Soldier's Girl is a 2003 Canadian-American drama film produced by Showtime. It is based on a true story: the relationship between Barry Winchell and Calpernia Addams and the events that led up to Barry's murder by fellow soldiers. It was written by Ron Nyswaner and directed by Frank R. Pierson, with Troy Garity starring as Barry and Lee Pace starring as Calpernia.
Năm 1999, một sự kiện bi thương xảy ra làm rúng động xã hội Mỹ: một người lính tên Barry Winchell bị đồng đội mình đánh đến chết trong khi ngủ, chỉ vì anh ta có quan hệ yêu đương với một người phụ nữ chuyển giới có tên nữ là Calpernia Addams. 4 năm sau, bộ phim Soldier’s Girl ra đời đem câu chuyện kì lạ và đầy thương cảm đó phơi bày trước dư luận. Bộ phim không chỉ là câu chuyện về cái chết thương tâm của một người lính, mà còn là về một tình yêu vượt qua rào cản của xã hội. Bộ phim lên án sự man rợ, tàn nhẫn và vô cảm của những con người đã gây ra thảm kịch thương tâm này.
| Soldier's Girl | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Frank Pierson |
| Written by | Ron Nyswaner |
| Starring | Troy Garity Lee Pace |
| Music by | Jan A.P. Kaczmarek |
| Cinematography | Paul Sarossy |
| Edited by | Katina Zinner |
Release dates
|
|
Running time
| 112 minutes |
| Country | United States, Canada |
| Language | English |
Cast
Troy Garity as Barry Winchell
Lee Pace as Calpernia Addams
Andre Braugher as Carlos Diaz
Shawn Hatosy as Justin Fisher
Philip Eddolls as Calvin Glover
Merwin Mondesir as Henry Millens
Dan Petronijevic as Collin Baker (as Daniel Petronijevic)
Troy Garity as Barry Winchell
Lee Pace as Calpernia Addams
Nomination
Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television - 2003 Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television - Troy Garity - 2003 Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Televison Series - Lee Pace - 2003 Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Actor - Lee Pace - 2003 Independent Spirit Awards
Best Supporting Actor - Troy Garity - 2003 Independent Spirit Awards
Soldier’s Girl – The Reality
Special Note: If you are here primarily out of empathy for the tragedy portrayed in “Soldier’s Girl (the Movie)“, please consider a donation to SLDN.org. Please, out of respect for my need to move forward, do not contact me about Barry’s murder or the movie, either here, via social networking sites or in person.
Update: The man who I consider the mastermind of Barry’s murder, Justin Fisher, was released from prison in 2006 and is now a free man.
On the night of July 4th, 1999, my boyfriend Army PFC Barry Winchell was brutally beaten to death in his sleep in a murder committed by two fellow soldiers.
I am, and have always been, a musician, actress, artist and entertainer. Barry first met me while I was performing on stage. I continue to perform and create to this day, almost 16 years later. I created this website as an information resource on my career, a forum for some of my creative hobbies, and also as a forum for women in my situation to exchange information and inspiration with each other. My social media presence on Facebook, Instagram,Twitter, YouTube and elsewhere is whimsical and fun. The tone of this website is usually lighthearted, and I deliberated a long time over including information about the following events. I do not have a lot of personal photos and writing about Barry Winchell on my site because I’d rather keep the private things private. But the story of my life, past, present or future, is just not complete without talking a little about our story together.
In 1999 I met a soldier named Barry Winchell. I was a showgirl, he was in the Army, both of us at defining moments in our lives, and we fell into an intense, private relationship almost immediately. We found something in each other that made us happy and kept the dark side of existence a little farther away from our demanding, difficult lives. We only had a short time together, enough time to begin to hope that things could progress and life could change from loneliness to love, and then he was murdered by two fellow soldiers. Stolen away from his family, friends and me. You never know when life is going to change, or to end.
The time after the murder was difficult for everyone. A woman in my situation does not find love easily, and when it’s gone only memories and scars remain.
Media scoured the wreckage for sensationalism while carefully stepping around the shattered truth that could have been the only, too-dearly-priced good to come up from anything. Even more terrible was the suffering of an innocent family. My fear at reaching out to them was an additional source of misery. Finding peace with myself has been the longest battle, and the person I was at that time did not feel ready to be looked at, analyzed and judged by the world.
