pakistan on May 2, 2011. Miller plays Sauce, one of the Navy SEALs in the group responsible for the raid.

The film is the first of two films to be released this year involving the bin Laden raid. Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” will be released in Los Angeles and New York on Dec. 19 and opens nationwide on Jan. 11.

According to a National Geographic news release, tonight’s controversial premiere date ensures that the full-length feature film will be injected into the national discussion in the pivotal final days before Election Day.

Film producer and studio executive Harvey Weinstein, a Democratic Party contributor and Obama supporter, purchased the film for $2.5 million following its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May. According to The New York Times, documentary footage that emphasizes Obama’s role in the operation was added to the drama at Weinstein’s suggestion.

	On TV “SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden” will air at 8 tonight on the National Geographic Channel. Check local listings for channel. It will air again at 11 p.m. and will be available through Netflix on Monday.

But director John Stockwell wrote in an essay published last month on the Huffington Post website that the producer and financier of the film, Nicolas Chartier, is French and “decidedly apolitical.”

“His only agenda was to get a tense, taut insider look at the mission that ended the longest manhunt in U.S. history,” Stockwell wrote. When Weinstein saw a version of the film, he was concerned only about the “honesty of the depictions of the military and intelligence community. … We never discussed politics.”

Miller, who lives in Albuquerque, played Travis Boyle in ABC Family’s “The Lying Game” and played Paulie in USA Network’s “In Plain Sight.”

“SEAL Team Six” also stars Freddy Rodriquez, Cam Gigandet, Anson Mount, Robert Knepper, Kathleen Robertson, Eddie Kay Thomas and former Albuquerque resident, TV personality and rapper Xzibit.

All of the actors have extensive screen time: Rodriguez appeared in the TV series “Six Feet Under,” Gigandet was in “Twilight,” Mount is on AMC’s “Hell on Wheels,” Knepper starred in Fox’s “Prison Break” for six years, Robertson appeared in “Beverly Hills 90210″ and Thomas was in the “American Pie” series.

The movie was filmed in February at various locations around Santa Fe. At the Old Main Prison, crews built a model of the bin Laden compound, where the majority of filming took place. Waldo Canyon was used to replicate Afghanistan’s backcountry, and the Toney Anaya Building stood in for the CIA headquarters.

The film employed close to 500 New Mexicans – 100 crew members and 380 extras.

Miller said the cast went through numerous hours of training and had military advisement on the set from a former Navy SEAL.

“We went through a couple days of firearms training and tactical training,” he said. “We got to hear a lot of his stories about what it’s like to be a SEAL and how difficult of a job it is.”

Miller also got to work with Rodriguez, Gigandet, Mount, Knepper and Xzibit on a daily basis and the group became closer by the time the film wrapped.

“I couldn’t have asked to be a part of a better cast. The guys were awesome,” he said. “I’d never really spent that much time on set before so Cam, Anson, Robert and Freddy were really great in taking me under their wings and showing me the ropes. They all offered up advice from their career experiences.”

Mount, who plays Cherry in the film, says making the film involved a lot of running, ducking, jumping, dodging and shooting.

“When actual scene work came along, I would be as thrilled as a half-starved prisoner,” Mount said. “This was compounded by the fact that, when you see us storm the compound or run up a hill or exchange fire, we’re not just shooting it once and then moving on. You shoot it many times and from several different angles. And I can honestly say that we shot more footage for this film than anything I’ve ever worked on.”

Miller said getting insight into what went on with the raid was an amazing opportunity. He was also able to see the progress and revisions of the script over time.

“I had been involved with the project in the early stages, and I saw the script get so much better,” he said. “It also gave us the opportunity to see our dynamic as a group change. We were spending so much time together, we grew as a unit and that gave us a closer look into how the men and women in the military become a family.”

Miller said he hopes that the cast did a good job at representing Navy SEALs well.

“These people are perfectionists and will take a challenge that most people won’t,” he said. “Since we don’t actually know the identities of these people, we tried to capture their dual lives – personal and professional. There was some artistic license taken, but I think each person was represented well.”
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal