PARIS TRAIN ATTACK
Clint Eastwood’s film stars the three men who thwarted a terror plot.
Spencer Stone remembers almost every detail about Aug. 21, 2015, when his life changed forever. But two facts from that day stand out: “I was covered in three different people’s blood and my face smelled like gunpowder,” he says. That day, Stone, a US Air Force staff sergeant, and two of his childhood friends, Army National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and kinesiology student Anthony Sadler, tackled a would-be terrorist on a train to Paris carrying 554 people. “I remember coming off the train almost deliriously laughing,” recalls Stone, who was slashed and nearly lost a thumb in the attack. “Like, ‘Oh my God. I can’t believe I just survived that.’ ”
Now the three heroes are experiencing a new life-altering event: they’re starring as themselves in The 15:17 to Paris, a movie based on their story directed by Clint Eastwood. “I’m interested in stories where fate has a guiding hand,” says Eastwood. As luck (or fate) would have it, Stone, Skarlatos and Sadler met Eastwood at the Spike TV’S Guys Choice awards in 2016. The friends, who had written a memoir, jokingly suggested Eastwood make a movie about them. “He said ‘Send me the book and we’ll see,’ ” Stone recalls. Six months later, the director called. “He said he wanted to do our story,” says Stone. Then three weeks before filming, Eastwood asked the three 25-year-olds if they would like to play themselves. “It was just a whim,” says Eastwood. “Not quite like running at an AK-47, but it was a whim that seemed like the right thing to do.” Stone, Skarlatos and Sadler jumped at the opportunity. “I knew the risk, I just didn’t care,” says Stone. Eastwood advised the first-timers against acting lessons. “He didn’t want us to overthink it,” says Skarlatos. “He said, ‘Do what you did and I’ll take care of the rest.’ ”
Re-creating the attack—during which the friends rushed a Moroccan Islamic extremist who was armed with an AK-47, a pistol and a box cutter—was cathartic for everyone involved, including American professor Mark Moogalian, who was shot in the back while struggling with the terrorist, and also plays himself in the film. Though Stone had been injured by the box cutter, the trained medic helped save Moogalian’s life. “People think it’s traumatic, but it’s blossomed into a positive situation,” says Sadler.
Since graduating from what Sadler calls “Eastwood 101,” the pals hope to continue acting. (Both Stone and Skarlatos completed their military contracts.) “Making the film was the best two months of our lives,” says Stone. But not a day goes by when they don’t think about those minutes on the train. Says Skarlatos: “Every time I see a news headline about a mass shooting, I think how easily that could have been us.”