I am a person who agonizes for weeks over a misspoken comment, much less the ruin of lives. The murder was not my fault, but guilt will always burn in my memory behind the clean, beautiful moments of love I will never forget.
I had competed in, and won, the Tennessee Entertainer of the Year pageant on the night of the 4th, and Barry had duty on base that night (to watch the company mascot dog) so we had not been together that evening. I heard about the attack on the television news the next morning. I was confused and devastated, and alongside those emotions I was even more acutely aware of the everpresent knowledge that as a trans woman I would not be welcome anywhere in any public part of his life, including the hospital. As a transwoman, making myself known or attempting to be any part of the recovery I hoped for at the time would destroy Barry’s career. At that moment, knowing only that he was grievously injured, I felt terrified that it had something to do with our relationship and yet I couldn’t make myself known and didn’t know if I should attempt to be there by his side. I felt paralyzed. Trapped. I called the hospital, looking for news, but was not given any information. I went to stay at a good friend’s house, confined to his couch wrapped in blankets, alternating a search for news with fitful sleep. Soon thereafter, I heard that Barry had died. There was to be a memorial. I agonized over my appearance, trying to put together some presentation of my early-in-transition self that would not shame his memory, then drove the hour to be base, but was afraid to attempt passage of the gate guards and did not go in.
I never saw Barry again, and after the events on the night of July 4th the real-life comfort of our relationship had evaporated, leaving behind a long and ongoing struggle for unsatisfying justice and some modicum of understanding in the wake of massive public gawking.
At some point, lawyers and groups such as Rhonda White and Lambda Legal and SLDN came to help me and work on the brewing legal case. Honestly, it was a tumultuous time and I struggle nowadays with memory and concentration issues that I alternately attribute to stress, chemicals from my time in the first Gulf War and brain chemistry. Details such as dates, times, places and names are more and more difficult to pin down for me, whether in relation to this or even simple basics like the birthdays of my family members. I apologize if I get some details wrong here, but the basic events are all sound.
Media began picking up the story, from those first morning news reports to ongoing local coverage, and print media that expanded from Southern papers all the way to the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and more. I began turning down requests to speak to disreputable coverage such as daytime talk shows and tabloids. I have archived as much of the media coverage as I could here, if you are interested. At that time, my full time job was being a headlining showgirl at The Connection, a huge theatre and nightclub, and media began stalking me at work. I’ll never forget getting the unsympathetic message that the owners were “not happy” about me “bringing all the negative attention to the club”. This was the beginning of an unexpected contingent of negative reaction from within the GLBT community alongside the expected negativity of outsiders. Seeing how our relationship was already being written about as a “gay relationship”, and I was being described as Barry’s “gay male lover”, I was eager to present the truth about us as a happy boy/girl couple to the writers I deemed respectable. I was eager to assert that Barry was attracted to women, and show that I was not the media’s common stereotype of a transsexual — a street-dwelling prostitute, a linebacker in a dress or a guilty husband caught in his wife’s knickers.
During these weeks and months after the murder, as preparations for the legal case unfolded, my life became about getting justice and setting the record straight on who Barry and I were, and what our relationship was. While I was fortunate enough to have the support of most of the GLBT community (none was asked or expected from the larger hetero community at that time, though it did come after the movie aired), I faced some very hurtful and confusing attacks from within the GLBT community during this time of greatest need, as they watched me navigate the unprecedented amount of attention from national media sources. Some few individuals in the GLBT community at the time viewed the media attention with a shocking, soulless jealousy — one person even commented on my pursuit by the local news with “Girl, you’re so lucky!”, to which I responded with utter disgust, and which I can only hope was an utterly thoughtless observation on the attention disconnected from the tragedy generating it. My appearance and willingness to talk to my carefully selected interviewers was also viewed with a critical eye by some. Being early on in my transition at the time, I was still struggling with makeup, needing to apply it heavily to cover my not-yet-feminized features and thus appearing (to some) overly “showy” or “sexy” because of it. The only affordable clothes that fit my larger-than-average and rapidly changing frame were stretchy and thus form-fitting. My limited finances forced me to overlap my exotic showgirl shoes and accessories wherever possible into my daily wear. All of this led to some few criticizing me for doing myself up in an inappropriately sexy or flashy manner for the inevitable press coverage. Others objected to me providing images of myself at work, on stage, as being inappropriately sexy. To me, it was important that people understood that Barry was a heterosexual man attracted to women, and showing some images of me as I appeared when he first fell for me onstage was a means of doing that. In any case, I can only hope that no other person ever has to work so hard to justify their relationship with someone else, in the wake of a murder, to a public with most every wrong idea about them possible.
