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A CHANNEL24 SPECIAL FEATURE
On 16 October, Channel24 flew to Hawaii to speak to the director and cast of the much-anticipated war film, Midway. Here Bashiera Parker sits down with Dennis Quaid and Patrick Wilson to talk about their characters' roles in the epic battle, which marked a turning point in World War II.
Cape Town – When I sat down with Patrick Wilson and Dennis Quaid in beautiful Hawaii, we immediately started talking about the beauty back home. "How's South Africa?" Dennis asked, casually. "Cape Town, I've been there. I love Cape Town. I climbed the mountain. I did it in 45 minutes."
We started talking about Midway and Dennis reflected on what it was like playing characters he'd grown up hearing stories about. "It was legend to us," he said. "To play 'Bull' Halsey was an honour."
Patrick Wilson plays Edwin Layton, a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy, whose job during the war was to interpret intelligence information for military strategy. He was part of the team that cracked the code and figured out Japan's next attack was on Midway, which allowed the military men to prepare and plan for the strike. He felt a great responsibility after the attack on Pearl Harbour, but that was one of the reasons Patrick said he so admired the hero who died in 1984.
"That's really admirable for me to a guy that was not going to be out there fighting it, but he wanted to give his soldiers, his seamen, advice and knowledge. And he knew that when he failed and he couldn't," Patrick said, talking about the bombing of Pearl Harbour, "he wore those scars.
"So he spent much of his life trying to do everything that he could to not let that happen again."
Scroll up to see the full interview above.
Midway will be in SA cinemas on 27 December.
