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Another aspect of the story, the lingering,
lethal effect of Agent Orange, touched a personal nerve. "My kid
brother," says Glover, "passed away two and a half years ago
of respiratory complications,
dating back to his contact with Agent Orange in Vietnam."
"He is one of many," insists
screenwriter Miller. "In a period of two
weeks in 1999, I lost two close friends, Jim Brown, my co-pilot, and
Bob George, the wing man who rescued my team." Both died of lung
cancer, attributed to the chemical defoliant they had been exposed to
decades earlier.
Glover was soon joined in the cast by Linda Hamilton
as Kate, David Strathairn as Lenny's father, and Ron Perlman as the dangerous,
demented "bush vet," Red. But despite a multi-national talent
search that fanned out from New York to western Canada, the crucial role
of Lenny remained uncast less than two weeks before the film's start date.
"I was at my wit's end," Dockterman
recalls, "when Peter Berkot, a friend from Boston who's done some
wonderful work in childrens' theater, called to say, 'I've found her.'"
Zoë Weizenbaum, a bright, bubbly, outgoing
youngster from Amherst, Massachusetts, had never before appeared on screen.
Her experience consisted of community theater productions of "Peter
Pan" and "The Secret Garden," and rehearsals for "The
Wizard of Oz" (as the Mayor of Munchkin City, which she had to relinquish
for MIA).
"Like a lot of kids, I'd dreamt about being
a movie actress," she smiles. "Or maybe an astronaut."
A series of auditions and a screen test impressed
Dockterman. But how would she respond to such a challenging role? Dockterman
knew that whoever played Lenny would either make or break the film.
"My worst fear became my greatest joy,"
recalls Dockterman. "There's a scene, early in the picture, when
Lenny's father says goodbye and she is moved to tears because she knows
in her heart that he's never coming back.
I told her, "Be true to your emotions. If the tears come, great,
but if they don't, don't fake it. Try to get into an emotional space where
you will feel it.' When the cameras rolled, for the first time ever, she
cried as an actor. This was only the fourth day of shooting. I looked
around and there were crew members standing there with tears in their
eyes. I knew then just how special this little actress was."
"I tried to think of something really sad,"
says Weizenbaum. " I'd never been away from my mom for that long
and I really missed her. So I kept repeating phrases in my head, I want
my mom. I want my mom. I want a hug.'"
Among the youngster's favorite moments was a scene
when Glover gives her a new-born lamb. "It's like a turning point
in the picture where we discover we really like each other," she
says. "It was so funny. We started filming and the cameraman said
the lamb wasn't white enough. So they washed it with Woolite."
While Glover calls Weizenbaum "a natural,"
she credits him with helping her to lose herself in her character and
"have fun doing it. He's just himself, a totally nice guy."
Fortunately, she adds, Ron Perlman is nothing like the crazed
vet who lunges at her, hates her and pursues her through the woods to
a terrifying cliffside confrontation. "When we weren't acting,
he was always joking. It made it easier to play the scary stuff."
While MIA is fictional, says screenwriter
Miller, the characters played by Glover and Perlman are rooted in reality.
"So many of the guys that I came home with lived in their
own dark world, carrying a lot of guilt, emotions they could never express.
Go into the woods in Washington or Oregon or British Columbia, where it's
easy to get lost, and you'll still find bush vets' living rough."
After five weeks of filming in the mountains
near Vancouver, the production moved to Washington, D.C., for a key
sequence at the Vietnam Wall. Here,
just after dawn, Glover appeared in a light jacket (for continuity)
despite an unexpected wind-chill factor in the teens. Producer Isen
Robbins marveled at his ability to hold his concentration, take after
wind-whipped take.
"Yeah, it was a little brisk," smiled
Glover afterward. "But that moment at the Wall was essentially
easy because of the powerful journey we'd gone through together. Everyone,
cast and crew, gave of themselves, not just their time and talent, but
their passion. That's rare. And it's wonderful."
Director Dockterman, he says, set the tone
for that effort. "Sometimes women see war differently than men.
Alice Walker said that war is against women and children, they're the
ones most injured by it. I think there's a lot of truth to that."
"The
whole concept of killing as sanctioned by governments is primitive,
bizarre," laments Dockterman. "Soldiers are taught that the
enemy is the enemy. They aren't people. Their humanity is erased which
makes killing anyone, even children, possible."
But what happens afterward? How can soldiers recover from the
trauma?
In Missing In America the answer lies
in the relationship between a haunted man and a lost child.
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