America’s 250th anniversary is opening the pages of our country’s rich history and revealing untold stories. One of those stories is now a major motion picture. “Pressure” is the dramatic true story of why D-Day didn’t happen as originally planned on June 5th, 1944.
The film brings the World War II event to life. It shows the intense 72 hours before D-Day and its delay. It was the fateful weekend before the deployment of 300,000 troops in the face of inclement weather.
Actor Brendan Fraser leads the cast in the role of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Fraser told CBN News’ Studio 5 what his greatest pressures were playing this role.
Fraser said, “I guess the pressure was to make sure that I had a working knowledge of his history, that he did graduate West Point with aspirations to fight in the first World War. I felt disappointed that it had concluded before he could. He was a soldier who lived the next 40 years never having fired a shot in anger or was fired at in anger. He was consistently promoted as an excellent strategist, as a diplomat, and for showing excellent leadership skills. And what does it mean to have that? I think the pressure was that I needed to be like Ike.”
Fraser went on to say, “They had to have been fraught with not just hand ringing and chain cigarette smoking, coffee, and sweating and raised voices and prayer and disillusionment and sleeplessness and one can only imagine what that was like, which is what we’ve done is give the audience an imagining of what those conversations be with the full knowledge of history as we have it and to put the two together.”
“The attack was meant to be for a Monday, and it needed to be delayed to the Tuesday because bad weather was rolling. And up until then, meteorology was largely looking out the window, and relying on analog reports and saying, ‘Hey, didn’t rain or snow in 1888 on this day, so it will be fine’,” he continued.
Actor Andrew Scott plays the real-life Royal Air Force meteorologist James Stagg. Stagg advises General Eisenhower in the face of fierce opposition.
Scott says, “It’s about the weather in some ways, but it’s also about integrity and humility in some ways because no matter how much power or control we believe we have, we are all at the mercy of nature and the weather.”
“I think he was a really humble person, and I think he had great passion for his subject. And so, he didn’t really need to be the big I am. He had a great expertise and a great respect for all the work. He was pretty formidable as a person.”
Faith is also at the heart of this rarely told story.
Describing Eisenhower, Fraser told CBN News’ Studio 5, “He was a man of faith, for sure. And I know that it wasn’t just the ritual of going to church and prayer. It was knowing that he knew that we’re fallible as humans. We do shake our fist at the sky and wonder why. He did know that we can only keep trying and what we must do is believe in one another. If I am to suppose an accurate answer, it would be that the faith that he had in his beliefs was rivaled only by the faith he had in his troops.”
Fraser said, “This film exists as a testament now to remind us not only what was at stake at that time but remind us of what leadership looked like then and the reason why we went to war at all in the first place.”
“Pressure” is in theaters nationwide.
