TORONTO: Hollywood stars Matthew McConaughey and Jamie Lee Curtis have brought a deeply personal project to screen with their new film about California’s deadliest wildfire.
“The Lost Bus” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, telling the true story of a school bus driver who saved 22 children from the 2018 Paradise inferno.
Both actors have personal connections to California’s fire crises, with McConaughey having resided in fire-hit Malibu and Curtis recently moving back into her Pacific Palisades home after it was damaged in this year’s blazes.
McConaughey described the film as a huge-action, urgent, epic-scope production that portrays fire as a predator unlike anything seen on film before.
Curtis, who helped shepherd the project as a producer, acknowledged the difficulty of watching for those who live with the threat of fire.
The film stars McConaughey as Kevin McKay, the flawed hero who volunteered to collect stranded schoolchildren while fearing for his own family’s safety.
Performers acted most scenes in front of real flames, with the roaring fire and sparking power lines adding genuine horror elements to the production.
Curtis decided to make the film after reading journalist Lizzie Johnson’s book about the Paradise fire tragedy.
She sent the book to producer Jason Blum with the declaration that this would be the most important thing either would do in the movie business.
While both Oscar-winning stars insist the film is not political, it contains a moment where a fire chief states that with increasingly deadly fires, “we’re being damn fools.”
The film features several real firefighters and emergency dispatchers from the Camp Fire playing themselves.
Utility company PG&E, whose power lines sparked the blaze, paid more than $13 billion to victims and pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
This marks McConaughey’s first film in six years, following his exploration of politics and writing endeavors including a best-selling memoir.
Director Paul Greengrass, known for dramatizing real-life events in films like “Captain Phillips” and “United 93,“ convinced McConaughey to return to acting for this project.
McConaughey met the real Kevin McKay during production, causing him to reflect deeply on the nature of heroism and what constitutes a heroic act. – AFP
