The Real Eric O'Neill

If you happen to be at your favorite electronics store, or the video store this weekend, there is a movie out there that you should probably consider picking up. Breach is an excellent tale about the capture of real life spy Robert Hanssen. CraveOnline got a chance to sit down with Eric O’Neill (played in the film by Ryan Phillippe) the FBI undercover operative that aided in bringing Hanssen to justice. He tells us about the film, working with the actors, and the production process.

Eric O’Neill: The movie is fairly accurate, at the end of the day [though] it’s a Hollywood movie, so there’s a little Hollywood in there it’s a great movie for the historical record of the Hanson case and arrest, building the case against him and catching him. All of my relationships obviously, there are some things put in to make it more tense, and suspenseful. One thing I do do on the DVD by the way, is in the commentary I kind of go through and explain where a scene is accurate and where a scene is not, that’s a great little bonus feature in there too.

CraveOnline: We saw a lot of the bonus features, and it looks like the DVD is put together well.

Eric O’Neill:  Yeah, I’m pretty happy with it too, I’m having a lot of fun with it.

CraveOnline Online: Were you surprised with how cooperative the FBI was concerning this films creation?

Eric O’Neill:  Actually I was pretty shocked, in the beginning, when I could only speak to things that I had permission to speak about there were a lot of little holes in the script where I had to say that information was classified, I can’t tell you the answer to that, I’m sorry you’re just going to have to make something up. I was fine with that because I would rather not get arrested for revealing classified information and I never felt terribly against having some fictional elements in the movie, it was never intended to be a documentary. But when Billy Ray and the producers went out to the FBI field offices and started talking to people, people were just spilling stuff that I couldn’t believe they told, ways and means, things that used to be secret, the FBI for this movie has entirely declassified, like the fact that there was technology in the room, and camera’s, and microphones. Everybody knows that but no one could ever say it because it was still a classified element of the case, so I was very happy, because Billy would come back from talking to them and I would say, “Okay, now brief me, tell me every single thing they said, all those things you just told me are now in the public and I can speak about them.” So it made it a better movie.

CraveOnline Online: Do you believe that Hanssen wanted to be captured and that he was on to you the entire time?

Eric O’Neill: I don’t, I believe he was never on to me and I don’t believe for a second that he wanted to be captured. I don’t think he did, his ego made him believe that he was safe, I think that I was effective in making him feel safe and that I wasn’t survailing him, and I think that he very much wanted to do this last drop. He felt very emotional about it because it was going to be the definitive end of his career in spying and he was very excited in the last week or so about a new job opportunity he had, and that he was going to take his retirement and go make a lot more money working in the private sector. And I think he really wanted to make this last drop, that was going to be sort of his closure with his career of spying, and then go work in the private sector and know that he got away with it.

CraveOnline Online: How did the Hanssen case affect FBI procedure to your knowledge?

Eric O’Neill:  He took the equivalent of a shotgun and fired a scatter shot at a piece of paper and blew many holes in the way the FBI both conducts counter intelligence, and protects information. So, the FBI since the day he was arrested has had to work very hard to patch up all those holes and to fix things. So, the FBI (because of Robert Hanssen) has had to be re-created as an institution with new procedures and ways to deal with counter-intelligence. It’s changed a lot and I think they are still working on repairing the damage that he did.

CraveOnline Online: With all those changes, looking back do you regret leaving the FBI?

Eric O’Neill: I always regret leaving the FBI, it’s the best job I’ve ever had, and I think the best job I will have. But, I’ve moved on to different things and I’m happy with my choices, it allows me to be home with my wife more, and to have a more normal schedule in life, but I do miss a lot about the FBI and in particular I miss the fact that when I worked the FBI I certainly made a difference everyday in what I did, and I got a lot of personal satisfaction out of that.

CraveOnline Online: What was it like working with Ryan Phillippe and Chris Cooper?

