Chris Pizzello/AP
Clint Eastwood with (L-R) Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, and Spencer Stone.
Clint Eastwood has cast three Americans who stopped a 2015 terrorist attack on a Paris train to play themselves in his next movie, "The 15:17 to Paris," Variety reports.The film will follow the lives of Anthony Sadler, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, and US Airman Spencer Stone - three childhood friends from California who were traveling through Europe on a high-speed train when they thwarted an armed attack from a suspected Islamist militant.
The movie is based on a book that the three men co-wrote about the ordeal, titled "The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, a Train, and Three American Heroes."
The three real-life heroes will star alongside Jenna Fischer, Judy Greer, and Ray Corasani in the film. Eastwood reportedly auditioned a number of actors for the role of the three Americans before deciding to cast the real-life men.
Sources told Variety that the movie will "begin during their childhood and show their friendship leading up to the moment that changed their lives." The roles will reportedly be sizable, though not "full-on leads."
"The 15:17 to Paris" follows Eastwood's recent trend of tapping into true stories of American heroism for his films.
His 2014 film "American Sniper" followed US Navy SEAL Chris Kyle's exploits in Iraq, and 2016's "Sully" recounted the US Airways Captain Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger's emergency landing of a plane on the Hudson River in 2009.