Award-winning screenwriter Bima Stagg has a long history in the film industry and strong personal ties to South Africa, where he lived throughout the 1980's. Peter Hoffman, the Chairman of Seven Arts Pictures, received the first draft Bima Stagg's screenplay for Stander nine years ago and was immediately mesmerised by the story.

Describing what drew him to it, Mr. Hoffman said, "Movies are about characters and Andre Stander was an amazing character. He was many things: a non-political man caught in a political situation; a man of great talent frustrated by the limits of what he could do; a man enraged at the crime and yet still needing to be a part of it."

Susan Hoffman, Peter's wife and co-founder of Seven Arts was also captivated by Andre Stander's life. She and her long-time producing partner, award-winning director Barbet Schroeder, spent five years developing the film despite encountering a variety of obstacles.

"Everyone loved the story but they were discouraged by coming to South Africa," says Hoffman. "Apartheid may be out of the headlines but its legacy still provokes the same willingness to bury the story rather than confront what it really means to live in that society."

Producer Chris Roland agrees, "Before I emigrated to South Africa seven years ago, I had a completely different perception of South Africa. Now I see the reality, which is a 180-degree difference. It's always difficult to step into another culture in which, while it may be similar to your own, has dozens of nuanced and somewhat, perilous differences."

Seven Arts was reluctant to lose what they saw as a global, rather than just a South African, story. According to Peter Hoffman, "It was a unique situation, where you see the strength, the genius, the power of the Boer people and how they were on the wrong side of history. They could not really deal with it other than by breaking the law." Mr. Hoffman was also intrigued by the unique disparity of the title role. "On the one hand Stander was a good cop," he says, "On the other, a good bank robber. Ultimately, it was the contradictory nature of this character that attracted us."

Chris Roland was amazed with the history behind the story, "If this wasn't based on fact, no audience member would ever buy into it." And, in fact, Peter Hoffman found that many distributors did not believe in its accuracy, "While we were selling the film, we would always focus on the fact that this actually happened and the usual response I got was - 'what an incredible story, but is anybody really going to believe this would happen'?"

Even though most people that were approached about working on the film had reservations about working in South Africa, director Bronwen Hughes was thrilled at the opportunity. Her love of Africa was reinforced by her love of the screenplay. "I didn't know anything about the real story of Andre Stander but, before I had read even the first fifteen pages of this script, I was hooked," says Hughes. "The characters are so audacious, outrageous and compelling, and the setting is fascinating."

In pursuit of creating as authentic a film as possible, Hughes and producer, Julia Verdin, arrived in Johannesburg to begin pre-production. Their painstaking effort to research every detail was invaluable. Hughes remembers the effect these stories had upon her and the resulting adjustment in her assessment of Stander, both the film and the man. "It was only when we came here and started meeting people who knew Andre, in particular Allan Heyl, that I understood that everything I'd read in the media accounts was only the tip of a huge iceberg." She continues, "Before I met Allan, we just knew the facts about the robberies and could only really guess what went on afterwards. But the stories that Allan told were more outrageous, more fantastical than any we could ever have dreamed up. The most shocking parts of the movie are the true ones."

Casting the Film
The casting of Andre Stander was pivotal to the success of the film. Bronwen Hughes aptly characterised the complexity of the role, "Andre was the ultimate chameleon." According to Julia Verdin, "During the course of finding the right actor, we dismissed the notion that Stander had to be played by a South African. We wanted both a charismatic leading man and someone who could express the inner turmoil and darker side of Andre Stander."

They found the perfect combination in up-and-coming actor, Thomas Jane. "He had done a shark picture, 'Deep Blue Sea', and in that film, he had a kind of quiet action hero feeling with a lot of intensity," explains Peter Hoffman. Hughes was utterly impressed by her leading man.

Thomas not only tried different accents and languages, but he enthused himself in this world and this period." Jane comments on some of the effort he put in to make bring Stander's character to life. "While I was working on 'Dreamcatcher', I had a dialect coach and then, when I arrived in Africa, I worked with three other coaches just to get the accent right."

Luckily for the production team, Jane was equally as intrigued by his character as they were in him. According to Jane, "I knew nothing about Andre Stander and it was a story that I discovered totally through the script. It's hard to believe it was real as some of the stuff he did was so fantastic."

Jane described Stander "someone who thinks he's immortal and sadly finds out he's not. He had a quality that drew people, he was very charming and I think he pushed himself, the boundaries of what life was about, what society was about. That was what fascinated me. He was constantly moving toward the edge of how far he could go and what he could get away with. Like the young Achilles, he pushed his mortality all the way to the end."

The difficulty in preparing for the role, according to Jane, was that "Everybody I talked to had a different perception of Andre. He was a saint, a criminal, a devil, a sinner, a saviour. Everyone had their own story. In terms of the gang, I think that not only could Andre rob banks by himself but he was good at it. When he broke out of prison, he continued his methodology with those two guys. He was constantly raising the stakes. Robbing by himself, he'd done that, but robbing with a gang, five banks in one day, and all that cash, that was a new challenge. He kind of took it global in that way."

By far the most difficult role to cast was Allan Heyl. According to Hughes, "In everything I had read, Heyl was a monosyllabic thug but when I met the real Allan Heyl, he was light years away from that. He's a brilliant man and has an exceptional mind. We then knew we needed someone who was a deep thinker, who had a lot more going on in his head than he ever spoke about." While watching another actor's film performance, Hughes and Verdin became unexpectedly captivated by David Patrick O'Hara.

