Making Mayday: Cold War History Meets Hollywood

0:00Music Welcome to The Naval History Podcast. I'm your host, Emily Abdow, Editor-in-Chief of Naval History. This episode we go behind the scenes of Apple TV's new movie, Mayday, with writer, director duo Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daly. Set in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Mayday follows Ryan Reynolds as a U.S. Navy pilot who crash lands behind enemy lines and forms an unexpected alliance with an XKGB agent, played by Kenneth Branagh. This episode is brought to you by General Dynamics Electric Boat. GDEB has 126-year legacy of delivering the submarines our nation needs to defend our freedoms and those of our allies. To ensure our nation's defense now at this critical time in history, GDEB is investing in the next generation of shipbuilders and infrastructure to answer the call.

1:05It was EB then and it's EB now. Learn more at gdeb.com slash about slash EB now. John, Jonathan, thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you for having us. Great to be here. So looking at the movies you've done before Mayday, including Game Night, horrible bosses, Dungeons & Dragons, honor among thieves, which I personally am a fan of, you've built this reputation for both sharp and heartfelt comedy. What inspired you to tackle the Cold War, which is not exactly the most lighthearted period of U.S. or world history? Well, you know, we actually came up with the idea while we were in post-production on Dungeons & Dragons. And we loved the thought of putting a comedic slant to the movie Misery, which we were both fans of. And we were thinking, okay, what kind of a sick a fan could we have in one of our characters that we haven't seen before that doesn't have to do with the entertainment industry or books or whatever.

2:15And then we thought, what if it's someone who loves all things America who has seen a bootleg of Top Gun 100 times and happens to be considered the enemy. And that's kind of what started our idea for Mayday. We were also right at the moment where Top Gun Maverick had come out and been out of big success. And so that kind of got us to thinking about that iconic figure of the Navy pilot, Kiro. And we thought, you know, that's a great jumping off point to kind of examine some of the themes of patriotism and national identity. And what it means to go up against what we consider an enemy like the Soviet Union. And some of those issues are still very relevant for us. And your two characters are such a good vehicle for that. And you've got these, like as you said, very opposing characters in this adventure they go on to get to know each other and their countries better.

3:15A follow up question I do have for you about the time period specifically is one of the jokes I love during during the movie towards the beginning is this joke of the cold war has been going on for for 40 years. It has it has to come to an end soon, right? And so I was curious why 1987 where you set the movie. Why specifically the tail end of the cold war? Well, honestly, it was just so that we could have a top gun as a reference point which had come out earlier that year. And we wanted it to we wanted the cold war to still be happening. But clearly it was it was near the tail end of it was also we wanted Gorbachev to be in power. And he came in about two years before this I think and so you know for our villain the Russian villain there he resents everything that Gorbachev is promoting which is kind of glass knows to openness and all those kinds of things that are changing and threatening the Soviet Union as it had been.

4:17That makes sense wanting to be at this time where things are more open your characters can get to know each other better and a quick Google just showed me that top gun was 1986 so that that makes perfect sense for your timing. And speaking of top gun which you have multiple references to during the movie at your xkgb agent has a sput like copy of it. And of course you were thinking about this movie when top gun maverick was coming out. How did you want to position made a in relation to top gun arguably the most famous say us Navy movie? Well, I think we we tried to approach it as realistically as we could where Troy Kelly who's played by Ryan Reynolds who is this top gun pilot has very much kind of benefited from the allure of the film. But there we have a scene early in the film where he and his his buddies are walking through the gas lamp district and taking advantage of the fact that they are basically considered celebrities in their own right.

5:20Because what top gun did was raise a lot of awareness about what it means to be a naval fighter pilot. And also in you know that film success really planted in people's minds the identity of you know Tom Cruise and the and the very skilled Navy pilot almost something that I don't think people were that aware of the fact that the Navy had pilots was something that was not known to the general public before that movie. And so there's something very specific about that it's almost like you know obviously there's the kind of rivalry between Air Force and Navy. But we knew that we wanted to not just use the awareness of top gun as a jumping off point but specifically some of the skillset that those pilots have landing on a carrier taking off from a carrier you know that those kinds of things that are uniquely naval that drew us to this because we also knew that's where we wanted spoiler the movie to kind of end up.

