385: The Legend of Bagger Vance with Stephen Pressfield

Dan LeFebvre
00:01
Hello, and welcome to Based on a True Story, the podcast that compares your favorite Hollywood movies with history. Today, we’ll be learning about 2000’s The Legend of Bagger Vance. And as we always do, just in case it’s been a while since you’ve seen the movie, let’s get a refresher by kicking this off with a quick synopsis. The Legend of Bagger Vance is directed by Robert Redford, and it unfolds in Depression-era Savannah, Georgia. Matt Damon’s character, Ranulf Juna, is a talented golfer and a warrior traumatized by World War I. He returns home, a broken man, haunted by comrades, and his golfing career is all but gone. His former love, Charlize Theron’s version of Adele Invergordon, inherits her family’s failing golf resort, and in an attempt to save it, she organizes a high-stakes exhibition match between golfing legends Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. And then to help gain hometown support, she insists on including Juna as a third player. Reluctantly agreeing, Juna practices alone at night until a mysterious caddy named Bagger Vance appears, offering enigmatic wisdom drawn from ancient truths. Bagger Vance is played by Will Smith in the movie. With young admirer Hardy Greaves assisting, Bagger coaches Juna to rediscover his swing amid flashbacks and personal demons. As the match unfolds over two days, Juna surges from last place and has a rekindled romance with Adele. There’s a critical error that triggers war horrors for Juna, but Bagger’s guidance prevails. And then Bagger vanishes mysteriously as Juna finds redemption. And at the end of the movie, the kid who was helping out, Hardy Greaves, is now an elderly man who suffers a heart attack on the course when an ageless Bagger beckons him onward. Helping us unravel the true story behind the movie, I’m super excited to be joined by none other than Steven Pressfield himself. Back in 1995, Steven Pressfield published the historical novel called The Legend of Bagger Vance, and that was adapted into the 2000 movie we’re talking about today. So we’ll get to go behind the scenes, not only on the historical accuracy of the movie, but also his thought process on writing historical novels and how authors can use history to help tell stories. Speaking of historical novels, Stephen’s latest book is called The Arcadian. It was just published a couple days ago. I got to read an advanced copy, and while I’m sure many of you listening right now are already familiar with Stephen’s work, For anyone who hasn’t read Stephen’s historical novels, you’re missing out. He is a legend when it comes to historical novels, and The Arcadian is just as good as you would expect it to be. I’ve got a link to that in the show notes for you to pick up your own copy right now. Okay, let’s set up our game for today. Now, if you’re new to the show, since Based on a True Story is all about separating fact from fiction in the movies, you’ll get to practice your skills at separating fact from fiction in this podcast episode with a game of two truths and a lie. So I’m about to give you three little facts that we’ll talk about in this episode. Two of those are true, and one of them is just an all-out lie. Are you ready? Okay, here they are. Number one, Stephen also served as the historical consultant throughout the film’s production. Number two, the storyline is based on the Bhagavad Gita. Number three, Morgan Freeman was an early casting idea for Bagger Vance. Got him? Okay, now as you’re listening to our story today, see if you can figure out which one of those is a lie. And if you’re watching the video version of this, you can see I’m holding up an envelope. This has the answer inside, so we’ll open that up at the end of the episode to see if you got it right. And now, it’s time to connect with Steven Pressfield about the 2000 movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance. As longtime fans of Based on a True Story know, I normally like to kick off each episode with a historical letter grade to get a sense for how well a movie adheres to history. But I’d like to change the letter grade a little bit today because today we’re talking about 2000’s The Legend of Bagger Vance. That movie was based on your historical novel of the same name from 1995. And I think we’ve all read a book and then we watched the movie adaptation and maybe that one location look different than you imagined, or maybe that character’s personality isn’t quite like you thought it would be when you read the book. And I’m sure you also had a picture in your mind while you were researching and writing the book years before it was ever turned into a movie. So if you were to give the movie a letter grade for how well it captured what you had in your mind

Steven Pressfield
04:30
while you were writing The Legend of Bagger Vance, what would it get? C plus. C plus. Yeah. Okay. That being said, Dan, let me say one thing. If you’re a writer and you write a book and it gets made into a book and you catch the check, you have no basis for complaint. We’re all very lucky to get anything made as a movie. So I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to answer your question as suitably as I can.