O'Hara also knew little about the history but was drawn to the script, nonetheless. He explained, "I knew nothing about the story but was old enough to remember that it had also been splashed across the British papers. The thing that intrigued me was that it is both a love story and an action-filled spectacle all set against a background of apartheid."

O'Hara immediately connected with his character. O'Hara described Heyl "as more of the parent/uncle/big brother in the gang." He clarified, "On one hand, you have Andre who was the wild card, and on the other hand, you have Lee who was the hedonist. They represented both ends of the spectrum of rowdiness but Allan rested somewhere in the middle. He was a little more mature, he was smart, meticulous and liked things the way they were. But, I must say that even though Allan was more of a quiet observer, he did fully participate in the robberies."

Like Jane, O'Hara was deeply committed to cultivating many layers in his portrayal of Allan Heyl. He explained that "the character was originally written as more of a thug. But, after Bronwen met Allan, she encouraged me to avoid simply playing him that way, to add softer layers. But, he did have an edge, something that was a little dangerous. I tried to play both sides of Allan." Peter Hoffman had nothing but praise for the final result, "David has a kind of brooding intensity to his performance that is especially true of a man who was as troubled as Allan Heyl obviously was."

Local actor Ashley Taylor was cast in the role of Cor Van Deventer, who was not only Andre Stander's partner on the police force but was also one of his closest friends. Although the real Van Deventer remained a staunch supporter of the film and acted as an adviser and consultant during filming, the character portrayed on screen is more of an amalgam of different people from Stander's life. Taylor enjoyed meeting the real Cor Van Deventer. "We just got on famously; it's quite uncanny there are a lot of strange similarities between us."

Even though Taylor was fortunate enough to spend time with the man he was playing, there were still difficulties inherent in the character. Taylor clarifies, "Since Cor is such a mysterious man, I've tried not to force feed the character. In certain scenarios, you, as an actor, have the privilege communicating emotion with simply a look. I've made these looks as ambiguous as possible. One is not quite sure what Cor is thinking; like, how much did he admire Stander or how angry he was with him, how hurt, how upset. I think Cor, himself, is like that. You don't know everything. He gives away a lot but there's also a lot he holds back."

Taylor speculates that Stander's betrayal of Cor and his friendship changed him. "They were very close friends and I think Cor really looked up to Stander. In reality, he knew for a quite a while that Stander was robbing banks, but he has mentioned that Andre did one or two things that finally crossed the line in Cor's eyes. I can only speculate what those were." Taylor tried to create an emotional and physical arc for the character that could illustrate the effect Stander had on Van Deventer. He says, "During the first part of the film, I've played him as a much lighter human being, the voice is lighter and he's slightly awkward and living in Stander's shadow. Then after Stander breaks out of jail, Cor just came into his own and I've made him much more assertive."

Creating the Look of the Film
Part of the greatest challenge facing the production was to accurately recreate the South Africa of the 1970's and 1980's. Politically separated from the rest of the world, South Africa was unique at that time. In fact, visual consultant, Lester Cohen, found that much of the original architecture from that time had not been altered. Especially in Johannesburg, he discovered numerous magnificent buildings available.

Even though the production team was lucky that so much of Johannesburg was untouched by modernity, this shoot still had its share of challenges. As Cohen describes, "We had 108 locations and we sometimes shot two or three locations a day. Keeping them all visually interesting was a complicated task."

Several locations stood out as exceptionally poignant. Particularly resonant was the Tembisa Township used during the shooting of the riot scene. Hughes described the location as "a vibrant, pulsating place. There was such a sense of community and hundreds of people would gather round to watch us. They even invited you into their homes." Considering the Tembisa riot sequence pivotal, Hughes made certain to thoroughly research the uprising. According to Peter Hoffman, "nobody actually knows what really happened. Bronwen wanted to have the riots in Tembisa really feel authentic and she achieved this by going back to her research and using different aspects of the protests than what we had originally written." Hughes adds, "I was intent on not depicting generic chaos. I wanted to find the human details in the riot sequence itself but hold on to the violence and fear that was an inherent part of Andre's experience. It was a difficult balance to achieve." Cohen also worked hard to create the necessary ambience, jokingly explaining that "The hardest thing for me was to find a section of Tembisa where we could look in all directions and not have satellite dishes and new construction."

The filmmakers discovered that the support and interest generated by this movie was not confined solely to Tembisa. In fact, the authorities were so interested in the film that they allowed the production to shoot in some "real" locations. The team was particularly thrilled at the access Zonderwater Prison granted not only to Allan Heyl but to film the prison, itself. For Verdin the ability to film the original prison where Stander, McCall and Heyl were held added even more authenticity to the project. "A lot of the guards and wardens worked at the prison back when the gang was there so we got some wonderful anecdotes." It was surprising to everyone how fondly Andre Stander is remembered by South Africans, even by those who work in law enforcement. "I was amazed at the affection that the guards there had for Stander," comments Cohen. "A couple of the guys said he just wasn't like the other prisoners. They had a sort of mutual respect for him."

Director of Photography, Jess Hall, realized that vision with a naturalistic style of photography. Specifically, he used hand-held cameras and subtle lighting, duplicating the style of films like "The French Connection", which was also shot in that period. "To give it that power of realism, it could not be too glossy." explains Hall. However, Hall and Hughes were careful to preserve the continuity of the film and really allowed the costumes and production design to progress the timeline of film rather than the lighting or the camera work.

Peter Hoffman summarises the intention behind the look of the film. "I think this is going to be a classic American action picture but with all that authenticity derived from trying to recreate South Africa as it really was."