A Soldier’s Story
With ‘My Dead Friend Zoe,’ veteran Kyle Hausmann-stokes fulfills a promise to get the war movie right
In August 2001, Kyle Hausmann-stokes had just graduated from high school and wanted to escape the confines of his native Wisconsin. So he enlisted in the Army. Then 9/11 happened, and the teen would soon head to Iraq, where he became a paratrooper. As his three-year enlistment was about to end, he was hit with a stop-loss order, an involuntary extension of active duty.
“I get a call one night that the colonel wants to see me in his office. I was known throughout the battalion as the film guy. I was always secretly making films of our airborne jumps and our jungle warfare training,” Hausmann-stokes remembers. “The colonel said, ‘I think you might be destined for something different than going to war with us right now. I’ve made arrangements for you and only you to be exempt from this stop-loss. You’re going to find the best film school in the world, hone your craft and tell the soldier’s story. You’re going to be our voice in Hollywood.’”
Hausmann-stokes enrolled in the film school at USC and began his journey toward his feature film debut, the dark comedy “My Dead Friend Zoe.” The semi-autobiographical movie — which stars Sonequa Martin-green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman — premieres on March 9 at SXSW, where it lands as perhaps the hottest film title up for grabs, with CAA selling rights. Upping the interest level, “Zoe” happens to have one very famous investor: Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. The movie marks the first foray into Hollywood producing for the Super Bowl champ whose every move is followed given that he is dating Taylor Swift.
Though war movies are among the most popular genres, veterans are barely represented in the industry, often leading to one-dimensional characters. Hausmann-stokes, now 41, joins a small group of players who have served, including Adam Driver, Oliver Stone and Freeman.
Hausmann-stokes says Hollywood rarely gets it right, with Stone’s “Platoon” and HBO’S “Generation Kill” among the exceptions: “We are kind of relegated to the two extremes. We’re either this super-soldier hero kicking down doors doing crazy special operations-type things. Or we’re the broken veteran that’s addicted to pills. Rarely do we see anything in the middle, which is where I think 90% of the military and veterans live.”
With “Zoe,” Hausmann-stokes aimed to depict that middle. And the film, which he wrote with AJ Bermudez, is very much his story, in which he endured the loss of three of his platoon mates. However, he changed the action from Iraq to Afghanistan and swapped the protagonist’s gender.
“It’s so personal and so close to me. I needed a little bit of distance,” he explains.
Halfway through film school, Hausmann-stokes was redeployed to Iraq for the Bush administration’s “surge” in 2007. He served as a convoy commander, then returned to USC feeling disoriented.
“I’m now five years older than my peers, you know, dealing with my own PTSD,” he says. “But it really just cemented the colonel’s missive to me of telling a soldier’s story.”
Hausmann-stokes shot dozens of PSAS for the Veterans Authority and like-minded nonprofits. He put together enough money to shoot a short titled “Merit x Zoe.” Producer Richard Silverman saw the short at a screening for veterans, thought it was powerful and introduced the director to Paul Scanlan of Legion M, which crowdsources film investment. Hausmann-stokes already had a feature script, which delves into combat’s toll on mental health, ready to go. “And then it was just 100 miles an hour from there.”
Harris was the first to sign on as a Vietnam vet and estranged grandfather of Martin-green’s character. “If this film helps one vet decide to seek help, Kyle will consider it a success,” he says. “Working with a director who cares that much, you just want to do the best job you can.”
With his lineup in place, the writer-director closed the budget gap with money from Radiant Media Studios’ Ray Maiello and Mike Field and Kelce, all of whom used funds generated by federal green energy tax credits to invest in “Zoe.”
“It was just really heartwarming and touching,” says Hausmann-stokes of Kelce’s involvement. “And the amount of added limelight and energy that he’s brought to the project is just going to help it reach a broader audience.”