Ashton Holmes Talks The Pacific

3 November 2010

Ashton Holmes

Ashton Holmes, 30, plays Marine Sid Phillips in the mini-series The Pacific. The young actor from Albany, New York, has an impressive list of TV credits including three years on the daytime soap One Life To Live and episodes of; The Ghost Whisperer, Law & Order: SVU, Cold Case and Boston Legal, as well as the films A History of Violence and Smart People.

The Pacific is a 10-part mini-series from the creators of Band of Brothers and based on the books ‘With the Old Breed’, by Eugene Sledge, and ‘Helmet for my Pillow’, by Robert Leckie.

Continuing the World War II oral history work begun by his late father, Stephen Ambrose (author of the book ‘Band of Brothers’), Hugh Ambrose serves as a consultant on the miniseries, which tracks the intertwined odysseys of three U.S. Marines - Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale), Eugene Sledge (Joe Mazzello) and John Basilone (Jon Seda) - across the vast canvas of the Pacific during World War II.

The extraordinary experiences of these men and their fellow Marines takes them from the first clash with the Japanese in the jungles of Guadalcanal, through the rain forests of Cape Gloucester, the coral strongholds of Peleliu, the black sands of Iwo Jima and the killing fields of Okinawa before their triumphant but uneasy return home.

- Is Sid Phillips still alive?

Yes, he is alive and well. He’s 84 years old and has a huge family. His granddaughter actually tracked down my e-mail address and e-mailed me.

So I was in contact with her, and I’ve talked to Sid on the phone a few times and I’ve corresponded with him via e-mail. His brain is still very sharp, and he’s really excited to be a part of this, and experience this again.

-What was the audition process like for you?

I had my first audition in January of ’06, and that was followed by seven auditions - one in front of Mr. Spielberg and Mr. Hanks - and then I think in May of 2007, I had my last audition, and then in June I got the part.

- Were you always auditioning for the role of Sid?

No, it was originally Leckie, and it was Leckie the whole way until at the last minute, it shifted to Phillips. I think what they did was audition everybody as Leckie, Basilone, Sledge and Phillips, and with each audition, they can get a sense of what they’re appropriate for.

They chose me as Phillips, and it really is a great role. He’s there through the whole story because we meet him in Act I, and he’s in Guadalcanal.

Phillips also is the link between Sledge’s story with Leckie’s story because they kind of follow me to war, and then we meet Leckie. I’m corresponding with Sledge because Phillips and Sledge are best friends before the war.

- So what’s your take on him as a character?

I think Sid Phillips is really self-aware. When I talked to him, he told me one thing to never forget while I tell the story was the way they made it through the war was that they never lost sight of their sense of humor. As awful as things were, they just needed to laugh or else they couldn’t survive.

They saw so many horrendous things, and so I think Sid has a really wonderful perspective on life, and I think that’s what carried him through.

In talking to him now, he has a really loving family, he’s very active in his community, and he seems very at peace talking about the things that he’s experienced in his life both the good and the horrendous.

- So he didn’t mind talking in detail about this period?

Sid told me that after the war, Eugene would sit on Sid’s porch and talk for hours about the war with him. I think it was a really therapeutic experience for them, and it helped them both cope with what they went through over there.

I think it’s allowed him to be able to retell some of his memories. He’s very open about what he went through, and when I first talked to him, I would tread very lightly about his experience, but he’s really open.

- Is it intimidating to step into the shoes of a living person who experienced this war for real?

You know, it’s just such a huge honor to able to tell a story like this. My grandfather was in World War II and fought in Europe in Army Infantry so I have such a huge respect for him and he’s shared some personal experiences with me.

In my grandfather’s day, there was a different perspective on war and men that went into war; it was such a patriotic act to fight for your country in the forties. So, when I got this role, I just felt this huge responsibility because I personally had a link to World War II through my grandfather, and also World War II was one of the highlights of our country’s history.

I feel that that puts a huge responsibility on us as actors to tell the story right, especially because it’s based on true events, and these people did exist. So we really have to get it right, and that rests on our shoulders. But it’s exciting to have that responsibility placed on us.

- All the guys that came out of Band of Brothers had doors open for them in their careers almost overnight. Have you thought about that aspect of this job?

Oh, absolutely. Anytime you get to work for HBO or Steven Spielberg or Tom Hanks, it’s really a life-changing event, and I think we’re all aware of that.

But you know, that’s kind of the last thing you think of when you’re in the middle of it. So maybe as it comes closer to being released, I think maybe it will be on the forefront of our minds, but right now, we’re here for work and we want to do the best job that we can.