Dan LeFebvre
04:59
Well, let’s start digging into some of the different elements of the movie. First up, we have the characters. Will Smith plays the character, the title, Bagger Vance. And according to the movie, Vance seems to just appear one night. He caddies for Captain Ronalph Juna, who we will talk about in a moment. And then at the end of the movie, Vance disappears just as mysteriously as he appeared. Was the character of Bagger Vance based on anyone from history?

Steven Pressfield
05:28
The whole story, The Legend of Bagger Vance, is based on the Hindu scripture, Bhagavad Gita, which tells the story of the troubled warrior Arjuna, who received spiritual instruction from his charioteer, who is Krishna, i.e. God in human form. So I just kind of lifted that structure and made it instead of a troubled warrior, a troubled golf champion, And instead of his charioteer, it’s his caddy. So that’s the sort of historical background of that. So the actual Bagger Vance character in the movie was quite different from a Will Smith character. I mean, the Bagger Vance character in the book was quite different from Will Smith. That became sort of a casting decision. Like the original thought was someone like Morgan Freeman that was an older, wiser, you know, he’s played God in a couple of other books. But the way it turned out apparently was Morgan Freeman didn’t have enough box office horsepower according to the, you know, whatever that score they give you. And at that time, Will Smith was the number one box office star in the world, coming off of Bad Boys and a few other things. And I think Men in Black had come down. I’m not sure. Maybe not. In any event, it was a casting decision based on box office predictions. And it really was, in my view, fatal to the movie with this really wrong casting. and but in any event that’s that’s how that’s that’s that’s part of the store yeah no that’s

Dan LeFebvre
07:20
that’s fascinating and it tells that’s that’s a one reason why i ask about the kind of the ballpark to begin with because there’s decisions like that in the movie that you’re not going to have in the book and so there’s these differences and how much it can change the outcome of a movie just

Steven Pressfield
07:35
yeah through who plays the characters yeah based on things like budget and casting changes everything

Dan LeFebvre
07:40
Yeah. Well, speaking of Juna, that’s Matt Damon’s character in the movie. And in contrast to Bagger Vance, the movie shows a little bit more backstory for him. He’s a golfer turned World War I vet from Savannah, who then is tapped to play in this huge exhibition game as kind of the hometown hero by the Savannah residents. Was Juna based on any real World War I vets from Savannah? No, no. I mean,

Steven Pressfield
08:05
he was based on the great warrior Arjuna in the Bhagavad Bia. And the movie was quite faithful to the book in that opening setup. You know, that, yeah. I’m probably going to jump ahead. But speaking of based on a true story, there was two other contesters in the golf match or the movie were Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, who are true historical characters. Bobby Jones being one of the greatest, both of them being two of the greatest golfers ever. True to that era, that was their era. And they actually did play, the two of them, not Uta Juna. They played an exhibition match in that same period of time. Actually, a 72-hole match of two different places in Florida. And it was a big event at the time. And so I borrowed that from True Life. and it inserted the third character from Savannah. And that was how that whole concept of that match turned up.

Dan LeFebvre
09:13
Okay. Okay, so when you’re trying to integrate Juna from the Bhagavad Gita into this actual part of history, where did being a World War I vet and that element of that come into it? Was that something that was just because of the timeline?