6:22Yeah I wasn't going to mention anything about the end but I I concur that there is something undeniably iconic about a carrier landing and I can see how that lens itself so well to a movie and since you brought up this Air Force sort of Navy rivalry I thought we could talk about the fact that we've mentioned there's been some online buzz about how your main character lieutenant Troy assassin Kelly is a Navy pilot and yet in the beginning of the movie. He is flying the SR 71 Blackbird on this reconnaissance mission for the CIA over Soviet Russia and some commenters online have pointed out that that is typically more of an Air Force role so what led you to make Troy Kelly this Navy pilot in the SR 71 right well basically that is explained by the fact that he gets the decommissioned in order to fly the Navy. In order to fly this black on an SR 71 where he's flying Rio he's taking the pictures in conjunction with an Air Force pilot is actually in the front seat and technically the SR 71 did not have rear controls at least most of the models did not and so that was a little bit of a liberty we took because ultimately Troy has to take the wheel so to speak we also recognize that no SR 71 has been shown.

7:49So we just dropped down and that is another liberty that we took but also very much explain within the context of the film we should point out that we had a number of consultants in the writing and shooting of the film buzz carpenter and more Rosenberg or two actual pilots of the SR 71 they're now in their 80s and they were indispensable in their knowledge even down to the specifics of where the pilots hands might be what they might be. We were probably more star struck talking to them than we've ever been talking to any actors that we've worked with just because of the sheer extent of what they've done for our country and also the stories that they regaled us with in terms of close calls because while no SR 71 has been shot down there have been several instances where it has almost happened and they told us that we have been talking to the they told us all about it which which was very exciting to hear especially since some for so many decades those stories have been classified.

8:57I was not aware of those instances so I you've you've inspired me to do some digging on my and after after this podcast I had done a little bit of little bit of light googling before this of course to look at similar historic or history case studies and I'd come across a Francis Gary powers the Air Force pilot shot down in the 19. Yes. Yes. Flying the two for the CIA. Exactly. I was curious whether that was an inspiration or what other sort of case studies in history may have served as an inspiration for your movie. Yeah, I don't carry powers and the YouTube is very much in mind as far as historical instances of this happening. Luckily it hasn't happened that often or at least not that we have been reported maybe there's more classified incidents we don't know about but we thought you know this is a great opportunity the SR 71 was is it is an aircraft that's been almost mythologized it's used as the inspiration for the X men's plane because it is so futuristic and we went and we saw actual there there's one or two on

10:04Palmdale in the desert you know they're not fly. Yeah, they were two because there was the training one with two seats and there was the single cedar so we went out and we saw those and got a sense of just the beauty and architecture of these planes and then we had to kind of recreate them for purposes of filming movie because we didn't have one we could shoot. But yeah, we do great great love and respect for that aircraft. It's so cool and the fact that just for example when they flew it to Palmdale that was its final journey and it took I think they said one hour from Washington to desert in California. So when you when you see recreate the SR 71 what does that even entail do you have someone set building an entire scale model of the aircraft or essentially yeah it was a combination of builds. So we had a we basically shot about a month of aerial photography that we would use as our plates is what they call them. To capture the flying and then we built a buck that was maneuverable electronically that we shot in front of a volume stage which is basically this giant high definition

11:19screen on which we then projected the aerial photography that we had shot in the South of France before that. So we had a good portion of the cockpit basically rebuilt you know with the exact sort of specifics of what the interior of those cockpits are. And then we also built a number of step pieces that were either to scale or a quarter scale that we also shot practically in front of our volume screen. So we tried to get as much in camera as we could and the most sort of most interesting thing to us was when we were animating basically the thrusters going it creates this diamond effect that look fake it looks like CG but in fact is accurate and if you look at any kind of video or picture reference of the SR flying you see this diamond effect that you don't often see in any other in any other aircraft.

12:25Very cool okay I'm going to have to rewatch just to see that and that's always something I wonder when I'm watching these aviation seems like how much our practical effects versus animation you know top gun was famous for getting real Navy pilots to fly well yeah I mean they had they had cooperation from the Navy but what they also did is something that we did where they both hop gun and our film basically reskinned a lot of the planes that they were shooting. For our f-18s we were actually shooting these L-39s which we then reskin with f-18s and that means digitally reskin not actually putting a thing on it. Okay that's very cool for the blackbird we used as a reference a P-A-G-O-P-180 which then basically it was all just so that we could have accurate lighting references so that our camera was was up to the camera. So we were shooting the air shooting these planes for real so that it didn't feel fabricated or artificial when when you know it was all put together.

