At the Los Angeles press conference for his dramatic film In the Valley of Elah, writer/director Paul Haggis said that his movie is based on two actual incidents, however he preferred not to go into depth about either event so as not to give away too much of the film's plot. That's fair, and totally understandable. His directing follow-up to Crash is a real whodunit and giving away details would spoil the experience for moviegoers.

What is safe to say about In the Valley of Elah is that it follows the story of a retired soldier (played by Tommy Lee Jones) who goes in search of his son after getting a call from son's superiors saying he'd gone AWOL shortly after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq. Charlize Theron co-stars as a police detective from the town right outside of the military base who is drawn into Jones' search for answers.

How much dramatic or artistic license was taken?

Paul Haggis: “Well, I found two true stories. One was in 2003. One was the beginning of 2004. I decided to meld them. Richard Davis' story which is the largest portion of this, a lot of the events are exactly as you saw, exactly what happened and the locations. Exactly as it was said with the chicken house and the strip club. Richard's parents were on the set and they'll tell you that the story is different than their son's. I was very concerned because I called them to say, ‘You understand I'm fictionalizing this story?’

He looked like Tommy Lee, he sounds like Tommy Lee.

He's a very quiet, proud American and military police officer, Vietnam Vet, Korea Vet. Everything that we said, he'll tell you that the specifics of the murder are still in question. [spoilers deleted]”

Was the political statement a hindrance in raising the money for In the Valley of Elah?

Paul Haggis: “Yes. I optioned the magazine article. That was end of 2003. It was a time when the war was incredibly popular here and everyone was driving around with flags on their car, if you remember not too long ago. When I talked to my agents about doing this, they just said, 'Oh, no, no. You're never going to set this up. We're never going to sell it. We're never going to get it made. Just forget about it.' I thought about that for a month and said, 'No, no, I have to do it.'

Now, see, if you make a film and then two and a half, three years later, suddenly the country's changed and you look like you just happened to hit it. I actually like being contrarian. I would have preferred to come out three years ago when everyone was disagreeing with me. But hopefully it asks a lot of questions about our responsibility in sending young men and women to war, especially a war that's so complex, where there's no right answer, where they're forced with impossible decisions every day. So I really wanted to make a nonpolitical political film. I wanted something that folks in red states and blue states could look at and not ask if this is the right thing to do to be in this war, but what this war is doing to the fabric of our society. What happens when these young men and women come home so scarred and so wounded? We are ignoring that fact. We're just shoving them under the carpet.”

Did Clint Eastwood help you?

Paul Haggis: “Clint did. I couldn't get the thing made. I went to my agents to CAA… Larry Becsey, who had been my agent said, ‘You might want to go over there.’ I met with their literary folk and said, ‘Go through all your files. Find me stuff, look for something that in your heart you know will never, ever get made into a movie and bring it to me.’ So they did and this is one of the articles they brought me. I took it to my movie agent and they said no one's going to finance it. So I took it around, took it to a couple studios. Six months later, people are going, ‘Yeah, really want to work with you Paul!’ And nothing was happening.

I called up Clint and sent him the article. I thought he was going to call me back and go, ‘You Commie son of a b----,’ and never talk to me again. But you never guess where Clint's ever going to come down on any issues. That's the one thing, you know? As soon as you think you know Clint Eastwood, you don't know Clint Eastwood. So he called me back and said, ‘Wow, that is tough material.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but it's the truth of what's happening.’ He said, ‘I'll help you make it.’ So he called over to Alan Horn at Warner Brothers and said, ‘The kid…’ - I'm the kid – ‘The kid has something I'd like you to see yourself.’ That's what got it made.”

Is there more deception and cover-up in this war?

Paul Haggis: “This isn't really a movie about deception and cover-up per se. There's no real cover-up by the government in this. There may have been in the real story. I don't know. It's just really the story about what our brave men and women have to do, and the possibility of getting tasks where there is no right answer, there is no wrong answer. There's no way to get through the day without having truly big moral dilemmas that seem unsolvable.”

Did you meet with any female police officers for research?

Charlize Theron: “Yeah, I did. I met a woman in Albuquerque and she came and hung out with me in the trailer. It was really just more to kind of really understand my biggest concern was always the interrogation scenes. Remember, that's why I really wanted to meet somebody because you see those scenes on TV so much. It kind of becomes, which I'm not saying this is bad, but, ‘You can't handle the truuuuuth!’ So I needed some help on that because also Paul had written it how it was edited, editorialized in the film. I'm talking and then you see it's somebody new. To do that in a way where it's truthful but it somehow escalates to what Paul had written. So I met with a woman who interrogates all the time, a detective.”

Page 2:Tommy Lee Jones, Hancock, and Producing