During the media aftermath, one journalist in particular stands out as someone who had a major part in getting Barry’s story out: David France. Although some other sources covered it, I believe without David’s writing, Barry’s story would never have captured the world’s hearts and minds the way it did.
David wrote a cover story for the New York Times Magazine called “An Inconvenient Woman” that
was my favorite out of all the published accounts. He went on to become a personal friend in the following years.
Unfortunately, at the time of publication there was a problem with quote attribution, so the instant the story was published, the legal and activist groups who were helping me in Nashville needed to reassert their views. That very morning, they drafted several letters which I was urged to sign denouncing David’s article. While I did agree with them about the attribution (an error on the fact-checker’s part, not David’s), as a whole I loved the article. But the activist groups had been so caring, available and hard-working to ensure that the Army did the right thing during the trial, so Iin my especially vulnerable state I found myself torn between two factions that I needed and cared about. There was a real atmosphere of tension and stress around me and the trial, and everyone’s reactions to everything were quite dramatic.
Most unfortunately, I did not consider that that tone of these letters denounced and discredited David’s entire piece, so when I signed them in the rushed flurry of outrage and emotion surrounding the ongoing court case, I was suddenly on record in a multitude of press releases saying David’s article was completely inaccurate and a horrible slander. It was a terrible situation within a terrible situation: torn between two earnest, talented groups trying to fight injustice. If I had it to do over again, I would have carefully read the papers I signed and perhaps drafted my own statement, simply saying I agreed about the misattribution, and left my involvement at that.
But one can only “change one’s story” so many times before losing credibility, a hard lesson I learned in terms of dealing with the media. The last word is, I love and appreciate the groups who helped me, both personally and professionally. I also love and appreciate David and his sensitive, insightful and world-changing article. Everyone was trying to do the right thing, including me, but it just got a little complicated. You can read David France’s New York Times Article if you like.
A long while later, Showtime approached me about consulting on a film telling the story of our relationship. I was reluctant, worried about the “propriety” of becoming involved with an entertainment project. I spoke with everyone personally, did my research, and two years later I joined the project because I was convinced of the sincerity of everyone involved.
I offered to work with the team for no money, and I turned down an onscreen appearance in the film. My decision was made with the full knowledge that dramatization of the story, and my involvement, would still be seen as improper by some.
I was not unaware of the possibility that my being an actress and entertainer could throw a doubtful light on my intentions. But after two years of consideration, and after hearing so many responses from people touched and educated by the story, I decided that my involvement was a duty. I have tried to fulfill that duty with as much class and comportment as possible, and can only hope time will bear this out.
This movie, Soldier’s Girl, is about our relationship and his subsequent murder. The subject matter is incredibly sensitive for me, and I generally only discuss it with my closest friends and the people involved in our lives. Opening up to the makers of the film was cathartic, and their telling of the story is an absolutely beautiful tribute to the wonderful man Barry Winchell was. I am very proud of the team I got to know and the finished film.
There’s really not much more that I want to say here about these events directly, now that it has been more than ten years since Barry’s murder. Only those directly involved can understand this at its core level. But people’s interest remains high as a result of the movie “Soldier’s Girl” and other commentary on the story, so I have addressed some things here especially relating to the ways through which people have become familiar with the story. If I seem to talk about the movie and press coverage more than my personal experiences surrounding these events, it is only because I choose to keep many of my most personal thoughts private.
Know that the person who I consider the mastermind of Barry’s murder, Justin Fisher, has completed the prison term deemed appropriate by the government and now walks as a free man. Former President Bill Clinton and current President Barack Obama’s promises to dismantle the codified culture of homophobia in the US military that contributed to Barry’s murder stand unfulfilled.
My interview with Lee Pace…
Posted on April 26, 2008 by Greg Hernandez
Imagine being a young actor just off your first big film and a director meets you with this job offer: you are to play a paralyzed soldier and not let on to anyone know – not even your co-stars or the film’s crew – that you can walk in real life.
