Hollywood director Aaron Schneider: Small town life still part of DNA – Pekin Daily Times

When Springfield native Aaron Schneider expressed his interest in directing the recently-released World War II thriller "Greyhound," he wrote a heartfelt and detailed email to his agent outlining the potential the movie had.

Thinking the email was meant to be passed on, Schneiders agent sent it up the chain of command, finally landing with the head of the agency which represents Tom Hanks, who wrote the movies screenplay and was set to portray the captain of the USS Keeling, codenamed "Greyhound."

"As the story goes, Im told, the agent read the email to Tom over the phone and Tom said, Well, sounds like this guys passionate. Lets sit down, Ill meet him," said Schneider, who grew up in Dunlap and attended schools in Mossville and Chillicothe.

That meeting at Hanks production company, said Schneider, was a wide-ranging conversation about cinematographers Hanks had worked with from Conrad Hall ("Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid") to Gordon Willis ("The Godfather" movies) and that Schneider had admired.

Hanks then grilled Schneider about Bill Murray, who Schneider directed in the independent film "Get Low" (2009) and is set to be reunited with in the forthcoming "Bums Rush."

"Hes envious of Bill Murrays career," Schneider said. "Its not something you expect to come out of the mouth of Tom Hanks.

"By the end of the meeting, (Hanks) said, Hey, why dont you come back in and meet Gary (Goetzman), my (production partner), and before you know it, we were building a movie together."

By his own account, Schneiders Hollywood adventure has gone "off script." A cinematographer (he worked on the second unit of "Titanic," among other films), Schneider got bit by the directing bug. His first film, "Two Soldiers," based on a William Faulkner short story, won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. The actor who presented him with the award, Billy Crystal, had suggested years earlier to his father that Schneider go to USC film school.

"Greyhound" dropped Friday on Apple TV+ and has drawn nearly universal praise. In the film, Hanks, as a longtime Navy veteran, is tasked with protecting a convoy of 37 ships carrying thousands of soldiers and supplies across the Atlantic during World War II. The small force battles menacing Nazi U-boats in whats known as "the Black Pit," a three-day ordeal with no air cover.

Schneider was born in Springfield and lived there up until age 8 when his father Delwin Schneider, an executive for Central Illinois Light Co., CILCO, got transferred to a Peoria office and the family, including a younger sister, Mimi, moved to Dunlap.

After retiring, Schneider and his wife, Beverly, who he met at CILCO, returned to Springfield to live.

Aaron Schneider, who turns 55 later this month, still makes an annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage to central Illinois. He favors a Steak n Shake steakburger when hes in Springfield and goes for Avantis when he visits Peoria.

"When you grow up in the Midwest, there are certain staples," Schneider said. "Small town life or Midwest community gets under your skin or becomes part of your DNA. Its part of you and you take it wherever you go, whether thats over to Springfield and up to Peoria youre a farm boy working as an executive at CILCO, like my dad or youre an Illinois kid making Tom Hanks movies.

"You are who you are and youre formed by your experiences in your youth and my youth was Midwestern."

Schneider said indelible images of Peoria for him were driving past Caterpillar "with the workers on strike warming their hands over a barrel as we drove by on the school bus," the sight of the riverboat, the Peoria Beer Fest in the summer.

It was Schneiders father who struck up a conversation with Billy Crystal while both were vacationing in Florida. If he was serious about the movie industry, Crystal recommended Schneider, who was then studying mechanical engineering at Iowa State University, go to USCs film school.

"Hes certainly had a lot of support from a lot of people, including us," said Delwin Schneider, in a separate phone interview. "Its been a great ride. Not a whole lot of people from a small town in central Illinois go to the (Academy Awards) to see their son win an Oscar.

"Its been more than a great ride, its been a lot of fun. Hes continued to be successful in his career for which were eternally grateful and very proud."

"Aaron had worked very, very hard to get to that point," added Beverly Schneider, who worked as a real estate agent in Springfield. "My motto with him was, somebodys gotta do it, why not Aaron Schneider? And, lo and behold, hes made it and made a big splash in Hollywood and I couldnt be more thrilled and neither could his dad."

Aaron Schneider said he counts "Saving Private Ryan," a film he first saw with his father, a Korean War veteran, as putting him on a course to try his own hand at directing and to directing "Greyhound" some two and a half decades later.

"I finally get a foothold in this business (as a cinematographer) and I decide to throw caution to the wind and go in a completely different direction (by directing)," Schneider said. "Every step of the way, (my parents) were there saying, All right, go for it. To their credit, they just wanted me to be happy and they have literally been a backbone in that sense my entire life, so my career is as much a testament to their support as it is to the work I put into it.

"Making a movie that goes on to win an Oscar is a cool thing, but it was just one of those times in life where you felt supported. You felt loved."

"Greyhound," Schneider said, "is not the kind of war movie where people pull out photographs and talk about their girl or their kids back home. It throws the audience into the pilothouse of a World War II destroyer on day one of a three-day nightmare and follows it through all the danger and apprehension."

While the action takes place on the high seas, much of the film was shot on the USS Kidd, a decommissioned WWII-era destroyer that now serves as a museum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Virtually all of the battle scenes and ocean vistas were created using visual effects.

What did Schneider think about working with Tom Hanks?

"The big news, which probably isnt big news anyway, is that Tom Hanks is everything you expected him to be," Schneider said. "Pretty much what you see is what you get. Hes a lovely man.

"Hes a lot of fun to be with. Hes got good energy, which set the tone for a project."

Schneider attended elementary school and junior high in Mossville before attending Illinois Valley Central High School in Chillicothe.

Schneider describes himself as a bit of "a sentimental sap." Hes gone back to the house he grew up in in Dunlap to find a message "a little dedication" he wrote on a beam in a crawlspace before moving out. Four or five families who have lived in the house since, Schneider said, have also left their own messages there.

Delwin Schneider grew up in Farmer City, where he worked for his uncle, Epstein, who owned a shoe store.

Schneider said his father would tell him stories about characters from the town, people like "Rat Trap Lewis" and "Pushcart Charlie."

It served Schneider well when he was developing Robert Duvalls character, Felix Bush, from "Get Low."

"These were communities with personalities and they had so many stories," Schneider said. "Inevitably, you turn to what you know and you cant help but imbue your own experiences and sense of community into the work. In that sense youre putting a piece of yourself into the work."

Contact Steven Spearie: 622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/stevenspearie.

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Hollywood director Aaron Schneider: Small town life still part of DNA - Pekin Daily Times