Steven Pressfield
09:31
No, that’s a great question. And here’s the story. In the Bhagavad Gita, in the scripture, it takes place at an ancient battlefield. And the two armies are lined up across from each other, chariots and all that sort of thing. And the great warrior Arjunic was here in his chariot, witness charioteer Krishna. And he looks across to the other side of the battlefield, and he sees men that he knows, other warriors that he knows and that he respects. And he says to his charioteer, I don’t want to fight this battle. In fact, he says, drive my chariot out between the two armies and stop. And at that point, he lays down his wetness and he says, I’m not going to take part in this bat. So he’s kind of a warrior that’s sort of seeing too much of killing Vessere. So in the book, I’m going to be sure if this was in the movie, in the book, the day of the golf match, Juna, the Matt Damon character, says, drive my car out in between the two where the battle to, and he takes his golf clubs and he throws them down and he says, I’m not going to play in this match. this magical bogus you know exhibition it’s not true to spirit i’m not going to play it anymore and uh so that’s so i just basically lifted that from a bhagavad-vidha translated into that in the gita our krishna i.e god in human form starts to lecture arjuna the warrior and he says pick up your sword, pick up your bow, you’re going to get out there and fight. And he tells him this is his role as a warrior. And then from there, he gets into deeper spiritual concepts like karma, previous lives, past lives, duality, non-duality, yoga, all kinds of stuff. So I was hoping, that was my hope in the book that the caddy bagger vance would kind of give the troubled warrior uh a lesson in spirituality so that was what the uh one of my complaints for the bookie i know i’m not like i said not allowed to complain was the book really got into some uh spiritual concepts that the movie had to clap and i think they made they made a decision that it was i don’t know too wrong or maybe they thought that the audience wouldn’t follow them into those areas but i thought when i saw the movie oh boy they really missed you know a big element of the store so anyway i hope did they i know there’s a lot of times you know there’s historical consultants and they’ll

Dan LeFebvre
12:29
reach out to the author was that something that you tried to get across to them that was it sounds like an extremely pivotal part of the story for them to leave out i tried but it but it

Steven Pressfield
12:41
I mean, the way, as you know how the moody business works, once a director comes on board, in this case, by the redshirt, it becomes his movie. And he, like the first thing that happened was they fired me as any kind of a writer or screenwriter. And Redford brought a Jeremy Levin as a screenwriter, who was a really good writer, wrote Don Juan DeMarco movie with Johnny Depp and a lot of others. And he wrote the script really too, because it’s now Redford’s movie. So he’s going to decide what he’s going to cut and et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, so that became, you know, for reasons of the director’s choosing, which is his story, he’s been ashamed of it the way he wants it. And, you know, if you’re the original writer, you just have to accept that that’s the reality of the business. If I go tell you that very well, we’re talking about it. The producer of the movie was Jake Evers, who also produced The Mission, Driving Miss Daisy, Gandhi. I think he won at least three Best Picture Ostrichs before Beggarman. So really a wonderful guy. And before the movie started, he called me up and told me that I was being fired. Then Redford wanted to bring out an end. And I started laughing because I said, I said, Jake, this is the first time I’d ever get fired where anybody had the decency to actually tell me. Which usually, you get fired, and then you read about it in the trays. You know, we replaced, in fact, one time I got fired, and I bought a movie that was my original concept. I was in place by another writer who had the same agent. We had the same agent, and my agent didn’t tell me. I had to read about it in the trades. So I was very grateful to Jake as a great gentleman that he actually called me up and told me I was fired.

Dan LeFebvre
14:50
Wow. Yeah, I mean, you’re going to find out eventually. Might as well. Wow. And your own agent.

Steven Pressfield
14:55
Yeah, he was such a sweet guy. He felt so bad. Oh, I’m so sorry to tell you. I said, oh, don’t worry about it, Jake. I’m so grateful that you actually are telling me.

Dan LeFebvre
15:05
Well, speaking of World War I, I’m curious with the way the movie portrays this. It opens with June and World War I, and then it jumps to about a decade later, 1928. And we know from history, of course, World War I ended in 1918. And that kind of leaves this gap that they just don’t really explain much of in the movie. And I think this brings up a great point about audience expectations for particularly historical stories in movies compared to entirely fictional ones because when you have this kind of a gap, I think audiences will think, oh, this is just even more inaccurate as far as it’s portraying history because there’s this big gap between the earlier event and then this, and they start to fill in those details and usually with fictional things. How did you navigate this decision or was this a decision you made or was this strictly in the movie to skip this decade between Juna and

Steven Pressfield
16:00
World War I and then this big golf match? It’s another great question, Darren. In the book, we do talk, I do talk about that period. I describe that Julian went through many, had a nervous breakdown, was hospitalized, had alcohol problems, all the things like PTSD that veterans deal with along the way. And that during this period in the book, Dagger Rance appeared in his life and became a kind of a companion to it and was with him and got him kind of back into golf a little bit. And so that that period kind of was described in the book. But the filmmakers, I guess, for whatever reason, maybe for time, they was decided, you know, to eliminate that. It’s a great question because you do miss that period and you wonder what happened to the guy. So he was really like a modern-day vet that’s been struggling with drug diffuse or homelessness or anything like that. And then hopefully the golf match was what pulled him out of there, right? That long day of what he learned from Muscat.

