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Tavis: Josh Lucas is a talented actor whose film credits include his standout performance as basketball coach, Don Haskins, in the film, "Glory Road." His latest project is the Oscar-nominated documentary, "Operation Homecoming," which highlights the firsthand accounts of American troops through their own words. The film was produced in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts. Here now a scene from "Operation Homecoming."

[Film Clip]

Tavis: Josh, nice to have you here.

Josh Lucas: Very happy to be here.

Tavis: And congrats on the nomination.

Lucas: Thanks.

Tavis: I mentioned "Operating Homecoming." I did not mention the subtitle of "Writing the Wartime Experience." From your perspective, writing that wartime experience for what purpose?

Lucas: For the expression of the soldiers from the point of view that is the most direct and, in this case, possibly the most nonpolitical. They simply have a job to do. That's one of the things that fascinates me most about this film. Like you just heard a piece that deals with possibly one of the most controversial moments in the film, the man who talks about the convoys, the tanks, running over Iraqi children.

The film itself doesn't deal with that consistently. It goes from very humorous, playful tellings of, you know, what it is to be a soldier on the day-to-day boredom level to something that complex. But it genuinely says, "This is my experience." What they did and how they went about that was fascinating.

They took world-class writers who had had war experiences themselves from Tobias Wolff to Andy Swafford who wrote "Jarhead" to James Salter and many great writers. The NEA took them over into the camps and the barracks in both Afghanistan and Iraq and created these basic writing camps for them to come into and to learn to express themselves. So all the writing in this film comes directly from those camps, in a sense, those symposiums.

Tavis: I mentioned earlier, and you just mentioned now, that this is done in conjunction with the NEA, but it still raises for me - I think it is an interesting question, at least for me - which is how it is that producers and artists like you who participate in a project like this keep their politics out of it? To your point, at first glance, it's not political. You want to hear the stories of these men and women, but it is set in such a political context, this war.

Lucas: Look, I don't necessarily know that that's my responsibility to be political or not be political. In this case, I think that's more a responsibility, I think, that the NEA feels. I think this filmmaker, Richard Robbins, who made the film decided very clearly that he wanted to make a film that just simply told the story of what these people are going through.

I think a lot of them feel like I have a choice to be here, I don't have a choice to be here, it doesn't matter, I have to be here. They are given an assignment and they go about that assignment and this film really just says this is the writing now. From a different perspective, you could say as an artist you have a responsibility to throw your opinion into it.

But with this film, seeing as it's simply a documentary about writing the wartime experience, you know, and we have the responsibility of basically having some of the people who are there, who believe very strongly in what the Bush administration believes, for example, that they need to be there. I personally don't believe that, but I think that because the film addresses both sides, it's doing it in a very balanced, very fair way.

Tavis: Does seeing, much less being involved in a project like this, in any way adjust - trying to find a safe word here - adjust to how you felt about the war before you started work on the project?

Lucas: My most extraordinary experience so far in terms of dealing with the military, look, I come from parents who believed very strongly that the doomsday clock was set at 11:59. My parents were hardcore anti-nuclear protests. There was a black car outside of our door when I was a child. We lived in a political system that they really felt (laughter) rage towards, I would say, conservative politics and towards the transition this country is going towards.

But doing a film like this, you know, has not just shifted me, but a number of my experiences have shifted me because, for example, I did a movie about fighter pilots and I lived on an aircraft carrier for a couple different weeks at a time. When you're actually in the experience of being with the military itself, my compassion tremendously goes out to them and my support for what they're going through goes out to them.

Now, do I support the administration or the policies or the officers that are putting them in the danger (laughter)? No, I don't. Absolutely, I don't. But again, this is a film that isn't going into that.

Tavis: So you were kind of like an imbedded actor as opposed to an imbedded journalist (laughter)?

Lucas: (Laughter) I guess, if I'm going to be kind to myself, yeah.

Tavis: Yeah, an imbedded actor.

Lucas: I mean, the thing is, you know, this is KCET. I had the great experience of being a part of Ken Burns' film, "The War," recently as well.

Tavis: Absolutely.

Lucas: And one of the things about that film which is similar to this film is that it simply says, look, these guys get in the situation oftentimes naively thinking, "Oh, I'm gonna get a college grant." Next thing they know, they're in Iraq for two years and watching their buddy's head get blown off. So it's a situation that is very difficult to put any judgment on, particularly the day-to-day grunt, the day-to-day guys going through the experience.

Tavis: Let me ask two questions now. I'll put them out there now and you can get to them in the way you want to, but two questions that are related although different. The first question is to tell us more specifically about the role you play in this project, number one.

