What was it like meeting John McLoughlin? How did you rehearse portraying him?
Nicolas Cage: I never met anyone who had been tested to the level that John McLoughlin had been tested on that day. I did go into those first initial meetings with some nervousness, but he put me at ease right away. He allowed me to videotape him and ask him literally thousands of questions about the experience. How he got through it? What he relied on-images of his family, Will Jimeno, keeping each other alive in prayer. It was enormously helpful. I really wanted to get it right. I didn’t want to let John McLoughlin down. I didn’t want to let Will down; I didn’t want to let the rescue team down, the families, and Oliver Stone. Without John McLoughlin’s help, it wouldn’t have happened. Beyond the opening scenes, you spend the entire film trapped underneath rubble. What was it like to be stationary for so long? Nicolas Cage: It was actually quite liberating. I’m a very kinetic actor. I like to move, but I was in that hole, boxed in like that. I didn’t have to think about movement. I was
