With the release of many Kennedy assassination documents yesterday, I am amused by how the law to release those documents was influenced by the film JFK. I was in two scenes in that movie and the filming of one of them gave me insight into Oliver Stone and his filmmaking process.
I played a reporter in the film. Yes, I know, big stretch. It prepared me for my other great role. Playing a local reporter in the TV show Friday Night Lights, I chased the Dillon Panthers and the East Dillon Lions up and down the field for five seasons.
In JFK, the first scene I was in was Lee Harvey Oswald’s funeral. It was filmed at Rose Hill cemetery in Fort Worth at Oswald’s actual grave. I was one of the reporters who carried the coffin to the grave. Because Stone liked reality, he had Gary Oldman actually inside the coffin as we carried it. Oldman was freaking out laying in the coffin.
The second scene was filmed in a house just down the street. Four reporters are asking Marina Oswald questions. She answers them.
The premise of Stone’s film was that there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy and Oswald was the patsy. The way the government and the Sixth Floor Museum and other “Oswald acted alone” theorists freaked out over the film, you’d think Stone got it exactly right and filmed from careful fact that never deviated into imagination.
While Stone put several theories together that have been there since the assassination, part of the story he made up as we went along.
In the scene filmed in the Marina Oswald living room, space was very tight with all the equipment. Lighting was done from outside the house through the living room windows. The large 35mm camera was backed up as far as possible. Marina (as played by Beata Pozniak) stood against the opposite wall. Four hands held microphones up to her. Mine is the only left hand holding a mic — that’s how you can spot me. Because space was so tight, Stone held the mic just to my right.
Stone asked her questions. She answered.
We did the scene over and over. It wasn’t working.
Stone asked everyone to step outside and take a break. He and a writer or two frantically rewrote the script.
An hour later, we came back inside and reset. This time, one of the other reporters had suddenly become Marina’s attorney and Stone asked new questions. Marina and her attorney answered.
Still the scene didn’t work.
Then Stone improvised questions. Marina improvised answers.
Better.
He repeated the questions and she reworked the answers.
Even better.
We kept rolling.
We repeated the scene several times.
Stone, who was sitting facing me, gave a questioning look. I nodded at him and smiled.
“And cut,” he said.
And that’s what ended up in the film.
Best lesson I ever had in acting and improvisation.
I remember stories at the time from other people who were in the film — rewrites throughout the filming were constant. The 1991 release JFK came from research, but also imagination. It was great storytelling by a brilliant filmmaker — such great storytelling that it caused Congress to write a law instructing all documents be released by yesterday.

— David Taffet