It happened to Lee Pace, the star of ABC’s “Pushing Daisies” who filmed his part in director Tarsem Singh’s epic fanstasy “The Fall,” four years ago when he was not yet famous. He played a bedridden man in a hospital who befriends a young girl with a broken collar bone and starts telling her a vivid, fantastical story of exotic lands.
“I thought, ‘Great! I’ll really be acting now, great method stuff,” said Lee, who was trained at Julliard. “I had only done one movie before this, he had seen ‘Soldier’s Girl’ and thought I’d be perfect for this one. God knows why.”
Lee talked about what a toll the role took on him – far more than playing Ned on “Daisies,” a pie maker with the power to bring dead people back to life.
“It was really lonely,” he said when we spoke a few days ago. “I could walk around but no one could see me. I couldn’t have anyone over. I had to lie to everyone. Everyone thought I was paralyzed. I
wasn’t the pie marker (on “Daisies”) then so I could get away with it.”
The other challenge was acting opposite then six-year-old Cantica Untaru, a Romanian girl who did know a word of English.
“She was cautious and as it went on, she got real close to my character,” Lee said. “She would take care of me, draw me little pictures, she would play with my nose and talk in a way that was absolutely private. It’s like she had no idea she was being filmed. My job was kind of getting her to talk and be un-self-conscious and improvise with her a lot.”
“The Fall “goes into limited release on May 9, marking the first time it can be seen outside the film festival circuit.
“When I had my very first meeting with Tarsem, he said, ‘This is the kind of movie that they will teach about in film school.’ I thought, ‘Yeah, every director says that.’ But it really is. He has made a movie that is absolutely incredible and I played a little part in doing that. It’s layered and complicated. It’s a really, really special movie.”
Lee has managed to land a series of parts in quality films and television shows including the recent “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” (above) opposite Amy Adams and Frances McDormand, and in the upcoming “Possession,” he gets above-the-title billing for the first time with co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar.
His first film was a stunner based on a true story: In 2003’s “Soldier’s Girl,” Lee played Calpernia Addams, a transgender woman dating Army soldier Barry Winchell (Troy Garity) who was murdered because of his sexuality and his relationship with Addams.
“I didn’t come to the audition dressed in drag, I was just wearing a T-shirt and jeans,” Lee recalled. “I knew how to connect and mean what I say. I don’t know how to play a drag queen.”
After he was cast, he told director Frank Pierson and he was having a difficult time finding his way into the drag queen element of the character: “Pierson just said, ‘Play the woman and the story will be clear. All I had to do was play the integrity of it, falling in love with someone else, getting away from her past. All I had to do was focus on is falling in love. After that, the make-up people will do their job.”
“I’m really proud of that film. When I broke it to my parents that I was playing Calpernia, my mom was like, ‘Oh, well, at least you’re not playing a killer.’ When I got cast in ‘Infamous,’ I was like, ‘Guess what mom.'”
In “Infamous,” Lee and Daniel Craig portrayed the two killers Truman Capote wrote about in his book “In Cold Blood” and the movie dramatized his research of the film. The movie had the misfortune of being released a year after a nearly identical film, “Capote,” won Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Oscar for his portrayal of the famed writer.
The film was shot before Craig was cast as the new James Bond but things were already in the works for him to become the next 007.
“We shot a sequence in Waco and I did this drive back with him and he was on the phone talking to someone about the Bond thing,” Lee remembered. “It was all coming together at that time. He was great to work with, he absolutely transformed himself.”
With a string of good movie parts behind him, Lee was not even thinking of doing any television when “Pushing Daisies” creator Bryan Fuller approached him. The two men had worked together in Fuller’s previous series, the short-lived “Wonderfalls.”
“‘Wonderfalls’ burned me on the whole TV thing, The network did not support us and the show was shot in Toronto and I was hesitant to get back into it. But too many things were right about this. The material and the script was good and knowing Bryan Fuller, I had real faith in how he would develop it. It’s scary signing that kind of contract but I’m really glad I did it. It’s been a strong experience all the way around.”