13:34When you say you're shooting these planes that are flying are do you have pilots who are literally going up and flying routes for the movie. Yeah we have there's a there's we call it the picture plane and there's a camera plane basically and they get remarkably close to each other like you wouldn't normally want to fly two planes that close together but these are highly skilled pilots who are used to working either in helicopters or fixed wind aircraft to go up and capture for example the beginning of the movie you see Ryan's plane to a maneuver that the French plane did in fact so the physics of a real and everything. You're seeing is really only we've changed by and large is the skin of the visual appearance of it but it was very important to us that everything was do accurate and doable and that's why we captured all of it in camera and then manipulated after the fact. Very cool that that makes some of those scenes especially that beginning maneuver which looked very dangerous to me all the more all the more impressive and when it comes to working with these pilots that who are flying these courses for the movie one thing I was curious about is you have to come up with in choreograph these these fight scenes this dog fight that occurs early in the movie so what goes into researching and sequencing a dog fight.

14:56Yeah well it is all what we call pre-vis which basically there is there are these companies that are essentially it's like storyboarding but you get to see it all in action and it allows us to adhere to the physics and the limitations of each of these these aircraft so that it does feel authentic we should give a shout out to Captain Brendan Gray who is our our advisor and and host because both of us are in the movie. So we have a lot of us spent about 24 hours each on the USS Carl Vincent as part of our research for this John State overnight I spent I went from about 4 am till 8 p.m. Yeah the overnight was amazing for me because we we actually got to I got to take an osprey and and land at sea we were about a hundred miles off the coast of San Diego and nothing really prepares you for the amount of work and dedication.

15:56That these people are are are doing on board the carriers it's it's it's kind of unbelievable it is truly a floating city and it all needs to it all needs to function for it to to be able to to work and and so I mean I I had an even greater sense of reverence and respect for everyone who had been sort of participating in this one I when I got the opportunity to come on board and Brendan just happened to be a fan of film and I I asked him would you want to be a consultant on this and we actually he has a voice in the in the film as well he is a he is an acting credit so I'm sure that was exciting for Is he is he a background actor is he on the Carl Vincent when you show no no he has a he has a you can he can be heard over the radio at well. Okay, so that very cool for my own personal interest I'm always like what does it take to just be in the corner of a movie what do I have to do to just be in the background so

16:56you have to join a union you have to do it to do it all day and you get about a hundred dollars maybe for your day. Okay, you're I'm feeling a little disillusioned about this plan. Yeah, so. But it is very cool that you got to go on board the Carl Vincent because that the Carl Vincent appears in your movie which is another joke I'm going to spoil where I believe it's Lieutenant Kelly who mentions Carl Vincent and then Kenneth Brownx character the XKGB agent says who and I felt very smart because I was like I know that's an aircraft carrier. So I really appreciated that joke so when you talk about going on board the Carl Vincent were you able to film on board the Carl Vincent how did you do those aircraft carrier scenes no that was all just for reference. But I was able to see takeoffs and landings which was amazing and also where I was sleeping the quarters were just under the deck. And they were doing they were doing exercises until like 3 a.m. and you can't really sleep when that's going on it's it's about as loud as anything can be that's fine so yeah everywhere you see a carrier is moving we created either as a digital asset or.

18:14Where the planes are interacting at the surface we created a we sort of painted the surface of a carrier on a landing strip we had access to. And then just you know we created the rest yeah we we our visual effects team went to New York and actually shot the intrepid to use as basically tiles which is what they use as a reference point when they're creating and like skinny. And the digital asset that it becomes the carrier we did build the interior of the control tower which you see in a couple of scenes which is very very true to the real thing that was we built that in in Montreal where we filmed most of this really. That makes sense you were able to go to the intrepid great great tourist activity. City. So I'm curious when it comes to writing the screenplay you clearly have a lot of experience building a world with dungeons and dragons that doesn't exist or is different from our own present day one when it comes to creating a historical world what does that research process look like like what media or movies do go to how much research do you have to do before you start writing.

