Interview: Beulah Koale on His Audition for Thank You for Your Service

Jason Hall’s directorial debut, Thank You For Your Service takes a gripping look at how young men and women who serve their country are put through the trauma of war, in grave risk of sacrificing their lives, and are then expected to return home to normal life. Hall explores the journey back to normalcy and examines how three young soldiers deal with the emotional battle that combat battle left them fighting. The men attempt to seek help through the Veterans Administration, but as we know, we don’t always take the best care of our soldiers who have fought for this country, and Hall shows that reality.

Hall was first introduced to David Finkel’s book by Steven Spielberg. He cast Miles Teller, Scott Haze and Beulah Koale to play the three soldiers. Koale and I recently sat down to talk about how he was chosen from 1500 candidates to play the role of Solo, the broken soldier who battles with the dark side of PTSD. Koale reveals he used his own personal demons to help tap into the heart of his character and how speaking to the real Solo helped him with his performance.

I was just talking to your man Jason Hall a moment ago and I hear you have an interesting audition story.

Jason auditioned 1500 people to try to find me and he found me at the bottom of the world in little old New Zealand. There was a struggle to find Solo and he went to the powers that be and told them he had found this kid from New Zealand. They thought he was crazy because nobody knew who I was, but Jason knew in his gut. He wanted a Samoan to play the role, there’s something we bring to our culture, this uniqueness and he fought for me.

I did some chemistry tests with Miles Teller and I hit it off with Jason. I’m not a trained actor and I used my life experience as a tool to my craft to bring out what I needed to bring to the role and I got the job.

And here we are talking about it.

I know.

Solo is going through a very dark experience with the PTSD. You mentioned you used your own life experiences to show us that?

I’m not a trained actor. No one has given me rules on what to do and what not to do. I told myself I’d watch every military movie, read a bunch of books, read about these soldiers. I’m just this kid from New Zealand where the military isn’t embedded in the culture. Everyone in America knows someone or has someone in the military, and our military is so small that it’s not the case. I had a lot to catch up on.

I read Solo’s story and mixed it with research. I also talked to therapists about what war does to the brain and the body. The most important thing was allowing myself to bring out my own demons. It took me a while because it’s not normal for any human being to enter the darkest periods of their lives for four months. It’s tough to do it for an hour. I told myself and talked to Jason about it, I asked him if he would help me keep it together because as a kid I’ve been through a lot and he said he had my back. He walked me through everything.

What was it like at the end of the day on set and then going home?

When I play characters like that, I’d shower it all away and the character gets washed away. Two weeks into the shoot, I’d be getting up at 4 a.m. and putting that coat of darkness on and it was tough to keep washing it off. Mark, our military adviser assured me they’d keep me safe and so I kept that coat on.

It did take me a few months to shake it off. I was looking for weapons and watching movements and suspicious behavior.

We went to boot camp and it was tough. We got beaten but it was how we trained, and one person said to us that the uniform we were wearing had hundreds of years of blood on it. I made the decision to honor the men and women fighting for the country, out there in active battle, as well as the people who have died in combat.

You got to sit down and talk with Adam and Solo which is always a useful experience. What did Solo tell you?

He’s sitting right there and he’s my brother. We had beers with Miles. It took a while to get something out of him,. Jason couldn’t even get stories from him, he was writing information based on the book. It took a few conversations to bond with him, my longest conversation was 30 seconds and I was struggling and I really needed some help.

I told him about my life, talking for thirty minutes, and he finally opened up and talked for over two hours. It’s more than what’s in the book. He went from wanting nothing to do with the film to wanting to fly down and help me craft my character. I look at him as my brother.

What was it like shooting the film?

The entire film was tough. I remember Miles and I were flying back from Morocco and we were eating and we still hadn’t shaken the film off and admitted how the film had wrecked us. The whole process of carrying the weight of these men who represent so many men and women who are fighting and have fought, we wanted to honor them. We made that conscious decision to keep carrying them.

The scenes were a release for us, releasing the anxiety that was in us.

There’s a scene when you are in the Veterans Administration office and you see how the country sometimes fails to take care of our soldiers.

More needs to be done for the men and women who fight for the country. The film shows that it’s not all glamorous. Sometimes the system doesn’t look after you and more needs to be done for these people. We need to give them what they need and that’s something I really believe in.

You started out in theater?

I did. I was a jock in school and played sports. I discovered theater and a drama club and it was something I really enjoyed. My favorite form of acting is live theater because there’s nothing more rewarding than a live performance.