A House of Dynamite Cast Reacts To Ambiguous Ending

Warning: Major SPOILERS lie ahead for A House of Dynamite!Kathryn Bigelow’s return to the political thriller sphere ends on an ambiguous note in A House of Dynamite, and the cast have thoughts on what happens. Penned by Zero Day co-creator Noah Oppenheim, the film sees the United States discovering an intercontinental ballistic missile heading for the country, jumping between different branches of the government as they race to not only determine the origin of the missile, but the best course of action for how to respond.

Featuring an ensemble cast, including Idris Elba as the US President, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris and Tracy Letts, among others, A House of Dynamite‘s ending takes a major turn as it doesn’t reveal whether the missile successfully hits its target of Chicago. Furthermore, the film also doesn’t properly reveal whether the President, conflicted about the speed at which everything is escalating, decides to hold back or retaliate on a country he’s unsure of being innocent or guilty.

In honor of the movie’s release, ScreenRant‘s Liam Crowley interviewed Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos and Jason Clarke to discuss A House of Dynamite. The group were all asked their thoughts on the film’s ambiguous ending, with one of the final shots being that of various high-ranking government personnel, including Greta Lee’s Anna Park and Moses Ingram’s Cathy Rogers, rushing to get into a Pennsylvania shelter before the missile makes impact.

In reflecting on her character’s perspective of the ending, Ferguson actually called the ending’s ambiguity “one of the most amazing things” about the film, and admitted that “it’s so hard to see how everything ended out“. She also went on to point out that, in the movie’s story, “we don’t have good people or bad people“, but instead “very highly trained” people who have a difficult time determining the right decision in the same way the President does. “I think that’s the conversation that we’re hoping to spark,” Ferguson concluded with.

Elba similarly found it “hard to say” whether his President chose to retaliate or aim for a more peaceful solution. Opining that his character “would probably have kept the world in focus“, and therefore feel open to letting the missile hit, Elba also said he and director Kathryn Bigelow didn’t discuss it in depth, something Ferguson also appreciated:

Idris Elba: Unfortunately, it is the sacrifice of having 10 million people die versus the entire planet would’ve probably been his decision. But I don’t know. I don’t know. We didn’t want to know the answer.

Rebecca Ferguson: And I think this is the thing that Kathryn keeps saying, “Is this the way to keep peace? Is a nuclear weapon the decision? Is that how we retaliate? Is it the fact that we should communicate the fact that we need to deescalate the nuclear warheads that we have around the world?” I mean, it’s absurdity that we think keeping peace is by nuclear weapons and nuclear war.

For Harris, who stars in the film as Secretary of Defense Reid Baker, he also found that the movie’s ambiguous ending “is the point“ of the central message of it. Saying the aim is to “provoke conversations“, the two-time Emmy nominee pointed out that audiences would shrug off the film as “a really intense ride” and turn to other topics if it “had tied it up with a nice bow“:

Jared Harris: But the fact that they’ve left that over to you to end the movie the way that you want to end the film in your own mind is the reason why there are conversations afterwards.

As for his take on what the President ultimately decided in the end, Harris described how “the pressure’s building on him” in A House of Dynamite‘s ending, particularly as the film frequently points out that “other countries have seen that one of [the US’] interceptor missiles has malfunctioned“, thus creating “an opportunity to take advantage of this“:

Jared Harris: It’s part of the idea that there’s a sort of inevitability towards conflict once one of these things start. Which, by the way, is not untrue. There have been times when we’ve narrowly avoided a full-on nuclear-scale outbreak. It isn’t fanciful that something like this could spark this inevitable cascade of events.

Ramos is introduced in the movie’s opening moments as Major Daniel Gonzalez, commander of the Alaskan Fort Greely and responsible for detecting incoming threats and utilizing said interceptor missiles to destroy them. Seen pushed to the emotional limit as the interceptor missiles fail, the movie closes with a shot of Gonzalez on his knees outside the base in despair as the sun dims in the sky behind him.

Reflecting on his journey, Ramos explains that Gonzalez is “sick to his stomach” in A House of Dynamite‘s ending, due to a combination of feeling as though “he let his country down“, as well as being “responsible for the deaths of millions of people“, as the projections indicate upward of 10 million deaths with a Chicago target. The Emmy nominee described his approach to the scene as focusing on the questions, “How do you reconcile with that?” and “How do you deal with that?“, making for the heartbreaking conclusion:

Anthony Ramos: And then, at the same time, they know that they did everything they could. It’s not like there was something else they could have done. The GBI didn’t work; the plan didn’t work; the thing we’ve trained tirelessly for failed. And now a city is going to be obliterated.