Dan LeFebvre
17:14
Well, that will answer my next question then because the way that the movie portrays Bagger Vance showing up, Juna is already practicing, so he’s already kind of getting back into golf. He’s agreed to do this match, and he’s practicing at night. And Will Smith’s version of Bagger Vance just walks up and they start kind of working together. But it sounds like that might have been more of a movie decision of having him just kind of show up here where he’s already, or Juna is already interested in golf rather than in the book.

Steven Pressfield
17:41
Yeah, definitely movie decision. Yeah, not that way in the book.

Dan LeFebvre
17:46
Well, a central theme to the story in the movie is this concept of seeing the field with Bagger helping Juna break through his mental blocks to find what’s called his authentic swing. And there’s this powerful scene in the woods where the sounds of war come flooding back to Juna, and we see how deeply his trauma runs and how the game is kind of a form of therapy for him. During your research, did you come across any real stories of World War I vets using sports or physical activities to work through what we now call PTSD?

Steven Pressfield
18:21
I did not. I didn’t even try, really, because it seemed sort of a common experience, you know, that they would, you know, you find a way out of that nightmare through one medium or not sports or maybe art, something of that nature. No, that was total fiction.

Dan LeFebvre
18:43
Okay. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And it is something that we see a lot of people turning to in the real world. So it’s entirely believable. Yeah.

Steven Pressfield
18:51
In the Bhagavad Gita, there’s a scene where the troubled warrior Arjuna asks his charioteer, who’s God, to show me who you really are. Show me yourself in all your dimensions. And Krishna does that. And he warns them, you know, he says, I’m going to give you to protect your vision and your hope. It’s going to blow your mind what I’m about to show you. So I’m going to protect them. And then there’s a scene where he kind of shows this kind of cosmic destroyer of worlds, destroyer and recreator of universes. You know, just and that obviously they put in the boot. But sort of that was one of the scenes in the Vita that really brings Arjuna back to reverence and to devotion and to respect for the greater forces in them. So they couldn’t really do that in the movie. So that World War I scene was sort of a substitute for you. I thought it worked pretty good, actually. But like you say, because it didn’t have that 10-year period in there, it kind of came a little bit out of Noah.

Dan LeFebvre
20:09
Yeah, yeah. And again, I think it might go back to that 10-year period. But in the movie’s version of events, we see Bagger Vance teaching Juna about finding his authentic swing. And then there are times in the movie where Will Smith’s version of Bagger Vance doesn’t really seem to know which golf club to use and but he’s supposed to be this caddy helping him and was he it just made me wonder like was he supposed to be this genuine golf expert meant to be more of a spiritual guide but it sounds like a lot of that would be answered if they had that

Steven Pressfield
20:40
10-year period yeah yeah i mean i hope the the concept where he and both would be an abut i think was that he was an all-knowing you know uh personage whatever avatar who knew golf like he baseball or anything else. I don’t know if it came off exactly that way. I mean, what they tried to do, which I thought was really nice in Moody at the end, was after Jack Lemmon, as the older Hardy Greaves, the older boy, has a fifth heart attack or something at Pebble Beach or wherever it was supposed to be, then Bagger Vance, Will Smith, and he reappears as this sort of mysterious, So he now becomes an angel or something of that nature. He certainly becomes a divine personage of some time to kind of welcome the Jack Lemmon fan for the young more to heaven, which I felt was actually a very nice way of doing.