19:31Well we try to surround ourselves with as many experts as we can get access to even even if it is something that science fiction or you know whatever will talk to experts in scientific fields to try to make sure that what we're creating has a grounding in scientific reality and in this case you know we had some terrific naval and air force advisors who you asked about the dog fights for example we'd ask them is this something this aircraft could do is this you know what what we're doing is going to do is we're going to do something. What would a pilot do when faced with this situation and fly that kind of thing so we really try to steep ourselves as much as we can in the reality. Yeah it's it's it's honestly more using that as a reference than any films because you can't ever trust films to get it as accurately as possible and that was definitely something that is important to us obviously we take some artistic license but it's great to have a sort of basis that is grounded in reality to work off of there aren't there are there was some documentary footage we consulted our remember when we were looking into this notion of whether a plane the size of ours at the end its movie could realistically land on a carrier and there were some experiments done by the Navy with the C 130 landing on a carrier and they were able to do it so that made us feel like all right.

20:47And it's cool that you address that because as you as you reference there there might be a carrier landing at the ending that some some listeners may think is that unrealistic and it's cool to know you you did the math behind it and the math checked out. I love to talk a bit more about your characters and what went into both researching and creating those specifically so when you knew you wanted this US Navy pilot he has a bit of swagger he goes and you know he's out on the town in his white pristine uniform. The top gun effect what went into kind of creating a lieutenant Troy Kelly call sign assassin and how did you know you wanted Ryan Reynolds to play that part. Yeah well I think what we wanted was a somewhat standard archetype of what they actually were to to the public and also what what was sort of glorified because it was a very important thing. And glorified because you know I think we love the whole idea of this sense of identity and nationalism and what.

21:51Troy Kelly represents is this kind of perfect figure and obviously nobody is actually perfect and what happens over the course of this adventure is not only is he out of his element when he gets shot down on the Soviet Union. He almost takes a secondary secondary position when relying on Nikolai who is definitely more sort of a custom to navigating the threats of when you're like on the ground. So it was fun to play with that dynamic where at first Troy is very much the leader of the two and then as the film progresses that dynamic shifts and Ryan just kind of made sense for the part because he is that you know kind of very handsome very. And you know there's a wish fulfillment aspect to Ryan Reynolds and as there's a Tom Cruise you know that like you could see him very much being this cocky talk on yeah he's confident he's cocky and he's so good at what he does that you just can't deny that he's he is the man.

23:06It was an excellent casting choice he definitely captured the like dashing US Navy pilot that everyone aspires to be and like the classic hero story but of course he's not the only hero or when they're on the ground in Russia as you allude to he's perhaps not even the most effective hero when compared to the X KGB agent Nikolai Usonov played by Kenneth Brown. So when it comes to creating a KGB a former KGB agent what kind of research went into his backstory you know you will lose the unit he was in when he was in the KGB perhaps some unsavory history there some torture what did you learn about the KGB to write this character. You know we kind of did as much research as we could given the time constraints we had about you know what what a guy like this would have been like what what was his real job and and what was it possible to leave the KGB and you know what what kind of life you might have after that because presumably the work he did goes on without him you know when when Volko our main villain shows up you can see he has this kind of respect for the fact that.

24:21And that's why you know when an honest character had been an alpha group which was the most elite division of the KGB and at the same time as we were sort of you know wanting to be honest about the unsavory things that these people did we also didn't want purely demonized that we wanted to understand that he's a flawed man with the family a daughter and you know he he did what he did at the time because he believed it was best thing for his country and in a way that's an out of here, and so we did that. August 2, you know, on the American side, I'm not, we're not comparing them, we're not equating, but there is a certain blindness that happens with patriotism, you know, when it's taken to extreme, we tend to demonize the other without regard to their humanity. And that's kind of what we're trying to get across. You certainly succeeded in getting that across and even sort of the normal people that they happen across or the everyday characters in your movie kind of humanizing them and getting to know them.