One thing that A House of Dynamite frequently brings up is the possibility that the missile may not explode upon landing, with everything from the impact to various technical mechanics leaving a slight chance that it malfunctions. Ramos acknowledges “it could” still have exploded in the movie’s ending, but says Gonzales is “not thinking it malfunctions” and instead can only see the situation as “we failed“:

Anthony Ramos: I’m sure he hopes that the missile doesn’t successfully do what it was intended to do, but he is just in disbelief. There’s guilt, and there’s shame, and there’s deep sadness. I think all of that went into that moment.

Idris Elba’s First In-Person Scene Was Largely Unscripted

ScreenRant: During the moment in the third act when we get to meet your character in person for the first time, and he’s shooting a basketball around with the kids, when he takes his jump shot, he’s buttoned up with his suit, but when he is talking to the individual kids, the button is undone. We don’t see you on screen actually physically undo the button. But I look at that and I see a little bit of a difference between who he is professionally and who he is personally. Was that intentional? And even if it wasn’t, talk to me about the dichotomy of who your president is professionally versus personally.

Idris Elba: Good observation. Because, no, it wasn’t done intentionally. What I can say is that it was done for real. In other words, I walked in there, the crowd didn’t know I, Idris, was coming. They knew someone was coming, and they knew it was the President of the United States, but they didn’t know it was me. And so as we walked in there, seven cameras going, that reaction, that cadence of events, me talking to the young girls was not —

Rebecca Ferguson: It’s you.

Idris Elba: It wasn’t scripted. It was sort of like, this is what happens. And so, for me, it was really interesting to be able to bring, I guess, a little personality into my President, who he is. Kathryn wanted this segment of the film to be anchored on a human being. This is a President that essentially is a civil servant, working class, civil servant, got to the top job. So he’s as real as it comes.

And his jump shot might’ve been messy, or it might’ve been whatever it was, but it was anchored on trying to be a real human being. I mean, I hope that answers your question. And I think that this segment of the film, because the audience has gone through it twice, needs to have someone that’s a little bit relatable. Someone that they can sort of look at, search their eyes and wonder what decision they’re going to make. Maybe even find a little bit of themselves in that person.

There Were So Many Cameras Filming At Once That Harris & Letts Were Surprised At What Was Used

ScreenRant: I love the fact that it’s told in this three-act structure that’s cyclical. We’re seeing the same events three times over with different perspectives. As actors, did you shoot your scenes one time through and have different camera angles? Or, depending on which stage of the production we’re in, did little things change based on who was telling the story?

Jared Harris: I find it was that second one. I had to figure out where in my journey I was. I was tuning into what was happening in STRATCOM because we hadn’t got to that; we hadn’t done my bit. That comes more in the third act, if you like, but there’s still parts of it that exist in the first and second act. I’m trying to figure out what that journey is because, at some point, [my character]’s not paying attention to what’s happening in the STRATCOM world. His focus has gone elsewhere, and I’m trying to figure out where we were in that journey.

Tracy Letts: I don’t know. I don’t know what they used from what we shot. I can’t tell you. There were so many cameras on me. I don’t have a memory of, “Oh, that was this take,” or “This was that day.” It’s all lost.

Jared Harris: I did notice one bit. I noticed a slight difference of a choice that was made, but if no one else does, that’s good. I’m not giving myself away.

ScreenRant: You two are both playing fictional roles, but roles that exist here in the real world. What did that preparation process look like, to get into the psyches of these professions and ensure you were approximating an accurate real-world response to a situation like this?

Jared Harris: A lot of that was taken care of in the script initially. There was a lot of research that Noah [Oppeheim] put into it. We had two generals who spent their careers in STRATCOM, who were there to advise us and help us with procedural things, like how the chain of command works, how much talk back is allowed, and stuff like that. For me, it was trying to figure out what a normal day looks like. Because the abnormal day? That part takes care of itself.

Tracy Letts: I didn’t do a lot of research going in, but those technical advisors on the set were really helpful to me. And so much of it was on the page. The dramaturgy is on the page, and so much of it is process-oriented. What is our job? What are we there to do? These guys in STRATCOM, they drill these scenarios every day, so much of it is supposed to be second nature. “This is the way we’re supposed to do this.”

