The cast of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi received a Texas-sized welcome Tuesday night as thousands filled AT& T Stadium for the world premiere of the much anticipated biopic.
Fans lined the lower bowl of the home of the Dallas Cowboys to get autographs from the film’s biggest star, John Krasinski, while musical acts Madison Rising, Chris Cornell and The Band Perry serenaded the crowd with patriotic songs. Cornell wrote and performed, “Till The Sun Comes Back Around”, which is featured in the film.
Krasinski, best known for his character, “Jim,” from The Office, said making the movie was very important to him.
“I couldn’t be more proud,” he said. “I thought I knew everything I needed to know about Benghazi from watching the news but to be honest I was pretty embarrassed to know that I didn’t know anything about this story. This was very emotional for me because I come from a big military family.”
Directed by Michael Bay, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, is based on the 2014 novel by Mitchell Zuckoff. The book and the film detail a terrorist attack of the American Embassy in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012.
Three of the military heroes depicted in the movie, Kris “Tanto” Paronto, John “Tig” Tiegen and Mark “Oz” Geist, were honored Tuesday night. Each man helped Bay and the production team during the shoot, which took place in Malta.
–Kris Paronto reflected on the evening, “For me to see it on the big screen is like a final product of what we were trying to do from the beginning with the book — was to tell the truth and to me with a final culmination of the movie especially something with Michael Bay’s name and having the amazing actors that we did, I’m very proud. People in America knew the story wasn’t being told truthfully all the way through. And there were certain parts they weren’t getting the whole picture and they sure weren’t getting the combat on the ground and they sure weren’t seeing that there was a lot of sacrifice going and a lot of heroism that took place on the ground, so that’s why I’m proud to finally see this on the screen because you’re going to give it to a whole other audience the book couldn’t reach and I hope people are touched inspirationally from this. Instead of the negative connotation of Benghazi … hey there are some great things that took place that night people should be proud of their veterans and contractors out there … They are guys that are willing to sacrifice their lives too.”
“I made this movie for you guys,” Bay said, speaking to military men and women in the crowd. “This was inspirational because these people put their lives on the line for us.”
-Reese Gordon
