The giddiness resulted in pranks that ultimately made it into the movie, with settings ranging from priest’s confessionals to a naked strip bar.
Chestnut, for one, claims innocence. “I did not pull any pranks,” Chestnut says, “because you get paid back whatever you give.”
Untold goes the explanation for a sudden toss of a fireman dummy off a six story building to the abject horror of a producer talking on his cell phone below. Also untold remains the origin of Jay Russell’s nickname, “Spanky the Monkey,” which haunted the director throughout the entire shoot.
Lightheartedness and weightiness exist side by side in the movie and are switched on and off with the sudden gong of the bell signaling fire. The reality of the harshness of the job was again evoked when the firemen and crew reunited in Baltimore for the opening screening. An awards ceremony was held at the event, where many of their mentors were honored.
“You know, we come in and shoot, but then we wrap it up and go home,” says Russell. “While we move on to the next project, they will still be there doing this every day, and looking out over their faces, I thought to myself that in all likelihood, we’re going to lose one of these guys someday. And that’s just—” He abruptly stops.
When asked if there were certain moments that were personally hard to play, Travolta immediately relates his most difficult scene.
“There’s this one part that I could not get how to play this character, and I wrestled with it for the whole shoot,” he says. “But when that moment comes, and you say that line which is ‘I love you,’ or ‘I don’t love you’, or ‘I’m going to stay’, you find the truth within the character. And it’s the burst of emotional energy, that moment of truth, that gives a spark to the actor’s face that everyone can understand.”
It’s with a certain humility that both Phoenix and Travolta talk of the large scope of the movie and its potential impact.
“You know, when we got in and talked to Jay, we all decided that this was going to be more than what we thought,” Phoenix says. “It was something larger than us and we had a responsibility to put it out there.”
Although the cast and crew insist on the stand-alone quality of the film, for many it illuminates the sacrifice that are given across many vocations. The “unsung heroes” section on the movie’s official website is filled with submissions from fans drawing parallels between their heroes and the firefighters of Ladder 49.
Travolta sums up the ideals that went into the creation of the movie. “Everyone left their ego at the doorstep and felt they could finally give back something,” he says. “It’s humanity. You guys write the important stories and we just play them.”
—Staff writer Effie-Michelle Metallidis can be reached at metallid@fas.harvard.edu.