25:23The little boy at the dinner table was interesting. I didn't quite know how to feel about him. Yeah, that's intentional. We did not humanize him. We did not humanize him. We did not humanize him. We're going to say there was one character that are, for those who watch the movie, you'll know what we're talking about, who leaves you feeling a little bit unsettled. Which one of you came up with that? Sorry. I don't remember. We knew we needed some sort of a comedic engine to that scene and we had just like the idea of it being what should be an innocent kid, but because of its physical characteristics and the way that he portrays himself, he's not that innocent, seeming to a little bit of a horror movie. It shifted totally for a moment there. It did, but it was very, continued to be funny despite that. I'm curious with your KGB agent. What made you think that Kenneth Brano would be the perfect fit?

26:26He can do anything. I mean, he is a true chameleon. What we knew we wanted was a sense of gravitas, a sense of lived in this in that character. That's what Kenneth does with every role that he takes on. He is not necessarily considered a comedic actor to people, but he is in fact one of the funniest actors we've ever worked with. I think it's because of that level of commitment and the fact that he never winks at the audience. He's always playing it straight, which is often the most funny thing. He nailed the role, the accent, the physicality. There were so many combat scenes where those stunt doubles. Was that Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Brano? How did you approach those? Kenneth did a lot of that himself. He was really gay and to get into it, I think it's part of his training from the stage and the sword fights and the theatricality of that. He brought to the set. Obviously, some of those stuff we had a stunt double fork, but we were very appreciative

27:31that he was willing to get in there and get his hands dirty, so to speak. That's very impressive that he was the one doing those moves himself. I just had another question pop into my head, which is we were talking about the aircraft and how you created those. At some point in the movie that I won't spoil, there is a massive truck essentially. I need to figure out what the exact term for it was, but you have this truck that's the carrying a ballistic missile. Yes, an ICBM launching. It's called the Maws Maze. Maze. Did you get that from scratch? How did that happen? It was actually it existed in Hungary. There was basically one of the people that we obtained a bunch of military vehicles that were era, accurate from had this. I wouldn't say a junkyard because all of these vehicles were operational, but just this

28:31massive lot of land filled with military vehicles. One of them happened to be this ICBM launch vehicle. Now, it was not operational at the time. I think it was just the cab. It was the front part. We added the whole trailer behind, but it was true to the real thing. I had like what, 26 tires. I'm crazy now of tires. We did rush a car with it. It's essentially a giant tank that was so heavy. When it gets up to speed, it takes a long time for it to slow down. You can imagine how that could begin nerve-ing for people in the metropolitan parts of Budapest as they watch this giant launch vehicle barreling through their city. They also put out a lot of smoke, which is not always ideal for our camera coverage. Go, God! That was another one of those moments where I was wondering, is this CGI? How did they, how did they film it? We thought we might have to see G.I. when we were first prepping the movie, but then

29:33they told us, no, no, we can't afford it, we can build it. They're like, great. Yeah, I would say there are a few moments where we needed help from our digital effects teams, but for the most part, the laws was portrayed accurately and fully in camera. We even had to take down our rays, our lines in Budapest to get the thing under. Wow. Okay, that ends and the city works with you in order to be able to do that. You're very accommodating. Very accommodating, yeah. Very cool. I can't even imagine how much gasoline it takes to fill up an operate one of those things. Yeah, and it only broke down like one or two times, which I'm saying a lot. Yeah, and the tires held up when it was going over vehicles and crushing them. I need those tires on my car. A sort of overarching question I have for you, talking about all of this that you alluded

30:33to is you've done a lot of historical research. It sounds like you've tried to stay very true to not necessarily what exactly happened, but what could have happened at the time. As writers, how do you decide what needs to stay true to the historical record and what you can alter or you should alter to have a more powerful story? Sure. It's a good question. I think for us, it comes down to what percentage of the audience is going to be offended by this liberty we're taking. In other words, yeah, the fact that we added a second controls to the cockpit of the SR of 71. There's a portion of people who are going to know that that's not true to life, but it was kind of essential to the story we wanted to tell. They did have it in the training version. We were like, all right, that feels like it's within bounds, but we never wanted a plane to do something a plane couldn't do. We never wanted to be within the tolerances of those planes, for example. It doesn't necessarily have to have happened, but we really tried to embrace at the very

31:40least that it could happen. Then there's a bit of trickery that Trey Kelly does in his F-18 with another plane who's having an Aileron malfunction in the beginning, which historically has never happened, but again, in theory and in talking extensively with our consultants, it is technically possible. Yeah, and we changed something. Sometimes we would be told by enough people they would never do is remember like that the Aileron fix was originally going to be using his wing tip, right? Yeah, and instead we ended up using the thruster because enough pilots were like you would never contact another plane with your planes. Intentional, right? That makes sense. Seeing what is within the realm of possibility. Another sort of related question I had to that is, again, spoiler free, there is a plot point that you have that hinges on a classified document that gets leaked.

