David Strathairn

I think George just nailed the whole thing, the whole time period, the whole look and feel of what that newsroom was like. I did a lot of research for the role and believe me, it’s all pretty genuine, down to the very last cigarette butt.

In this film George presents issues that are important, essential and vital, whoever you are, about constitutional rights and the bedrock of a democracy. I am drawn to those kinds of stories because they inspire me – they are responsible to a populace and responsible to man.

When you’re creating a character out of nothing, you have to make all the guesses as to how they walk, how they talk, how they think. It was all there on the table for us to pick and choose for Murrow.

In order to crash the party and be a clown with your own skit, you had to be there for quite a while.

So much money and energy is expended making a film that I think it should be used for positive ends.

I checked out all types of tobacco trying to find one that would be easiest to live with, I ended up using pipe tobacco. It burned slower, and it wasn’t as harsh on my throat… It also smelled better.

You work enough with someone and you develop a shorthand. You know how he likes to work through the day and he knows where you’re vulnerable and where your weaknesses and strengths are, so it makes for a good team, a team that knows who’s over there behind your back.

Film is our literature, so we should tell stories that are apropos of our culture, in that we can learn something about ourselves.

Television and film are our libraries now. Our history books.

If anyone was talking about journalism in the ’50s – it was Edward R.Murrow.

I don’t think I could’ve carried the weight that Murrow carried.

It would be real nice to have some kind of bell or whistle attached to this film – it would give it a longer life. People seem to need that validation to go to a film these days.

There are biographies, I looked at a lot of photographs of him, I heard his voice over and over and over again. You get in there and get to know the man by all of those pieces of information.

It’s like a piece of music; you never lose sight of the theme. Each scene pushes off to the next like music builds and you can almost hear the next chord progression, so it has a strict structure, which is very compelling.

I think the film is beautifully realised. His legacy as a journalist was recorded – as it were – well, and certainly the important issues of the ’50s – or even today – are delivered and presented to the audience in a rather honest and objective way.

If it’s a role like this one, an actual live person, a legend, there’s lots of material laid out.