Eric O’Neill:  It was a lot of fun, it’s a pretty cool experience to get that inside look at how an actor faces a character, dealing with the script, building the character, and then in a sense, becoming that person. For Chris Cooper, of course to become Hanssen, I helped him quite a deal on that. But, for Ryan it was becoming me, which was really weird for both Ryan and I. And I guess Ryan had a choice, he could either go with, “Well I know what the script says so I don’t really want to meet Eric O’niell because I think it would be strange.” Or he could do what he decided to do which was spend a lot of time with me and come up with the character that way, and that was a lot of the fun for me which was watching that process happen.

CraveOnline Online: Do you feel like he did a great job, do you look up on the screen and say, “Wow, that’s me up there!”?

Eric O’Neill:  Yeah, but I like to step away and say, “This is an actor as an interpretation of me.” But, my wife and my friends and family are just amazed by his portrayal, and they really believe that he captured a lot of the goofy little things I do, and the way I talk and all that kind of stuff. So, I’m very happy with his portrayal, I think he makes me look good. You can’t ask for more than that.

CraveOnline Online: How much of the films storytelling is directly attributed to your input?

Eric O’Neill: Quite a deal, I came up with the idea, with my brother David and we pitched it to Hollywood. I worked with the two original screenwriters Adam Mazer, and Bill Rothco to write the first screenplay, and then when Billy Ray took the helm and wanted to rewrite the screenplay I worked very closely with him and he was very careful to make sure that I felt good about every scene. I remember there was one scene that I just absolutely didn’t like that he actually felt pretty good about Juliana didn’t like it either. It was a scene between Jules and I and he cut it. He (Billy) said in the end, “I want you, Eric to be happy with this, it’s about you.” It was really a great trust that I placed in him and it was well deserved.

CraveOnline Online: In the film, Hanssen refers to the FBI as a ‘gun culture’, how much truth is there to that claim?

Eric O’Neill:  There is a lot of truth to that, here’s the thing about Anthony, he was kind of a geek, and he was a computer guy with a bunch of guys who were jocks and shooters and those sorts of things. The guy loved guns and he was a dead shot, an expert marksman but at the end of the day he was more likely to plug his computer into the wall and solve problems that way. The FBI was like that, that was one of the things the FBI had to learn from this case, and become less of a gun culture and realize the way things are handled now in the world are through computerization and technology. I think that the FBI has moved that way. Of course you still have your guys with guns because it’s still a law enforcement institution. But, what he meant by the whole gun culture is that you need to sorta play the games and the politics if you want to advance.

CraveOnline Online: Were you ever officially recognized for your role in the Hanssen capture?

Eric O’Neill: I never got any real recognition; I was still an undercover operative at the time the Hanssen arrest happened. Unfortunately you get recognized with awards and promotions if you push your name around, a lot of people after that case claimed credit for the case even when they hadn’t done much for it, and got promotions or something. I sorta got my recognition and reward by getting a Hollywood movie made.

CraveOnline Online: This idea was originally conceived as a book right?

Eric O’Neill: Yes, I originally came up here to New York, and I went around with an agent and worked on pitching to all the major publishing houses and it turned out that, as you know, there are six Hanssen books and all the major publishers already had a Hanssen book. So, they weren’t going to have two, and they were all already worried about having six books and how they were going to sell when everybody has a Hanssen book.

CraveOnline Online: Wouldn’t you offer a unique perspective though?

Eric O’Neill: I did, I had the unique perspective but I refused to just work with another writer who was already writing a Hanssen book. All of the interviews that I had with the various publishing houses were subject to confidentiality agreements. I knew that I had a very special part of the story and I didn’t want to just throw that out there.

CraveOnline Online: Are there any plans for future literary projects non-fiction or otherwise?

Eric O’Neill: I love writing, it’s my hobby, I’ve been writing my whole life and so yeah I’m working on a screenplay idea and I worked on a TV pilot with one of my original writers, that we sold to the CW and I’m working with my brother on something else for the SCI-FI channel. So, we’ll see what happens.