- How was boot camp?

I don’t think anybody, actor or marine, is ever going to enjoy boot camp. It certainly wasn’t at all enjoyable. Informative and educational - yes, but it was pretty tortuous.

It was physically just a lot of wear and tear on our bodies, and we really got to experience what a genuine boot camp would be. We spent nine days in a very remote part of Australia in North Queensland, and we survived off the land and did what they did on Guadalcanal. It was pretty hellish.

- Was there anything important in terms of the relationships with the other guys?

I think while some of it was pretty brutal, it was absolutely necessary for us to tell the story the right way. We bonded so much as a cast, and there was so much camaraderie formed between the men and characters in this production. I think experiencing that, and going through that together was really the only way to truly unite us.

- How do your characters relationships compare to the actors?

I think Phillips’ closest bond is Sledge, but Leckie and I are on the same platoon and they were really smart with the casting. They really paired us up well.

Joe is my closest friend in the story, and he’s absolutely my closest friend outside of work. I hang out with Joe more than anybody else in the production, and I’d like to think we’ll be lifelong friends.

This has been a very involved production. It’s more involved than anything I’ve ever done as an actor. I think the bonds and the friends are going to be lifelong friends.

We hear stories a lot about Band of Brothers from the producers, and they have all had quite a journey together since then but are all very much in contact with each other, and I think this will be no different.

- What kind of emotional toll does this take on you?

I try to leave my work at work, and check my work-baggage at the door before I go outside of here. I’m not a super method actor, and I think that all the answers are inside the script.

If there’s an emotionally trying day, I feel that at work. But when I leave here, I leave all of the emotion here. Talking about my work can sometimes be a little personal, so I try not to do it.

- How did you get started as an actor?

I grew up in a really small town in upstate New York, and when I was younger, my mom took me to see a production of Peter Pan when I was six and once I realized that those people on the stage were actors, and that Peter Pan was a fictional character and it was an actor playing him, I knew that I wanted to do that.

So, my parents got me involved in acting lessons, and when I was 12, this couple moved in from the city and started this theater company at a church that was literally four houses down from me. I just got very involved in theater, and I never looked back.

I went to theater school, and then after theater school I went out to L.A. and had some pretty lucky breaks. I was pretty much living out of my car, and then David Cronenberg cast me as one of the leads in The History of Violence, and that kind of changed everything for me. I was broke until that moment.

- Were you really living out of your car?

For about a week. I had just run of money and I had to move out of this place where I was renting a room from this guy in Hollywood.

I was sort of in between my car and my girlfriend’s apartment, so I could’ve stayed with her, but all my belongings were in my car - a 1986 Volvo that died two days after I got the role in History of Violence. The great thing about L.A. is that my life changed in literally an instant, and now I’m working for Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.

- Have Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks been inspirations to you?

Well, I’ve always admired both their work. I think Tom is one of the best actors of his generation, if not the best, and Steven Spielberg has changed the way movies are made, and he’s changed the visual look of cinema.

He’s a trend-setter, and he’s a groundbreaker; you can’t say enough about either of them. They are absolutely at the top of their game. They’re the kings of this medium so it’s an honor to be mentioned in the same sentence.

- Had you watched Band of Brothers before you got involved with this?

I actually hadn’t. I had heard a lot about it so I went out and bought the series and watched ‘The Making of’ and ‘Boot Camp’ on the DVD and when you watch it, they doctor it to make it look bearable and they show them laughing like they had fun. But believe me, they picked up on all the good parts, and left out all the bad!

- Is this the ultimate role for a young man, to play a soldier going to war?

What’s been really different about this process compared to other work I’ve done as an actor, is that you really don’t have to do so much acting in a war story. There are so many explosions, and the production designer has really done a great job of creating what the experience would actually be like in war.

As an actor in this, you just sort of have to open yourself up and experience it. You don’t have to do a lot of emoting, for lack of a better word, you just have to open yourself up to what’s around you.

I remember, early on in episode one, the director came up to us and said, 'Okay guys, you’re going to run across the field and there’s going to be a lot of explosions, so make sure you dodge and duck and react to them.'

And we did the first take, and we didn’t have to react to anything, because when there’s an explosion going off four feet from your head, you’re going to duck and respond to it naturally!

- How has shooting in Australia been?

We did the first half of the production up in the north of Queensland in Port Douglas, and it’s a beautiful country, but it’s too hot there!

Then we went to Melbourne for a little over three months, and I just love that city. It’s got a little bit of everything, like Australia’s version of New York City, so you can’t get any better than that.

The Pacific is out on DVD & Blu-Ray now.