“Before two leaders like that have a summit meeting, there’s lots of prep work that goes into it,” recalls Souza. “But this was very last minute. The Reagan administration went to great effort leading up to Reykjavik, to not call it a summit. They’d say, ‘It’s just a meeting, and we’re not characterizing it as a summit.’”
The summit’s purpose was to discuss the arms controls between the two nations, in hopes of bringing an end to the long-lasting threat of nuclear war hanging over both countries, and the world as a whole. Over 30 hours, Reagan and Gorbachev fiercely debated in an effort to bring peace and the end of the Cold War. Now, a new film from writer-director Michael Russell Gunn, The Brink of War, gives this historical moment a worthy spotlight. The film stars Jeff Daniels as Reagan, Jared Harris as Gorbachev, and J.K. Simmons as Secretary of State George Shultz.
For Gunn, the idea for The Brink of War came from a meeting he had with the real George Shultz, to whom the film is dedicated. Shultz told him all about the Reykjavik Summit. “I had never heard of this summit before,” says Gunn, “but once I found out I couldn’t stop thinking of it.”
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