"Here’s looking at you, kid," was never in the "Casablanca" script, it was a Humphrey Bogart ad-lib. "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli," from Francis Ford Coppola’s "The Godfather" was a riff from the actor. On a lighter note, the iconic scene in "Pretty Woman" when Richard Gere snaps a jewelry box on Julia Roberts’s fingers was originally a practical joke.
It is spontaneity that Mike Rowe, podcaster, author, television host, and champion of the everyman, says he now understands after finishing his first movie, during which he placed in at the last minute something that becomes one of the most riveting parts of his history-themed documentary "Something to Stand For."
Rowe said his impromptu interview, a conversation really, with Andy Michael, a 91-year-old Korean War Veteran at the World War II Memorial in Washington, was never in the script, and it wasn’t even in the treatment for the film that dives into some of the most extraordinary events that took place behind the scenes in our country — from the American Revolution, Civil War, World War II, and the Civil Rights Movement, to today.
The film is full of larger-than-life stories that remind us that greatness begins with the least of us and that patriotism, even in our most flawed moments in history, is worth standing for. These are stories you have likely never heard. They are stories that make you see these men and women who shaped who we are today quite differently.
Rowe said he was standing in the World War II Memorial trying to collect his thoughts for a very specific, scripted stand-up he needed to do for the film when he noticed the veteran.
"The director had very thoughtfully put a nice X on the ground where I could hit my mark perfectly, the light was just so, and I was going to walk in, and I was going to say whatever I say, and we were going to check that box and move on to the next set-up," he said.
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