“When I first read the script, I was like, ‘This is gonna be a hit. I knew that if we made it, it was gonna be a hit, a show that people watched. So, the real debate was, ‘Am I comfortable being the lead of a popular TV show. You have a very different life. People get you on TV for free in their homes, you are more approachable when you are in airplanes, people watch me in restaurants. I’m really tall and people think, ‘That tall guy looks like the pie maker.”
Lee will resume his pie baking when “Daisies” resumes production in June for its second season of episodes. The first season got off to a strong start but was cut short because of the the writers strike and unlike other ABC shows like “Desperate Houewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” was not rushed back into production to make fresh spring episodes.
“It’s given us time,” he said of the break. “The writers have a chance to look at our season and see what worked and what didn’t work. There are some things that could use some tinkering. We’re not (a procedural show) like ‘CSI’ or ‘Law & Order,’ we have to go by our taste and our instinct with it.”
LEE PACE
Sở hữu ngoại hình điển trai khiến hàng triệu trái tim phải gục ngã và chiều cao ấn tượng 1m90, tài tử đồng tính Lee Pace là một trong những cái tên đắt giá của Hollywood.
Nam diễn viên điển trai gây nhiều ấn tượng với khán giả Việt Nam qua vai diễn vị vua Thranduil đầy kiêu hãnh của bộ phim bom tấn The Hobbit. Anh là một trong những tên tuổi đắt giá của Hollywood với những bộ phim được đánh giá cao. Ngoài ra Lee Pace còn tham gia một số bộ phim bom tấn được nhiều khán giả Việt Nam yêu thích như: Breaking dawn (vai ma cà rồng), Guardians of the galaxy (vai phản diện Ronan).
Vai diễn Thranduil gây ấn tượng mạnh với khán giả Việt Nam.
Vai diễn này đã được đạo diễn Peter Jackson "đo ni đóng giày" cho Lee Pace.
Lee Pace đã bắt đầu nghiệp diễn ngay từ thời gian còn học cấp 3 bằng việc tham gia nhà hát Alley Theatre tại Houston. Sau đó anh đã được nhận vào học tại trường Juilliard danh tiếng và nhận bằng cử nhân ngành Mỹ thuật.
Trong suốt khoảng thời gian đó, Pace đã thể hiện được khả năng diễn xuất tài ba của mình qua các vai diễn trong những vở kịch kinh điển như vai Romeo trong “Romeo & Juliet” vai vua Richard đệ nhị trong “King Richard II” và vai Cassius trong “Julius Caesar” cùng hàng loạt các vai diễn khác.
Lee Pace cũng gặt hái được nhiều thành công với vai diễn phản diện Ronan trong bộ phim bom tấn Guardians of the galaxy.
Khi vào vai ma ca rồng nam tài tử cũng hút hồn không kém.
Trên phương diện sân khấu, Pace đã đảm nhận vai chính trong vở kịch Off-Broadway đình đám “The Credeaux Canvas” của đạo diễn Michael Mayer. Bên cạnh đó, anh cũng đã góp mặt trong “Small Tragedy” do Craig Lucas viết kịch bản, và vai diễn này đã mang lại cho anh đề cử Nam diễn viên xuất sắc nhất của lễ trao giải Lucille Lortel 2004.
Nụ cười đốn gục hàng triệu trái tim người hâm mộ.
Vẻ điển trai lịch lãm mê hồn của Lee Pace khiến cho cái tên của anh trở nên đắt giá bậc nhất Hollywoood.
Pace cũng tham gia vai chính trong bộ phim được đánh giá rất cao tại Liên hoan phim Sundance 2003 Soldier’s Girl của đạo diễn Frank Pierson. Và với diễn xuất xuất thần trong bộ phim này, anh đã nhận được đề cử của cả hai giải Quả Cầu Vàng và Tinh thần độc lập cùng một giải thưởng Gotham dành cho Nam diễn viên có diễn xuất đột phá nhất.
Các bộ phim đáng chú ý khác của Pace còn có The Good Shepherd, The Fall, Infamous, Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, Marmaduke…
Cùng ngắm trọn vẻ điển trai của nam diễn viên đồng tính đắt giá màn ảnh thế giới:
Anh không ngần ngại khi công khai mình là người đồng tính.
Sở hữu chiều cao khủng trên 1m90 cùng gương mặt cuốn hút Lee Pace ngay lập tức chiếm trọn trái tim người hâm mộ.
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