GRITTY ‘BEIRUT’,

Gilroy’s CIA kidnap thriller finally comes to life

For Tony Gilroy, the Oscarnominated screenwriter-director-producer, this Wednesday's “Beirut” is some kind of miracle. Gilroy's 1980s-set thriller stars Jon Hamm (“Mad Men”) as Mason, a former CIA negotiator forcibly retrieved by the Company from Boston. Returned to the Lebanese capital, he's to help rescue the kidnapped CIA station chief. “I originally wrote this in 1991 for Interscope. Everybody got really excited about it, all the big directors and movie stars,” Gilroy, 61, said. “But back then it was considered politically inflammatory. It's harsh on the Reagan White House, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel, and was considered too hot to handle for mainstream moviemaking. Then it just disappeared.”

Until a young producer at Interscope going through the vast properties the company owns reached out with a call: “`We like this for Jon Hamm and Brad Anderson (to direct).' I never thought it would happen. It's all incredulity for me! It's a miracle all the way down the line.”

Gilroy's best known for writing the first four Jason Bourne movies, directing “The Bourne Legacy” as well as scripting “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and writing and directing “Michael Clayton.”

“Beirut” was inspired by the tragic 1984 kidnapping of a CIA station chief.

“The kidnapping of (William) Buckley is a terrible tragic story. It was two years after the events here. We did not want to do a real event — I've never done a real event,” he said. But Gilroy wanted “Beirut” to feel real. “I had tons of research. I spent a year trying to be a journalist on this movie.”

Gilroy spent two years attending Boston University during the '70s and dropped out to focus on his music.

“I lived in Boston for five or six years,” he said. “I was making a living playing music. It didn't make any sense going to school. When I do come back, I go by the clubs I used to play from the late '70s. So many things have changed.”

He's proud that one crucial “Beirut” scene is set in Somerville. (It was filmed in Narraganset.)

As for the future, he said, “There is the siren song of doing a big original film. It's like hunting unicorn.”

‘TOO HOT TO HANDLE’: It took years for writer-director Tony Gilroy to get his ‘Beirut’ to the big screen. Below, Rosamund Pike, as Sandy Crowder, is one of its stars.