Paul Greengrass’s anxiety-inducing new disaster drama relives the devastating 2018 Camp fire in California, a day relived by its survivors here
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choolteacher Mary Ludwig gets goose bumps when she remembers the first time she met bus driver Kevin McKay. “I said, ‘Who the heck are you?’” she says via Zoom. “’Cause I knew all the bus drivers from field trips. He’s like, ‘I’m Kevin McKay.’ I said, ‘You’d better be good!’”
The pair were setting off on a terrifying, five-hour journey with nearly two dozen elementary school students as the Camp fire engulfed Paradise, California, in 2018. It was the start of a beautiful friendship. “That day I met a stranger and put my complete trust in that stranger and today we’re very close, lifelong friends,” Ludwig adds.
Their story is told in the film The Lost Bus, directed by Paul Greengrass and now streaming on Apple TV+. Matthew McConaughey plays McKay while America Ferrera co-stars as Ludwig, who went along for the ride expecting a straightforward drop-off at a nearby school only to be caught in an inferno.
