Adam Driver has made a name for himself as one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood. However, before becoming a famous actor, Driver served in the Marine Corps for several years. In a recent interview, the Logan Lucky star dispelled a common myth about military service and shared his experiences as a former serviceman.
Adam Driver joined the military after September 11
There are lots of actors who have put their acting careers on hold to serve their country. This was most noticeable during World War II, but it has happened in every war since then. One example is Driver, who joined the United States Marine Corps at 18 after the September 11 attack. The Marriage Story star served for over two years as a Mortar man with the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, before being medically discharged due to injuries sustained in a mountain biking accident.
Driver has talked a lot about his time in the Marines, saying that it was one of the proudest things he’s ever done. At a TED Talk he gave in 2015, the actor said, “I found I loved the Marine Corps the most for the thing I was looking for the least when I joined, which was the people — a weird motley crew of characters from a cross-section of the United States that on the surface I had nothing in common with.”
After leaving the military, Driver attended the Juilliard School in New York City, where he studied acting and began pursuing a career in theater and film.
Adam Driver debunks a myth about the military
In a recent interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, Driver confessed that his impression of the military before enlisting was heavily influenced by hypermasculine action heroes such as Schwarzenegger’s character in Predator. When he joined the Marine Corps, however, the San Diego native learned that this stereotype of the “aggressive” and emotionless soldier is, for the most part, false.
“Even the toughest guy, when you really come down to it, can be emotionally available,” he said. “The stereotype is that [soldiers] are inaccessible, that’s a total myth.”
Driver also learned throughout his time in the Marines that service members are, at their core, regular people, which he thinks is something non-service members often fail to grasp. He explained, “They’ve decided to do this heroic thing that they would not view as that. They have the same exact problems [as everyone else]. They’re just people in this extraordinary circumstance.”
The Oscar-nominated actor went on to explain that while civilians tend to look at military folks as these uber-disciplined types, they’re also capable of being emotional. For Driver, that’s why it’s even more important for there to be spaces for people post-deployment. “We live in an acronym-heavy world, but they are people like anyone else who have chosen to do this extraordinary job, and it’s hard for people not to look at them as a stereotype.” he said.
Who does the actor play in ’65’?
Driver is headlining his own version of a sci-fi survival action movie, 65. The film — co-directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods — follows Driver as Mills, an alien pilot whose spaceship crashes on a prehistoric Earth. With his ship’s cryogenically-frozen passengers dead, Mills must escape the planet before being devoured by hungry dinosaurs or obliterated by a climate-altering comet.
65 hit theatres on March 10, 2023. High-concept elements such as forest-based scene pieces, gigantic reptiles, and a heavily armed protagonist make the movie feel like a combination of Land of the Lost, First Blood, and Predator.
One Twitter fan who loved the film wrote, “Just saw #65movie in theaters — I really enjoyed this film! Adam Driver delivers a stellar physical performance in this sci-fi thriller adventure. I was on the edge of my seat the entire way through. The story is also surprisingly sincere and tragic — definitely recommend this one!”
Overall, 65 is an excellent addition to Driver’s body of work. And his experience as a former serviceman undoubtedly helped bring authenticity and nuance to the role.
