“An Officer and a Gentleman” is one of the highest grossing films of all time. The screenplay is by writer and director Douglas Day Stewart which was based on his personal experience as a Naval Officer Candidate.
We caught up with Douglas Day Stewart to find out more about his inspiration.
What was your original inspiration when writing An Officer and a Gentleman?
I had essentially lived the story. I was required to serve in the military during the Vietnam War era and had a choice of being a soldier or a naval officer. I went to Officer Candidate School in Newport Rhode Island in 1962. I had a really tough drill instructor, and I dated a girl from the factories. So in later life when I was looking for rich subject matter for writing, I wanted to revisit my time in the military.
So is the character of Zack very similar to you?
To start with he was, but as I began writing the story I spoke to a friend of mind, a fellow writer and a guy with more life experience than me. He told me “nobody’s ever really dealt with the fact that the military is this melting pot for people of all background and classes” so I decided to do something more rough edge. So I took the character that was based on me and I began to rough him up. I put him on a motorcycle, I gave him tattoos and martial arts skills and that became Zack Mayo.
Did you know the film would be a success before it was released?
It’s only looking back now that everyone has this misconception that the movie was coming out of this big Hollywood machine and was destined to be a hit, but that wasn’t it at all. It was a hard sell! I had recently done The Boy In The Plastic Bubble which was a big hit TV movie and The Blue Lagoon which had been well received so I dared to hope An Officer and a Gentleman would be the third in a string of successes, but I wasn’t sure how anyone would respond to it, particularly as it is so military focused.
What made you want to return to An Officer and a Gentleman and turn it into a musical production?
I think it was always my hope to do this with the film. I’ve always loved musicals since I was a little boy and saw West Side Story with my father. I mean, who doesn’t love musical theatre? I kept thinking this was a wonderful story for musical theatre, it has elements of a real Cinderella love story. A working class love story that is so simple and uplifting, what better kind of tale to tell on stage?
What has the process been like?
I have been working at trying to realise a stage musical of this film for fifteen years and I’m finally seeing it in the form I feel it is supposed to be in. An Officer and a Gentleman is a very small, personal story and for me very autobiographical and real. It didn’t need to be puffed up in any way; it doesn’t necessarily need all the bells and whistles to work. When I was first introduced to the director, Nikolai Foster, a couple of years ago we both started talking about our love for theatre and our shared feeling that this story should be told in a kind of very real way. That’s the journey that has brought us to this point of embarking on a tour of the UK.
Was it tempting to change or update the story during this process?
I think this is a story very much rooted in its time and genre. It’s important to remember this is a love story set in the innocence of the early 80s. In all reality it probably couldn’t be the same story today as we live in a different time. There are a lot of issues around that we weren’t necessarily aware of in 1982.
Why do you think audiences still love An Officer and a Gentleman, more than thirty years after its release?
I think what they hold on to is the working class dream. The idea that if you believe and work hard enough, that American promise that we hope is still valid. People want to believe that human beings can be transformed, and can transform themselves into winners. You see the excitement of the audiences when Zack comes into the factory at the end, and that excitement is still there now. I remember sitting next to a guy at an early screening and him saying, “I wish somebody would pick me up and carry me away!”
The score of the stage show is full of well known 1980s hit songs. What do you think adding that musical element adds to the plot and the characters?
I think it focuses everything in a time and place. Those are such great songs, and we use some really emotive and powerful songs from that era. It feels to me that this is what the story really wanted, to use songs from the era rather than original music. This is a simple, Cinderella love story that people have embraced for decades and I hope that now young people will enjoy discovering this great story through the musical and these great songs of the 80s are so well loved and are hits for a reason.
The original movie has some very iconic scenes; can audiences expect to see their favourite moments on stage?
Yes, absolutely! It was very important to Nikolai and I throughout this whole process that the original idea be respected. This production is the movie but taken into a whole new dimension through music. I love the way the music takes a moment and makes it transcend anything written in prose. The emotions of the movie are really powerful but just you wait and see what happens when you add music!
What can audiences expect, and why should they come and see the show?
I think that more so even than the early 80s we are living in a very difficult time and I believe that audiences are going to find that all those things they loved and dreamed about when they were young are still there, and they’re going to discover their hearts can be opened again and opened just as wide as they could dream when watching this production.
An Officer and a Gentleman runs from Monday 9th – Saturday 14th July at Milton Keynes Theatre. Tickets are available from www.atgtickets.com