Dan LeFebvre
21:41
Yeah, yeah, I liked that. And it was interesting too because speaking of time, he hasn’t aged at the end. Yeah. version he has an age which adds another element of there’s something supernatural here yeah yeah well you talked about it a little bit earlier but as the match gets underway in the film we see these massive diverse crowds gathering to watch this game based on the research that you did for the book i’m guessing you had a picture of what this real event between bobby jones and walter Hagen hat or would have looked like. Do you think the movie did a good job capturing the image that you had in your head when you were writing the book?

Steven Pressfield
22:21
I do. I think they really did well enough. You know, it’s there’s never really been a great golf movie other than Caddyshack, which was like I played it for a farce. But it’s because there really are no actors that could really swing a golf club in a believable way. You know, if you watch Rory McIlroy playing in the Masters or any, or Tiger Woods or anybody like that, you immediately get that they’re fantastic athletes. And, you know, this swing is a work of art and everything. But how many actors, Matt Damon had never even played Bob when he was cast. And so that, so it’s very hard in movies to recreate golf. I mean, I think movies do a great job recreating boxing. And we think about Rocky or Raging Bull or any of those great boxing movies. You believe it when you see them fighting, you know, in the ring. And they do a great job with horse racing. Think about Secretariat or other things like that. Or baseball. If you think about the natural or so on, great baseball movies where actors are quite believable. You know, hitting home runs and stuff. I mean, he was super believable about that. But golf, you know, they’re never, it’s like as soon as the actor picks up a club, if you’re a real golfer, you look at that and you go, oh, you know, this is pretty bullies, you know, which is a shame. But that’s sort of the nature of the reality that there aren’t any people that can swing and make it look believable at that level.

Dan LeFebvre
24:02
Well, that makes me wonder, you know, when you obviously decided to turn it, you know, have it be golf instead of one of these other sports. So when they just started to talk to you about turning it into a movie and you’re thinking, were you thinking there’s really no good golf movies? How is this going to turn into a good movie?

Steven Pressfield
24:21
Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t really, when I was writing the book, I wasn’t thinking about movies at all. You know, it’s been a happy surprise that it came about. I’m thinking also, I’m thinking about the movie Slap Shop that was about Pofke. That was another that really made it believable, at least to me. I go, wow, these are just like real occupiers. Even seeing Paul Newman skating back and forth, I think, wow, that guy’s really good. Or Downhill Racer, think about Redford again and his steering. That was very big.

Dan LeFebvre
24:52
Well, one of the most memorable choices in the film for me is how Beggar Vance just disappears as mysteriously as he arrives. He doesn’t even wait for the final hole in the big match. What was the thought process behind having him leave before the match concludes? Or I guess, as I should probably add to every question, was that strictly for the movie?

Steven Pressfield
25:17
No, that was in the book. And the whole point of it was, and I forgot how the boobie treated this, actually, to tell you the truth. But in the book, the little boy, he’s telling a story, Artie, is rucking along with Bagger Vance and Juna. And what happens, I think they did this, and I’m sure they did this in the booty, was Bagger Vance turns over the bag to the little boy. He says, you take the man in in the last couple of holes. You be, you know, be, you be a scat. And that, I’m not sure why I did that, but it may be a total sense that it was really now up to the character of Juna to enact on his own what Bagger Vance had been trying to teach him. So, so Bagger Vance were sort of saying, okay, you’re, you know, get on the horse here and ride it in. And also, I think it was a gift to the young board, at least in the board. It changed his life, too, that he acted as a bandit. That actually came from real life. There was the famous—it actually did a movie about this, the Francis Wienert story. Are you familiar with this at all? Anyway, this was like the 1908 U.S. Open. I think that was the year. Maybe it was 1980. and it was the first time an American golfer actually won the U.S. Open. It was a guy, a young caddy named Francis Wienet as a golfer. And he and his caddy was a 10-year-old boy named Eddie Lowry who caddy-fled the whole way. And so I thought, I’m going to steal that too. And so that was how the little boy came.

Dan LeFebvre
27:08
Well, speaking of the real golfers that we talked about with Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, I’m curious, what made you decide to go with that exhibition match between Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, and Savannah in that era? What was your thought process for that decision?

