“That’s our job. It was easy to stay in it. Werner was adamant about no distractions on set. There weren’t M&M bowls, chairs and bored crew members playing high school grabass. It was the most difficult and grueling movie I’ve ever done. I was exhausted daily. As hard as it was to get up every morning, though, I couldn’t wait to hang out with Christian.”

Zahn says the role for this biopic film required very little research.

“I’ve seen all the war movies a million times. I had planes in my room when I was a kid and my dad thought I’d have a military career. I’d watch World at War in third grade. I was fascinated with memoirs of soldiers who had crystal-clear experiences that one year in a bush. For Rescue Dawn, I thought: ‘Okay. It’s 1966. Vietnam. POWs. He’s in Laos. That’s bad.’ I kind of just knew it all.”

Though he pitches the role as a natural, it bucks a clear trend his career has taken thus far.

“Perception is interesting to me. I’m just an actor. When I was doing theater, I was an ingénue. In film, you do something funny and become the funny guy. I just go from job to job and don’t have a big plan. I like doing comedy. I don’t feel a need to change it up so people respect me. A 20-year-old drunk-ass, stoned dude is funny. At 40, it’s not.

“People expect me to be a standup guy. I don’t do standup. I’m not really that funny when I’m hanging out with my friends in Kentucky who aren’t in the business. What’s funny to me is people who take themselves seriously and aren’t what they think they are. Also, POWs are funny. Just kidding.”

Though the part didn’t seem to fit in his career mold, Zahn says he zealously sought out the role. He describes the film as one that depicts a human’s true will to survive and defends Herzog by saying he’d be the last director in the world to politicize this topic.

“Surviving is fascinating to me,” Zahn said. “I don’t know where I’d break, if I would or if I’d succeed. All I know from all my reading and watching movies is that people with faith – some kind of faith – have historically been the ones to make it. There’s something outside them – some belief – but with Rescue Dawn, we never talked about that.”