B.L. You had quite a substantial role in Gettysburg -- a huge film, and then you come and do Gods and Generals. How did you anticipate the role this time around, because in this one, we really get to know a lot more about Chamberlain and his personal life.
J.D. It was relatively easy because Gettysburg was kind of where Chamberlain was born. If you look at the history books, that's really where he is first mentioned and that's about halfway through the war. Gods and Generals is everything leading up to Gettysburg so in a way it's all just set up. So we get to understand Chamberlain, his marriage, his teaching at college in Maine. We see him educate himself as to what military strategy is and how to be a soldier and then he sees the horrors of war in Fredericksburg. It's really about the education of Joshua Chamberlain culminating in what he was able to do at Gettysburg. I just looked at it all as kind of a set up.

B.L. Are you or were you an American history buff before you started making these movies?
J.D. I wasn't and you get the role of Chamberlain and you are going to do Gettysburg so you dive in. There was plenty of material to go over, which I was really thankful for. But since making Gettysburg, I've become interested in the Civil War and I am now sort of a student of it, although certainly not a scholar. I enjoy it and I am working my way through Shelby Foote's three-volume narrative of the Civil War right now. I'm interested in it and I am sort of fascinated by that time in America's history.

B.L. What's really fascinating about Gods and Generals is that we really get to see the "human" side of many of the soldiers who went to war. One of the scenes that really touched me is when you tell your wife, played by Mira Sorvino, that you have enlisted to go fight.
J.D. Yes, I especially loved doing that scene.

B.L. It's very touching, especially for the fact that here is a man who has never fought in his life and knows nothing about going to war. Did you personalize it at all when you were doing it?
J.D. It was a great scene to work on, mainly for the fact that Mira Sorvino is a very talented actor. I was so glad to hear that she was going to play Fanny, my wife in the film. It's a scene where I have enlisted already but I didn't tell her but I come home and she already knows. It's this heated argument, but it's done behind the civility and formality of 1860. We never scream, and nothing is thrown at each other but it's all done with great care and intensity and I just found that fascinating. At the end, as deeply as he loved her, he was going to go.

B.L. You have now made two films with director Ron Maxwell and I don't know how he kept it all together. Tell me about his passion and why he was the perfect man to make these films?
J.D. Ron Maxwell has always been fascinated with history and he is a bit of a scholar himself. He is very intelligent and loves the Civil War and in particular these three books that formed the trilogy, this being the second film on the first book. Not every movie that you do holds the passion behind the project. I'm lucky because in a lot of the films that I have done, the people that I have worked with were not only doing a job and picking up a check, they loved what they were doing, particularly the director. Nobody has more passion than Ron Maxwell.

B.L. The movie is also filled with thousands of re-enactors who helped shoot the scenes during the battles. How important was it to have these people in the film?
J.D. They make the movie better because when you turn around and look in their eyes, to use Star Trek lingo, they want to be "beamed back." They truly want to go back to that day and that battle. They go up that hill and the look in their eyes is amazing. As someone who is playing Chamberlain and has the responsibility to give those speeches and be out there on the front line, it helps immensely. It was also amazing to have the cannons and the smoke and the sounds and the feel. The fact that we were shooting in Virginia and Maryland, where the battles actually took place, was unreal. But, to turn around and see the guys and see their passion and energy and commitment they as relive this moment, it just feeds you. It really helped me as an actor and it truly made the movie better.