Brendan Fraser is feeling under Pressure

History remembers D-Day as one of the defining military operations of World War 2. What it tends to forget is that the fate of the Allied invasion of Normandy rested, inconveniently, on the weather forecast — and on one man’s willingness to believe it.

In Pressure, Oscar-winning actor Brendan Fraser takes on the role of Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower, the American military commander who made one of the most consequential decisions of the war.

Directed by Anthony Maras and based on David Haig’s stage play, the film unfolds over the nerve-racking 72 hours preceding the June 1944 invasion. Andrew Scott plays British meteorologist James Stagg, whose prediction of violent storms threatens to derail an operation involving thousands of troops, ships and aircraft.

With conflicting forecasts, impatient generals and the possibility of catastrophic losses, Eisenhower must decide whether to postpone the invasion or proceed as planned. Neither option offers comfort.

Fraser brings humanity and vulnerability to a man history tends to remember as an imposing military figure, exploring the extraordinary burden of leadership when every decision carries potentially devastating consequences.

We spoke to Fraser about stepping into Eisenhower’s shoes, the responsibility of portraying a historical figure and the very human fears behind one of history’s most momentous decisions.

I’m Brendan Fraser. I play Dwight Eisenhower, “Ike”, in the film Pressure.

On the historical figure of Eisenhower

Eisenhower wasn’t a glory hound in my understanding of who he was. He had an ability to hear everyone out. He was fallible. He didn’t always make the correct decisions, but when he made a mistake, he owned it.

He wanted to do and make choices that were in the interests of what was fundamentally the best thing to do, ethically and morally. He was duty bound — a career soldier. He went on to become a five-star general and one of the most popular US presidents ever. I grew to be a real fan of the guy. I didn’t expect that that would happen.

On Eisenhower’s responsibilities

He had written letters, famous ones, two of them: One was in the event of success and one was in the event of failure. In the event of success, he thanked the troops for their service and accomplishment and said, “We’re just getting started, basically.” In the case of failure, he took responsibility and said, “If there’s any reason this didn’t succeed, the fault is mine and mine alone.”

On the pressure Eisenhower faced

The pressure that came with it was from the top. It was from below. It was from the soldiers in his command, the leaders he needed to please, the president, [British prime minister Winston] Churchill.

The very fact that the fate of humanity hung in the balance of how they performed in the next 72 hours.

On the conflict between staff and Eisenhower

James Stagg [the chief meteorologist for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) during World War 2, working Eisenhower leading up to the Normandy landings] and Eisenhower collided in this film. Their ideologies conflicted.

There were hurt feelings as a result of their dialogues, but we also saw that there was great respect that they grew to have for one another by the stories end.

On Eisenhower’s humanity

Stagg had to appeal to Eisenhower’s sense of humanity because he knew that Eisenhower cared about his troops. He wasn’t among those in the Joint Chiefs of Staffs who had more sociopathic tendencies about sacrificing waves of men to get boots on the beach. There’s a metric that involves bringing about five times as many of everything that they needed, five times as many soldiers, bullets, meals, everything, accounting for the redundancies and the losses that they’d suffer, but in order to succeed in the mission, there was enough gear and effort to prevail. That meant accepting the collateral effects of loss of life, which punished Eisenhower immensely. The disaster of Operation Tiger meant a loss of soldiers that reminded him of his own sons. They were all his sons as far as he was concerned. Stagg appealed to him that way.

On working with Anthony Maras

Anthony has that intrepid spirit of Australian filmmaker, a fearlessness, with rapid fire history questions and answers at his disposal.

On the film’s close-up portrayal of the GIs

This isn’t just a film about Ike Eisenhower or this Stagg character. We see the men and boys, the soldiers. We follow a core group of them and we see their challenges and successes, their fate over the course of the story. The film isn’t just about what’s going on in the corridors of power and behind closed doors.

On the analogue methods of predicting the weather

Weather prediction in 1944 was a combination of the analogues, records and taking measurements with weather balloons that had transponders in them, triangulating the height they went to and whether they blew off course. It was mercurial but it was the only way to obtain data. There were weather ships that were stationed off Nova Scotia in the North Atlantic, which were easy prey for U-boats. Air force flights sent information like, what’s the weather like on the Isle of Man? It ushered in a period of codifying the methods and improving on them because the information was so important.

On his research for playing Eisenhower

I got access to the archives for about three hours, to specific documents. The entire operation from cover to cover was as thick as a Hollywood script on paper. I could see the staple marks, a little rusty in the corner. The top secret, classified document gave minute details about what it would take to succeed and to not succeed, written in military jargon. It gave the role gravity — to feel the weight of responsibility of playing this character.

On how the costumes helped him get into character

Uniforms give posture and discipline to the way military people dress. Everyone automatically knew the rank and file of person depending on what feathers they were flying, what patches they had, what colours they wore. My vanity as an actor was indulged in the sense that it gave me a strong feeling of confidence to be dressed appropriately.

On the authenticity of Daniel Taylor’s production design

Taylor’s work as the production designer was specific, down to the colour of the ink and the shape of the nib on the pens that they used. The detail was all there. The look of the period was built in. The phones had red plastic or green plastic, one was a hot wire hotline to the White House.