Steven Pressfield
27:24
Oh, that’s another really good question. As I was thinking about when, just what near set this story, and I sort of was flashing back and I thought, should we go back to like Jack Nicklaus, Autumn Palmer era? And I thought, because supernatural things were going to happen in the short, we were going to have to believe, you know, holes in one and blah, blah, and all kinds of things like that. I thought time period has to be distant enough from the present and kind of romantic enough that we can believe that, you know, superhuman things could happen, but not so far in the past that it’s completely unrecognized. So I thought, should we go back to the Ben Hogan, Sam Snead era? No, that’s still too post-present. But I thought 1920s, the era of the jazz age, of Scott Fitzgerald, of Jack Dempsey, and Charles Lindbergh flying the Atlantic, you know, when there were many heroic things happening. And, of course, Bobby Jones and Maupo Aiden were towering figures who transcended their sport, even in that era. You know, when Bobby Jones won a couple of days at a ticker-tickery down Godway in New York for a long time. So I thought, that’s far enough into the past that we can believe that crazy things could happen. But yet it’s still recognizable as golf. It’s still dramatic. And also I love the clothes that they had, those plus fours, the knickers, you know, and the great shoes they had. And they’ve all been played wearing neckties. I thought, oh, this is going to be, you know, it’ll really look great, you know. So that was why I deliberately chose that here.

Dan LeFebvre
29:09
So it sounds like you chose that it was going to be centered around golf and then sent the era around that instead of the other way around. Because in my mind, I would have thought it would have been, oh, I’m going to pick this era and then, okay, what was happening in this era? But I guess I tend to think of things from a historical perspective first. Why I’m not a storyteller.

Steven Pressfield
29:27
No, that’s exactly, but that’s exactly right. It was golf first meant to be right.

Dan LeFebvre
29:32
Was there a particular reason why you chose golf instead of one of those other sports?

Steven Pressfield
29:36
Yeah, because I was stealing from the Bhagavad Gita, and the gist of the story was a troubled champion getting instruction from his servant, From his charioteer, right? Which I think is like, and Jesus came to earth. He came as a man of sorrows, you know? And so I thought that Caddy is a perfect person. That is a servant, but is really God, is really bringing great vision to the champion that he serves. So that was why I was back.

Dan LeFebvre
30:13
Well, I’m curious, for those of us who watch the movie, we’re going to watch it with different eyes than you will, of course. So when you first watched that movie, was there anything that you thought that might surprise someone like me who just watches it but doesn’t have the background that you do writing the book?

Steven Pressfield
30:35
I do think they captured the era pretty well, you know, as good as I could poker. Like the era of Savannah, that it was in depression, that people were, you know, up against it, and his father lost his job, et cetera, et cetera. And then at the same time, the sort of glamour of the super rich who were untouched by the Depression, how they were still, you know, doing their thing, the big dance that they had with Charlize Theron and stuff like that. So I think they did a really good job with that. Yeah. One thing that was interpreted just as a sidebar was it was shot at Tiawa Island, South Carolina, which is a real place, a real fancy resort, seaside, exactly like, you know, the story. But it was shot in the winter. And so when, but it was winter or summer. And so as they would, like when they had spectators gathered around at Greed between the shops, they were all huddled up in lunar coats. And then when the canvas started to roll, it was like, okay, we’ll take off your coats, you know. And then they pretended that it was hot and, you know, a summertime event. So that was kind of interesting.

Dan LeFebvre
31:52
Well, it sounds like when you were on set, do you have a favorite story from being on set with the characters?

Steven Pressfield
32:01
But after, like I say, I was fired for day one, and nobody would ask my opinion. But they did give me like one day that I could visit the location, you know. And it was like, well, here’s a cup of coffee. There’s the band taking you back to the airport. But so, you know, it was just kind of a fly in, fly out type of thing of courtesy to the original writer, which I appreciate.

Dan LeFebvre
32:28
Well, we have talked a lot about your first historical novel with The Legend of Bagger Vance back in 1995. And you have The Arcadian, brand new book. This is a 30-year journey in historical fiction. I know a lot of my audience are actually historical fiction authors. So before I let you go, can you share one or two tips for how authors can better use history in their novels?