ScreenRant: There are a lot of handheld shots in this film, which I thought really communicated the unpredictability, tension, and panic in the Situation Room. How did the camera work in this film influence what was on the page?

Tracy Letts: Barry Ackroyd is a great cinematographer. The two directors you think of when you think of Barry Ackroyd are Ken Loach and Kathryn Bigelow. Their interests and aesthetics couldn’t be much more different, but Barry has a knack for it. He takes that camera and goes onto the set and, like a documentarian, he’s looking for a moment. He’s looking for truth. He’s trying to see inside the scripted moment. That’s why he’s one of the greats.

Jared Harris: Yeah, they found you, rather than you trying to figure out which camera you’re going to pitch it to. There’s quite a few in there at one time, so they would just find you.

Clarke & Ramos Pulled As Much Information As Possible From The Real Government Consultants On Set

ScreenRant: You guys both play professions that exist in the real world, and I imagine that you want to uphold the realistic response to a crisis like this. What did the preparation process look like for both of you going into this film?

Jason Clarke: You want to do your job. That’s first and foremost. We speak to the dudes, don’t we?

Anthony Ramos: Yeah. Thankfully, we had a lot of help. We had people on set who did these jobs, who worked in STRATCOM.

Jason Clarke: One guy ran Obama’s situation room. We had enough there, but we played military guys. Clearly, they do their job, and that was the great reminder. And then, as it breaks down and gets more and more stressful, you see more and more of the people behind them. That’s a great realization and understanding too. It brings in empathy, but you need them to do their job.

Anthony Ramos: The best thing was just getting into their minds; getting into their head about, like, “Hey, how would you actually react to this?” If somebody wanted to cry here, would they actually cry? One of them said, “No, there’d be none of that in the room.”

Jason Clarke: Take it outside.

Anthony Ramos: You’d have to go outside, let that out, and then come back in and get it together. It was just great having them there.

ScreenRant: This film starts out as such a normal day in these occupations, and it’s immediately flipped on its head when the crisis begins. Anthony, Major Gonzalez starts the day off pretty frustrated. Can you talk to me about the dangers of starting a workday with that kind of headspace?

Anthony Ramos: It affects your decision-making. Sometimes, when we’re flustered and something is going on in our personal lives, we’ve got to go back to work. You just broke up with somebody, or you just found out someone’s going to jail, something crazy right is happening to you that’s super intense.

Jason Clarke: Somebody ate your Doritos.

Anthony Ramos: Yeah, someone ate your chips! You’re stressed out about something already, and now you’re coming into your workspace, and you’ve got to try to let that go. Especially when an alert goes off and a missile’s coming. “Alright, this has happened before. We’ve been through this.” But now you realizing, “Wait, it’s not falling anywhere. It’s flattening.” Everything you were going through has to go away. Everything that just happened to you, everything you’re worried about in your past and everything you’re worried about in your future, all goes away. The only thing you’re locked in on is that. The reality of somebody having to come into their job and lock in? That is a really special thing that not a lot of people can do.

ScreenRant: Jason, you’re no stranger to these types of real-world situations in your filmography. Zero Dark Thirty and Oppenheimer are direct recollections of moments that have happened in history. This is obviously a fictional interpretation, but I’d love to know if you took anything that you learned from your experience on Oppenheimer into this project.

Jason Clarke: Yeah, it’s incredible. There are a lot of similarities, and yet they’re completely different films, aren’t they? By two of the greatest filmmakers that exist currently. I love both of them, and they take us deeper down the rabbit hole. Kathryn’s film has swung it around, I feel, more and put it back onto the audience. She’s given it back to you. You’ve seen that they’re having a tough day, but there is a system in place. Is it a perfect system? No, but there’s a document now. There’s this thing that we have developed and, for my money, Kathryn’s film brings the audience closer into the reality and the simplicity of it.

The fact is, it’s not going to happen the way we think it’s going to happen. It’s not going to come in the direction or the place or the space. It doesn’t matter if there’s a good guy or a bad guy, or a right or a wrong, or a moral equation. The President’s got to decide how many is acceptable? How many is not acceptable? Should we just take it and end it at that? It’s remarkable that these two films have come out in such a close [timeframe], and the fact that I was part of both of them is remarkable. I feel like I’m in something that’s going to stand the test of time. Knock on wood.