Posted in: Exclusive, Interview, Movies | Tagged: Sheepdog

Sheepdog Stars Grayhm & Curtis-Hall on Reimagining PTSD Narratives

Sheepdog director & star Steven Grayhm and Vondie Curtis-Hall spoke to us about the film's nuanced take on a veteran's PTSD and hope.

When it comes to confronting the PTSD narratives for veterans in dramas, so many take creative liberties to immerse the audience back into the characters' source of trauma, the battles within the war they served in, in the form of flashbacks. It wasn't something that writer-director and star Steven Grayhm was interested in when he conceived Sheepdog for Allen Media Group. Sharing his journey and research alongside co-producer and co-star Matt Davis, Grayhm sought to tell as authentic a story as possible, taking years to finish their research to tell the story of Calvin Cole (Grayhm), a decorated U.S. combat veteran, who is in a court-ordered treatment and is in the care of a VA trauma therapist in-training (Madsen). Things become even more complicated when Calvin's father-in-law, a retired Vietnam Veteran (Vondie Curtis-Hall), shows up on his doorstep having just been released from prison. As Calvin's plan to run from his past becomes even more challenging, he learns through the support of his community: tough love and compassion, that he must put himself back together again for his family – and for himself. Grayhm (Between) and Curtis-Hall (The Recruit) spoke to Bleeding Cool about Grayhm's inspiration behind Sheepdog, how Curtis-Hall's character Whitney St. Germain captures a Vietnam veteran's experience, if Grayhm pictured anyone else as Calvin before taking on the role, and the ensemble cast.

Sheepdog Star Steven Grayhm and Vondie Curtis-Hall on How the Veteran's Story Focuses on the Present and Future Rather Than Dwelling in the Past

Steven, what inspired you to tell the story of Sheepdog? Vondie, what attracted you to the project?

Grayhm: From an early age, I had the direct influence of my grandfather, who was a POW of the Second World War. I grew up with the stories of survival and what it was like to be a prisoner of war for five years and to suffer, which really made an impression on me. In some ways, Sheepdog is a thank you and a love letter to all those [vets] during that era, and if it weren't for their heroic actions, we would not be here. That's the foundation, but in 2011, I had a life-changing experience with a tow truck driver whom I met when my car broke down three hours north of Los Angeles. During my drive into the city with him, he began to open up about his military service and his post-traumatic stress, so that was the seminal moment to pique my curiosity about people like him who are suffering in silence and feel that they don't have that connective tissue to their communities. I wanted to uncover the truth, which happened about 14 years ago; this was the beginning of this journey we know as Sheepdog.

Vondie, how'd you get involved?

Curtis-Hall: Well, I got a call saying, "You have an offer for a movie and…"

Grayhm: It's going to be a musical. [Curtis-Hall laughs] Can you dance? We know you can sing, play, and dance.

Curtis-Hall: So I read it and was blown away by the journey of Calvin, but specifically, as an actor, you say, "Okay, what can I dig my teeth into? And the character of Whitney was a great journey, having known so many people who went to war during the Vietnam era. I thought it would be a great homage to them and a great journey for me to take as an actor to carry the weight of what his experience had been coming out of prison, losing his family, losing its benefits as a veteran, and so on.

Steven, you're wearing multiple hats, and I was wondering if you ever thought that anyone else could play Calvin, or did you always pencil yourself just doing that role?

Grayhm: I wasn't married to playing the part, but I got to a place over the years where I was concerned about knowing how the casting process can work. It would be an injustice for the people I'd sat in front of to have someone, if they only had a few weeks with the material, to jump in and give us their interpretation of it, whereas I knew what it looked like. I had lived in it and was immersed in it, so it was more out of necessity for me to protect the authenticity. Then again, surrounding yourself with an incredible cast who understood that vision, where all the performances were to be grounded, nuanced, and layered. Everyone in my ensemble cast brought something personal to their character that is on the screen, and those who know, know. I got very lucky, Tom. That's the cast that we ended up with.

Seeing your characters come alive with Calvin and Whitney, and there are so many different relationships we see portrayed on screen. What do you think that Sheepdog captures that experience in the way Hollywood, for the most part, may miss about the veteran experience?

Grayhm: The time that we took this very seriously, there was a tremendous responsibility for us all, not just myself, but for all of us, even Mr. Hall playing a Vietnam veteran [clears throat]. What we do differently, on a basic level, is that we pick up 10 years after my character's first deployment, and I had not seen that story before. We also focus on "post-traumatic growth" rather than post-traumatic stress. We do go there in the film to show our audience what that looks like, but we focus on what the journey is moving through that. As my character says on the phone, he discovers that the only way out is through, really embracing that, and trying to show our audience something that isn't reliant on action sequences and these flashbacks of war, but rather than it being the war of the soul, the battle of the Soul, and rather than being the "wolf" as the literal enemy across enemy lines. It's the wolf, your own wolf, at your door.

Everyone has an intricate part in this film. Can you tell me about working with Virginia [Madsen], Dominic [Fumusa], Lilli [Cooper], and Matt, and how everything came together?

Grayhm: Everybody in our cast, when you hear them speak the words, you get shivers. You would lift the dialogue off the page, and as the writer-director, that's your wildest dream come true. I felt those moments like a scene in the film where Vondie and I are sitting at my character's dining table, talking about that experience where you can, as the actor, lose yourself in it so completely that it no longer feels like make-believe. Vondie, if you want to end on this note, sharing your experience of that thousand-yard stare scene.

Curtis-Hall: That was one of those transcendental moments as an actor; it's a rarity. We are often judging what we've just done, or we didn't like the way that line came out of our mouths. Now and then, you're not acting, you're being, and sitting there across from Steven in that scene was just one of those transcendental moments for me. It's a gift that doesn't happen often. This film was a gift, frankly.

Sheepdog is available in theaters.

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