Steven Pressfield
32:54
Ah, I mean, to me, okay, I’ll tell you a minute. One thing I did want to say just before that offending was that meeting the characters, the actors in Dagger Vance, Matt Damon was a terrific guy. Well, not stuck on himself. Wonderful. Friendly. Great. See ya. I have a friend, Brandy Wallace, who wrote Braveheart. So that was a very much a historical piece, right? where he had to really do research and find out exactly what Scotland was like and what he and Wallace says. And I asked him one time, I said, you know, really, how do you do your research? And he said, I do it last. He said, the most important thing, he says, is the story. He says, get the story. Obviously, you have to know a little bit about the story. But he says, get the story right that you want to tell. What’s the climax? You know, what’s middle of act two? What’s the setup? And then go back and make sure that the research judges that as much as you can. But he was definitely a believer, and I agree that we’re not trying to tell the true historical story. We’re trying to tell, like, if you and I are going to write a story about the Knights of the Rante, we would sit down and we’d ask ourselves, what is this about? Is it a love story with Guinevere and Lancelot? And is it a story of two brothers, let’s say King Arthur and Lancelot, who clash over there? Or is it a story about the concept of the round table of warriors that expand up for the vulnerable and the oppressed? Is that what, first you figure out what story we want to touch. And then when we know that, then, okay, let’s go back and read all of the material. Of course, we’ll be reading it all along with Ehiar. And then see how can we make it work with this story. But I’m certainly a believer like that. I think that we can, was it the, a man shot Liberty Valance where there was a lot.

Dan LeFebvre
35:00
Oh yeah, classic John Wayne. Yeah.

Steven Pressfield
35:02
Oh yeah. The choice between the fact and the legend, print the legend, right? Yeah. I’m a believer in that. But it’s a choice between true historical reality and the story you want to tell. Your job is to tell a story. Because other people may write about the same historical event. And if you know the 50 books, let them do their version of it. Like, you do the one that’s coming from your heart, what you want to do. But one thing I will say about research, we’re talking to writers here, is to me the real point of research is to sell the story to the reader by putting enough true details in it that the reader says, oh, wow, this is really, this is the real deal, right? If we go back, we’re doing something about Knights of the Round Table, and the reality is that the stirrup had only been invented a few decades ago, so for the first time, a man in heavy armor could ride on the back of a horse. We’ve got to put that in there somewhere, you know? And when the reader or the moviegoer sees that, they go, oh, wow, that’s really believable, you know? So then when we have a dragon or something appear, hopefully which obviously is not true hopefully the reader will buy into it no so research to me was a way of of we’re going to ask the audience or the reader to believe something crazy right any any story is like that right we’re always going after the week’s summer that there is such a thing as previous lives or there’s such a thing as dragons or whatever so the research to is is is a way of layering detail on detail on detail that are true. So the audience or believer goes, oh, I believe it, I believe it, I believe it. And then when we have a dragon, they go, oh, I believe that too because everything else was true. So that’s the way I looked at music.

Dan LeFebvre
37:08
I love that. And it makes a lot of sense picking golf first and then picking the historical time period. But I’m curious, have you ever come across a time where you’re doing the research and you find something out that kind of, if you put it in there, it’s going to maybe ruin the story or force you to go back and change a bunch of the story based on what you did in the research?

Steven Pressfield
37:32
Yes. And then until you’re so full, I ignore that.

Dan LeFebvre
37:37
That’s a creative decision to keep it.

Steven Pressfield
37:40
No. I actually have two books. The one you held up, The Arcadia, that’s coming out at the end of May. and another book that has the same character. And the time periods cross in the sense that if one is true, the other could not be true. So I ignore that. And I’m hoping that nobody notices it. There’ll always be one guy that does have a scene. I’ll get one email saying, hey, wait a minute. Like, it never happened, you know. And I go, oh, you caught me.

Dan LeFebvre
38:17
Well, if they see this, then you’ll know that it was a creative decision to tell the story.

Steven Pressfield
38:24
Like I remember there was something that Alfred Hitchcock said. A lot of his movies turn on a detail that’s a little dubious, you know. And he says, if the moviegoer gets home and while they’re opening the refrigerator and getting a snack, a midnight snack, they say to themselves, wait a minute. How could Jane Stewart really see across if so? He says, that’s okay. as long as while they’re in the movie and they’re under the spell of the movie, they don’t get that, you know? So I’m a believer in that too.

