SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The 2018 Camp Fire was the deadliest California wildfire in history. Eighty-five people died. More than 50,000 were displaced. In August 2021, we interviewed Lizzie Johnson, a reporter who covered the fire and wrote a book, "Paradise: One Town's Struggle To Survive An American Wildfire," that included the story of Kevin McKay, a school bus driver.
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LIZZIE JOHNSON: The morning that the Camp Fire ignited, he got stuck on this bus with two teachers and 22 children, and he had to get them all out of town to safety. And he didn't think they were going to make it.
SIMON: That story is now told in the new film "The Lost Bus," directed by Paul Greengrass, with Matthew McConaughey as Kevin McKay, and America Ferrera as a teacher, Mary Ludwig.
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AMERICA FERRERA: (As Mary Ludwig) Kids, this is our bus driver, Kevin. Could we say hi to Kevin?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As schoolchildren) Hi, Kevin.
FERRERA: (As Mary Ludwig) Can I get you in two straight lines, shortest in the front, tallest in the back? And Kevin is going to drive you to Paradise Elementary, where your parents are going to pick you up.
SIMON: The fire already burns just outside their school's windows. America Ferrera joins us now. Thank you so much for being with us.
FERRERA: Thank you. My pleasure.
SIMON: You play a real person, Mary Ludwig - second-grade teacher. I gather from seeing you on the red carpet together that you've gotten to know her at least a little bit. What was it like to help tell her story?
FERRERA: I felt so lucky to get to know her, you know, our producer Jamie Lee Curtis, who was the catalyst for the film, after she heard maybe your interview with Lizzie.
SIMON: I have been told, in fact, it was our interview, yes.
FERRERA: Great. Yes, well, she's told the story. She started with - in her great sort of wisdom and instinct, she started with building relationships with Mary and Kevin. When I came on, Mary sat on Zoom with me for hours and talked to me and answered so many questions. And I deeply wanted what was important to her about the journey she'd been on on that bus with those children and Kevin to survive in the film.
SIMON: Yeah.
FERRERA: My Mary on screen, she's been a second-grade teacher for 20 years. There's a way to be, and there's a way to respond in an emergency, and the journey is really about shedding all of the sense of control that she's kind of clinging to and surrender to the reality that they're in, which is this raging, monstrous fire that is so much bigger than them.
SIMON: There's so many scenes of driving through fires and falling power lines and the screams of children. What was that like to film?
FERRERA: Yeah, it was really tense. I kind of, like, realized way too late that I had signed on to a horror film. Like, horror is not my genre. I don't like watching horror. I never wanted to be in a horror film. I thought this was just, like, a real deep, true-to-life drama. And then a third of the way in, I'm like, I signed on to a horror movie.
SIMON: (Laughter)
FERRERA: And the way Paul really directed the fire as a monster, you know, it has its own POV, and we're being chased. You know, it's a chase movie. We're being chased by this fire. And that was physically and emotionally taxing, in a way that I guess I really underestimated.
SIMON: I don't need to tell you, of course, that devastating wildfires, like the Camp Fire, are becoming more common in California. I wonder if that realization weighed on you as you made the film.
FERRERA: I think it was a huge part of why I wanted to make the film. I'm born and raised in Southern California. Wildfires are, you know, not new to me, and I think for anyone paying attention for the last number of years, you know that this is an increasing experience, and the scariest part of it all is how each fire is an unprecedented fire. Each fire is less predictable, less controllable. And that's really the big part of - a really big part of the overstory in the movie is how really good people with really good intentions were very humbled in front of nature. And so all that to say, like the reality that wildfires are growing in frequency and in unpredictability and in how much damage they're causing was, for me, just a underlining of why making the movie mattered.
SIMON: Kevin and Mary and the youngsters, for that matter, I mean, they're surrounded by help or people who want to be helpful, but it's called "The Lost Bus" 'cause the communications, nobody, the officials don't know where the bus is. Is there a moment when Kevin and Mary decide, if anyone's going to save us, it's got to be ourselves?
FERRERA: Yeah. For Mary, one of those moments comes when one of the kids is about to pass out and hyperventilating, and that is something that happened.
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FERRERA: (As Mary Ludwig) OK, don't talk. Don't talk. Breathe slowly. Slowly. Try to slow down your breathing.
They'd been in a bus inhaling toxic smoke and fumes. And they were on that bus for a total of six hours in real life. That was...
SIMON: Yeah.
FERRERA: ...A six-hour hell ride.
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FERRERA: (As Mary Ludwig) Kevin, we have to find water or she's going to stroke out.
And these kids are tiny. I mean, the kids on the bus were 5 to 10 years old, if you can imagine. Five. And so their little bodies were suffering, and they didn't have any water. And Mary knew that she had to find water.
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FERRERA: (As Mary Ludwig) No, no, no, no, no. No, you need to stay on the bus. If the fire comes, you have to drive. Let me go. I can do it. Two minutes. I'll be right back. I can do it. I can do it.
Mary and I talked about that moment in real life. It's a little different on screen than it played out in real life, but she did get off the bus, and she said it to me as a point of pride. You know, I think she said it to me as, like, something that she never imagined she could do.
SIMON: I found myself thinking about that all the time. These are real-life heroes, people who got up that day like any other morning and wound up risking their lives for others.
FERRERA: And when you factor in that they both had children of their own out in the fire...
SIMON: Yeah.
FERRERA: ...Every instinct, I'm sure, in her body as a mother was to go get her children. What is a hero, if not that? And, you know, of course, our first responders are incredible heroes. A number of the firefighters who fought the fires in Paradise on that day were on set. The real chief, Chief Messina, who is a character in the movie, he was on set. He also did a cameo in the back. And making the film felt like an honoring of what the town survived and also how they met the moment and how they - how there were probably hundreds and maybe even thousands of acts of heroism that day, you know, and human resilience and human light, while there were really tough moments. And watching the movie is a nerve-racking thrill ride.
SIMON: Yeah.
FERRERA: There was a lot of light in making the movie and making it particularly involving a lot of the people who were part of the real events.
SIMON: America Ferrera - she stars in the new film, "The Lost Bus." Thank you so much for being with us.
FERRERA: Thank you so much, Scott.
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