"This story has multiple points of view, and with Paul’s way of working, everybody’s argument is given space."

Irish-native Brendan Gleeson was asked by the filmmakers to portray Martin Brown, the CIA station chief to whom Roy Miller turns when he believes there is no one else he can trust.  Of the character, Greengrass laughs, "From my point of view, it’s good to have a CIA character that’s a good guy, after the Bourne movies."

The journalist who finds herself unknowingly serving as Poundstone’s mouthpiece is prominent Wall Street Journal writer Lawrie Dayne. Chosen to play the newswoman was performer Amy Ryan, introduced to many audiences in her much awarded breakout role in Gone Baby Gone. 

By the spring of 2003, Dayne has become an expert on the subject of chemical warfare and is embedded in the Green Zone, where she is unwittingly being fed stories by the duplicitous Poundstone. 

Greengrass encouraged flexibility in how his actors interpreted their roles, and Ryan had a specific take on Dayne.  The actress offers: "Lawrie spent the majority of her career writing about WMDs. 

"Now, she is in a situation in Iraq where she’s searching for answers to something she’s believed in her whole professional life.  This will be the biggest moment in Lawrie’s career, if she can be there when, and if, the WMDs are found."

Chosen to play Freddy, an unemployed Iraqi veteran who struggles with a prosthetic leg and a battered Toyota Corolla, was Khalid Abdalla. The actor, born in Scotland to Egyptian parents, first worked with Greengrass when he gave everything in the role of hijacker Ziad Jarrah in United 93. "The first time I heard about 93, I wanted nothing to do with it," Abdalla admits. 

"I heard it was a film about 9/11, and thought, ‘No, thank you.’  But then I found out it was Paul, and I saw Bloody Sunday and I met him. It was clear to me that he wanted to make a film in the right way, and that he was an extraordinary person I could trust. Working with Paul is like being on a volcanic island, and I absolutely love it."

By tipping Miller to the whereabouts of several high-level Baath Party members Miller has been seeking, Freddy sets the dominoes falling in Green Zone. "He’s one of many Iraqis who was happy to see Saddam gone and willing to trust, at the beginning, that things might get better," says Abdalla.
"Freddy is not quite an Iraqi everyman, but he’s a guy off the street, and the main Iraqi we follow in the film."

Freddy eventually becomes MET D translator for Miller’s men. Still, translating the highly technical terms and regional-specific lingo was a challenge for the fluent Arabic speaker. 

"The world that this film is situated in is very real," offers Abdalla. "You get to see Iraq in a way that most people haven’t. My advisor was brought up in Iraq and was in Baghdad for a good portion of the war, so stories have come to us through him in ways that we didn’t expect."

British performer Jason Isaacs came aboard the production as Lt. Col. Briggs, the Special Forces team leader who is out to rein in Miller. The actor appreciated the disciplined academic work that goes into a Greengrass film. 

"Paul’s films are meticulously researched," Isaacs reflects. "He has an incredible team around him who gave me a big package of documentary footage, YouTube clips, audio clips and books for my research. 

"Useful as that was, though, it didn’t compare to the human resources on set."

In Green Zone, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army (wiping the slate clean) is announced at a packed press conference by Kinnear as Poundstone.  Featured along with Ryan and dozens of extras playing journalists were Rajiv Chandrasekaran, as well as former CBS newsman and co-producer Michael Bronner. 

Both men had attended similar briefings in 2003, and they asked similar questions on screen.  Bronner, who had spent time in Iraq during the war while on assignment for CBS News/60 Minutes, joined the production to conduct research for Greengrass.  

"I sat through countless press briefings in the Green Zone," Chandrasekaran recalls. "Some of us copied an old nickname the Vietnam War press core used in Saigon the ‘five o’clock follies.’  The reality that the officials tried to convey from behind the podium in the Green Zone was very different than the reality outside its walls."

Bronner conducted the WMD research for Green Zone. "Every soldier I talked to who was part of these WMD search teams, and every CIA and DIA officer who flew in during the first wave, went in thinking there would be some kind of WMD," he recalls. 

"I don’t think they believed Saddam would nuke America any time soon, but even I thought he’d at least have some old chemical junk he’d hurl at the troops.  They were dumbstruck when they didn’t find it. 

"They had highly detailed intelligence in some cases, and it was wrong.  How do you have highly detailed intelligence that’s totally wrong?  That’s a strong mystery to motivate a character to keep pushing and try to figure it out."

Green Zone is out now.

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