Dan LeFebvre
38:57
And in some cases, I mean, that can be beneficial because you’d be like, wait a minute, could that, and you go back and watch it again and be like, oh, wait, oh, I was right about that. And then it sparks this conversation that.

Steven Pressfield
39:08
Yeah, at least they’re thinking about it enough to find out something wrong, yeah.

Dan LeFebvre
39:12
Well, speaking of the characters in your new book, arcadian as you mentioned the main character there i might mispronounce it but tell him on all right tell him who would you cast as tell him on if this turned into a movie

Steven Pressfield
39:28
who would i cast yeah uh well actually if you look at the cover one of the things when they were asking me the publisher was asking me how to give i said make him look like vigo mortensen make him look like arablon and you know that the two cowards 11 you know that it’s And so that’s kind of, or, you know, he’s a kind of a warrior that’s been through a lot of the war. So he should have a lot of age and experience, a lot of mileage on him, but without being too old. So that’s why I love that Alagorn guy. I thought he looked great.

Dan LeFebvre
40:07
I love that. And that goes back to, I talked with John Garth about J.R. Tolkien. And with Lord of the Rings, he’s got his Samwise Gamgee, his caddy, as it were. Almost that same sort of story of a companion that helps him through these difficult times. Great stories, great stories. Yeah, yeah, true. Yeah. Well, thank you again so much for your time, Stephen. before I let you go one last time, The Arcadian, where can people find their own copy?

Steven Pressfield
40:41
That would be on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, anywhere. Or check out my website, which is just my name, Steven Bresby of Batman.

Dan LeFebvre
40:50
And I’ll make sure to add a link to all those in the show notes. Thanks again so much for your time, Steven.

Steven Pressfield
40:54
Thanks a lot, Gabe, for your deep thinking about this subject and watching. But one thing I would say to everybody, if they’re at all interested in the Bagler Dents, read the book. You know, I’m sure you’ve all seen the movie or you would be watching the show. Read the book. It’s a really interesting way to see what the story is told one way and then what they had to cut to make it a movie.

Dan LeFebvre
41:19
I love that. I’ll add a link to that in the show notes as well so people can pick up a copy of that book too. Wow. Thank you again, Stephen.

Steven Pressfield
41:26
All right. Thanks, Dan.

Dan LeFebvre
41:37
this episode of based on a true story was produced by me dan lefebvre as steven mentioned if you enjoyed the movie you really should read the book even if it’s just to learn about that 10-year gap that the movie cut out of the story i’ve got a link in the show notes to the legend of bagger vance the novel and while you’re in there why not get a copy of steven’s latest novel too The Arcadian is about a mercenary in 1500s medieval Spain, and it’s just packed with the masterful blend of historical fiction that only Steven Pressfield can deliver. As always, I’ve got all those links in the show notes, as well as on the shows home on the web over at basedonatruestorypodcast.com slash 385. Okay, now it’s time for the answer to our two truths and a lie game from the beginning of the episode. And as a quick refresher, here are the two truths and one lie again. Number one. Stephen also served as the historical consultant throughout the film’s production. Number two, the storyline is based on the Bhagavad Gita. Number three, Morgan Freeman was an early casting idea for Bagger Vance. Did you figure out which one is a lie? Got the answer here. Let’s open that up. And the lie is number one. As Stephen mentioned, he was fired on day one. So even though the movie was based on Stephen’s book, he didn’t have a lot of input on how the movie’s version of his book story was told. It’s a great reminder of how it’s always a good idea to read the book. And speaking of which, I’ve got a link to both The Legend of Bagger Vance as well as Stephen’s new book, The Arcadian, in the show notes for this episode. So go pick up your copies right now. As always, thank you for your continued support listening to and sharing this episode of Based on a True Story with someone that you think would enjoy it. If you are watching the video version of this, stick around for the credits. If you can find out my cat’s name and email it to me, I’ll send you a sticker. Thanks again for watching, and I hope to hear from you soon.