32:40When you were creating this classified document, did you look at archival documents, how did you go about fabricating this? Yeah, it actually wasn't fabricated. That document did exist at that time and when one of our characters references it and the period of time that that document was written, that's all true to form. I believe we found a copy online of the letter and giving to our prop people to recreate for the movie. And when you were writing the movie, did you already know that this letter existed? We didn't. And honestly, I think it was a happy accident. We were hoping because when we first write something, we focus exclusively on the story and what we want the film to be. And then we get into the nitty gritty of, okay, how true to form is this, how much it would be fabricating and sometimes we make adjustments so that it does seem a little bit more accurate.

33:40But in this case, it did exist and it was accurate to the period of time that we were talking about. Very cool. As someone who spent a lot of time in archives when that document came up, I was like, that looks like what I've seen in the National Archives. That looks very like it. Yeah. So that makes sense that it is real, very cool. Yeah. Anything, I've asked a lot of the questions I've most interested in. Is there anything you'd like to specifically touch on or share with our listeners about the movie? Well, one of the things that I think any kind of aviation fan will get a kick out of in watching this film is we try to make it as immersive as possible. There is a scene that is not as spoiler because it's in the trailer where Troy Kelly has to eject from the SR-71. And that ejection scene is actually all done in one shot from the moment that he ejects to the moment that he crash lands in the trees.

34:44And we did a lot of research on what that does to a person physically. They lose like an inch of their of presses, your spine. They're high. Yeah. And the G force that they undergo during that period of times is so intense that we really wanted to make it feel as visceral and immersive as possible because not often can you get to sort of imagine what it would be like to eject from a plane at that height and all of this sort of setbacks that could occur before you actually land. So my takeaway from this is Ryan Reynolds had to hunch down an inch for the rest of the rest. And I think that's exactly what we removed a spinal column from him and then we attached

35:45it at the end of the film. But we put in the wrong place. Hazard of the job. So very cool. And I guess as a final wrap up then, what would you like our listeners who check out Mayday on Apple TV to take away from the movie? I think it's a really fun ride with something to say and great characters that people are going to hopefully invest in. For people who don't know much about the Navy or the naval aviation or any of it, but for those who do, we think it's going to be even more enjoyable because we really did do the homework and there are a couple of liberties taken for sure, but hopefully they can go along for the ride and get a kick out of it. Yeah. I mean, it kind of, we tried to cover every genre of it this film. There are emotional moments that we think really resonate with people. There are, there's sort of commentary on what it is that we're facing right now in terms

36:47of the international landscape. But also it is, first and foremost, a very human tale that, while funny, also, I think touches on something that we all kind of feel. Well, I can say to our listeners, and this is, I was not paid to say this. I sincerely enjoyed the movie. I thought it was fantastic. There were multiple moments and jokes I referenced where I laughed out loud. I found myself feeling very emotional. There's a very touching father daughter moment in there that I resonated with and I felt the emotions coming and you cover so many genres. You have important messages for today and it's an adventure comedy. It has that one scene that orders on horror. So you really, you really do cross, cross all the genres and the fantastic watch. So John, Jonathan, thank you so much. Thank you both for coming on and taking our listeners behind the scenes of what it took to create Mayday. Yeah, it's pleasure. Thank you for having us. Thanks a lot.

37:49This episode is brought to you by General Dynamics Electric Boat. GDEB has a 126 year legacy of delivering the submarines our nation needs to defend our freedoms and those of our allies. To ensure our nation's defense now at this critical time in history, GDEB is investing in the next generation of shipbuilders and infrastructure to answer the call. It was EB then and it's EB now. Learn more at gdeb.com slash about slash EB now. And to our listeners, if you like the show, subscribe and tell a friend we'll see you next episode with more C stories.