But number two, since you mentioned Ken Burns', "The War," which you were a part of, a huge blockbuster success for PBS, contrast if you will, if there are any contrasts, that occurred to you. You see where I'm going with this. "The War" is looking back; this is the here and now. Take me where you want to take it.

Lucas: I think - well, there's two things. First of all, you know, Ken made a film that the first title of the film was "A Necessary War." I think that that's probably one of the most hugely controversial elements of this war and I think the difference is that most of the soldiers involved in World War II felt very clear on what their purpose was.

I think there's a huge separation here that people feel within themselves during not only their home front experience that we are all dealing with, but the people over there actually doing the fighting are going through. That's the main one. But the similarities are remarkable.

Oftentimes, they're in situations that, you know, Ken called "FUBAR" which, if you know that expression, I don't think I can say it here, is that they are in a situation that is so beyond their control. There's nothing they can do about it. Oftentimes, they're put there by commanders or generals who don't necessarily know the terrain or know the situation and they themselves are having to work out and stay alive inside of something that they don't have any safety net for.

I think both situations are very similar. That is the fog of war. That is the madness that happens inside war. So those are the things I think, you know, are both contrasting and similar, but mainly it is the day-to-day grunt is in a situation that oftentimes deals with primarily nothing but boredom and then moments of absolute terrifying chaos. Really, your life is about trying to stay alive.

Tavis: Your role in this project is specifically?

Lucas: A man called Ed Hrivnac who is a guy actually from an area that I grew up in. I went to high school in the Seattle area and I know he's up there again. He's a twenty-year veteran even though he's, I think, actually younger than I am. He's been in the military since he was a kid. He was a nurse and a pilot and his job was to -

Tavis: - he was a nurse and a pilot?

Lucas: Nurse and a pilot.

Tavis: Wow. That's a range right there (laughter).

Lucas: Yeah. The guy actually was in Somalia, in Bosnia, and all these different places during both things. I guess that's also one of the things about the military. You get to learn a number of different sides, a number of different trades.

Tavis: They do more before eight a.m. than we do - I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Lucas: But his job was to deal with the most severely wounded in the big cargo planes that are basically built like the highest-tech medical office you've ever seen. They're getting these kids who basically had, you know, severe injuries particularly to their heads, and they're basically keeping them alive as they transfer them from Iraq to Germany.

He has this almost consistent, almost therapy type experience with each boy as they come on these planes. They're talking to him and asking him, "What's happening to me? What am I going to go through?" In my particular piece, he's talking about what one of the boys confesses to him and it's heartbreaking, powerful stuff.

Tavis: I would assume that a nomination for a project like this gives a project like this life, gives it legs, gives it more exposure and I would assume the persons behind it couldn't be happier with an Oscar nomination.

Lucas: (Laughter) You have no idea.

Tavis: Yeah (laughter).

Lucas: You know, that's why I'm here is to support them and to support the film and also because I think, you know, in a way, in a sense, the writing of these guys in the military got nominated as well. That's how good this writing is.

I mean, you're talking writing at a level of Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway and really genuinely some of the most profound wartime, hard-edged, balls out, you know, real poetic writing that I've heard about the war and read about any war, for that matter. And the filmmakers really nailed it as well. They did it in very creative, very unique ways.

Tavis: You've done a lot of good stuff in your career and I'm going to close in a moment by asking you what you're working on now, where we see you, Josh Lucas, next. But I'm curious as to what it is in your past - you mentioned your parents earlier - what it is in your past, your life, that obviously draws you to at least a couple of projects like this around this issue of war?

Lucas: I think it's because, you know, coming from a family that was so hardcore anti-war, it's in a sense been in my blood since, you know, as early as I can remember. My parents were really serious anti-Vietnam protestors. You know, probably from the time I was in my mother's womb, there was something inside of me that was leading me a certain direction.

Interestingly enough, I think there's been a dichotomy in that I've gotten to know a lot of the military and have tremendous and profound compassion for what they go through. My politics are still very clear and very in line with what my parents were, but I think, at the same time, you know, I've really, I think, grown a lot in terms of my understanding of what it really is to be in the military and what that process can do to your life.

Tavis: I would assume, then, finally, if you're like most actors, then the next project is not going to be about war. It's going to be like, what, a comedy?

Lucas: You know, I did do a comedy. I have a great fun comedy coming out, at least I hope it's good. Jennifer Aniston, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn. I play a porn star (laughter), obviously.

Tavis: I'm laughing (laughter). Josh is playing a porn star. His name, of course, Josh Lucas. This project is now one of the documentaries nominated for the Academy Award this year. It's "Operating Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience." Josh, one of a number of wonderful people connected to the project. Nice to have you on the program. Good to see you, man.

Lucas: Great to be here. Thanks, Tavis.

[Film Clip]