What inspired you to make this film? SEAN PENN: The quickest answer is Jon Krakauer's book. I bought the book and I found myself reading it cover-to-cover twice.
There was something that spoke, for lack of a better word, freedom about it-something that seemed very present at the time and all the years that it took before I was able to make it and just stuck with me. And those things are what dominated the way I chose to tell the story. Chris is an extremely complex character.
How did you even begin to get into his head? SP: The thing about Chris McCandless that was very helpful was that he left a lot of clues behind. There was a wealth of very deep understanding between he and his sister, and so his sister was very helpful.
There was also the journal and the photograph that Chris took on his road trip. And then on top of that we went on the road and met all the people he ran into at the time the story's being told. And so we take all of those things and at the very least they make human sense in the broadest sense.
And then you're telling a story. This is a story of Chris McCandless, and it's also a story primarily of those couple of years he was on the road. In the broadest sense, I think I was borrowing his complication to dramatize things that are part of all our lives.
What did you personally gain from this movie and what were your favorite scenes or favorite scenes to film? EMILE HIRSCH: For me, I was happy to be part of a film that I felt was a real adventure. Just making it, you get to know a different part of America.
I went to places I don't know if I would have ever been to and got to meet a lot of interesting people. For me, it was an adventure of a lifetime and I was happy to be a part of it. And really, it was everybodyВ-not just me-but everybody on the crew got a chance to step outside their comfort zone and do things they maybe they didn't think they could.
We were doing rapids on a kayak-me and Sean both did rapids in kayaks on the Colorado river in the Grand Canyon. This isn't the kind of stuff you normally get to do when you make a film.
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