Clint casts actual heroes in his forthcoming film The 15:17 to Paris

My thanks to friends Jayne Smart and Dave Turner who both sent me this story yesterday. It appears that both CNN Entertainment in the U.S. and the BBC in the UK ran with this story.

The BBC reported:  Clint Eastwood's new film about three Americans who stopped a terror attack on a train to Paris will star the real-life heroes of that 2015 incident. Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone will play themselves in The 15:17 to Paris, based on the book they co-wrote with Jeffrey E Stern. Actors will play younger versions of the trio in the film, which is thought to focus on the three men's friendship. The men were awarded Legion d'honneur medals for their actions. They also received a hero award from Eastwood himself at an awards ceremony last year. Sadler, Skarlatos and Stone were among a number of passengers who overpowered a heavily armed man who had opened fire on the train. Stone and Skarlatos were both off-duty servicemen, while Sadler was a student at California State University. The man they apprehended was later named as Ayoub El-Khazzani, a Moroccan believed to have had links to radical Islam.

Sandra Gonzalez of  CNN reports:  Three of the men who helped thwart a terrorist attack on a train bound for Paris will star in Clint Eastwood's upcoming film about the incident, "The 15:17 to Paris," Warner Bros. Pictures has announced.  Anthony Sadler, Oregon National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, and U.S. Air Force Airman First Class Spencer Stone will appear as themselves in the film, alongside Jenna Fischer ("The Office") and Judy Greer ("War for the Planet of the Apes").

The movie will follow the lives of the three men leading up to August 2015, when the trio successfully stopped an alleged ISIS terrorist from launching a gun attack on a high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris. The men, who have been friends since meeting as young boys in California, were hailed as heroes after the thwarted attack, as were two other passengers.

The movie is based on a book written by the trio and author Jeffrey E. Stern, called "The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, a Train, and Three American Heroes." This is the first time Eastwood has cast the real-life person or people that inspired the story on which his film is based.

Below: Left Judy Greer, Right Jenna Fischer

  

Below: Honorees Anthony Sadler, Specialist Alek Skarlatos, and Airman First Class Spencer Stone accept the Hero Award from actor/director Clint Eastwood onstage during Spike TV’s 10th Annual Guys Choice Awards at Sony Pictures Studios on June 4, 2016 in Culver City, California.