1 of 4 | Brendan Fraser (L) and Andrew Scott star in "Pressure," in theaters on Friday. Photo courtesy of Focus Features
NEW YORK, May 25 (UPI) -- Oscar-winning actor Brendan Fraser says he sees U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the hero he plays in the new film, Pressure, as someone who genuinely cared about the men under his command.
In theaters Friday, the movie is based on David Haig's stage play, which takes place in the 72 hours before Eisenhower's planned D-Day invasion when the leader is suddenly faced with conflicting weather reports from two respected meteorologists and must decide who to listen to.
The memory of a recent disastrous training exercise that killed hundreds of American servicemen added to the stress Eisenhower was under at this critical juncture of World War II in 1944 France.
"He had a creed that was duty-bound and that was coupled with his intense concern for the well-being of those 300,000 troops that he commanded on that morning to attack a rainy beach that everyone knew would be a fight with bare knuckles against a chainsaw," Fraser, 57, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
