GOING TO WAR SAULTEAUX INDIAN ADAM BEACH BATTLED FOR `FLAGS' ROLE.Byline: - Glenn Whipp When Adam Beach Adam Ruebin Beach (born November 11, 1972 in Ashern, Manitoba) is a Canadian actor of Saulteaux descent. He is best known for his roles as Marine Private First Class Ira Hayes in Flags of Our Fathers, Private Ben Yahzee in Windtalkers and Dr. heard Clint Eastwood was making ``Flags of Our Fathers,'' the story of the men who famously - and in their minds, regrettably - became heroes for raising the American flag during the bloody battle of Iwo Jima The Battle of Iwo Jima was fought between the United States and Japan in February and March 1945, during the Pacific Campaign of World War II. The U.S. invasion, known as Operation Detachment, was aimed at capturing the airfields on Iwo Jima. , he called his agent. Beach, a member of the Saulteaux tribe, wanted to play the tragic American Indian American Indian or Native American or Amerindian or indigenous American Any member of the various aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere, with the exception of the Eskimos (Inuit) and the Aleuts. Ira Hayes Ira Hamilton Hayes (January 12, 1923 – January 24, 1955) was a Akimel O’odham, or Pima Indian, and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community. A veteran of World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima, Hayes was trained as a Paramarine in the United States Marine Corps , one of the six men seen in what became history's most reproduced photograph. Word got back to Beach. No go. Eastwood wanted to cast age-appropriate actors and the 33-year-old Beach was a good decade too old. ``I thought, `That's a bum rap,' '' Beach says. ``Then a few weeks before the shoot, I'm coming out of a bout with the flu and I'm not answering my phone. I get a message. `You better call Clint Eastwood.' So I did. `Put yourself on tape.' I made a tape and sent it in. And I think because I was coming out of the flu, it gave me such a tortured feeling that Eastwood couldn't resist. `Whoa, this guy looks terrible. He's perfect.' '' ``Flags'' is Beach's second World War II movie. He starred in John Woo's 2002 ``Windtalkers,'' about the Navajo Marines deployed in the Pacific to use their language as an unbreakable code. That film tanked, but it did give Beach a taste of the preparation he'd need to make ``Flags.'' ``But `Flags' digs a lot deeper,'' Beach says. ``These guys were tortured. They couldn't forget all the horrors that they saw and all the buddies that died while they were on that island.'' Beach connected most with Hayes' feelings when he and castmates Ryan Phillippe Ryan Phillippe (IPA pronunciation: [ˈfɪlɪpi]) (born September 10, 1974) is an American actor. After appearing on the soap opera One Life to Live and Jesse Bradford Jesse Bradford Watrouse (born May 28, 1979), better known as Jesse Bradford, is an American actor. Biography Early life Jesse Bradford was born in Norwalk, Connecticut. He is the only child of two commercial actors. shot a scene where the surviving flag-raisers re-enacted the historic moment at Chicago Stadium during a bond-raising tour. ``You're climbing up this fake mountain and it's so ... ridiculous,'' Beach says. ``No wonder these guys felt like (garbage). They weren't even close to wanting all this adulation ad·u·la·tion n. Excessive flattery or admiration. [Middle English adulacioun, from Old French, from Latin ad . They just finished watching their friends die and now they're on this fake mountain wishing they were anywhere else, wishing nobody knew who they were. ``As actors, we were just looking at each other, totally comprehending how surreal and sad it must have been for them.'' CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- 2) At left, Adam Beach, Ryan Phillippe and Jesse Bradford star in ``Flags of Our Fathers,'' which features the famous image of U.S. soldiers raising the American flag at Iwo Jima during World War II, above. |
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