Most of us know Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, but how much do we really know about the man behind that iconic Hollywood career. I knew he’d served in World War II, but I’d never really heard much about his service in the war or why his decision to serve was so important to us historically and socially.
There was a lot about this film that made me think differently about Stewart’s life, which I will get into, but it also raised all kinds of new questions.
So, I reached out to the director, Aaron Burns, who shared some additional thoughts about his approach to this story and about Jimmy himself. I’ll start with a quick review, followed by my interview with Aaron Burns, and then wrap things up with my recommendation.
Jimmy stars KJ Apa as James Stewart, and I’m intentionally saying his full name because the character we get really focuses on the man, not just the actor, and KJ does a good job of capturing Stewart’s recognizable voice and mannerisms, making it a lot easier for me as an audience member to slip into the film. This was, honestly, one of my biggest concerns since Jimmy Stewart is so iconic and those qualities would be really hard to replicate for any actor in a way that doesn’t come off as hokey. KJ Apa pulled it off, giving us a believable character who did not bounce me out of the story.
You can read the review and interview below or watch it here:
Jimmy stars KJ Apa as James Stewart, and I’m intentionally saying his full name because the character we get really focuses on the man, not just the actor, and KJ does a good job of capturing Stewart’s recognizable voice and mannerisms, making it a lot easier for me as an audience member to slip into the film. This was, honestly, one of my biggest concerns since Jimmy Stewart is so iconic and those qualities would be really hard to replicate for any actor in a way that doesn’t come off as hokey. KJ Apa pulled it off, giving us a believable character who did not bounce me out of the story.
The film itself gives us a unique view into the era surrounding World War II, the impacts of war from an angle that most people never think about, and how to keep surviving even after you’re home. It also touches on postwar trauma that people rarely talked about back in the 1940s and 1950s, and we see how Jimmy’s experiences leading bomber raids impacted him during the war and long after he returned home.
Those experiences affected his relationships, his career, and his acting. After seeing this film, I can look back at his films and see subtle difference in his acting style before and after the war. So, what Aaron Burns actually does with this movie is capture that moment of change in the man himself, and you can watch a Jimmy Stewart film from before the war, like Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and then watch Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. I think you’ll see what I mean.
This film takes on a glossy Hollywood aesthetic that makes it feel a bit like a Capra film made in the 1940s. You can see that aesthetic in the movie poster and trailer, which makes it seem like the story will be a light, nostalgic look through rose-colored glasses at the life of a movie star. That’s not what we get with this story, at least not in the glossy, nostalgic way that you might imagine.
The 1940s film aesthetic is actually integral to how the story is told and immediately puts us into the time and place of Jimmy Stewart’s world. It creates a sensory experience of his life and circumstances, which are so different from the college football players in The Mosquito Bowl or even the war photographer Lee Miller whose shocking photos of the Nazi concentration camps stunned us all.
Possibly one of the most interesting things about this film is how it humanizes James Stewart as a man through the creative choices that Aaron Burns made as a director. Those choices also capture Jimmy’s friendship with Frank Capra in a sensitive way, preserving the affection and love these men had for each other while also paying homage to Capra’s unique directorial style. I am so grateful for Aaron’s time, and I am delighted to share my interview with him.
Erin Underwood: Aaron, thank you so much for being here. I am delighted that you are able to join me here for this special interview. Thank you.
Aaron Burns: Happy to be with you. I like your name, by the way.
Erin Underwood: Oh, I love your name too. Great name. So, I love the movie Jimmy. There was so much in this film that spoke to me personally, and I was just really curious, why did you feel Jimmy Stewart’s story really needed to be told now and in this way? What was it about this story that really spoke to you?
Aaron Burns: So, I’m a fan of Jimmy’s work. I love It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and, and all of, so many of his movies, but I had just assumed that- Like most other Hollywood folks, Jimmy’s just pretending when he’s on the big screen.
But I read an article he wrote back years ago reflecting on the making of It’s a Wonderful Life, and he said that this film was the first movie that he made when he came back from serving in World War II, and that the making of It’s a Wonderful Life was a kind of spiritual healing for him.
I was just like, “What? Jimmy Stewart fought in a war?” And I just started to dive into it, and 80 years… It’s a Wonderful Life is 80 years old. And it continues to inspire eight, eight decades later.
As I found the story behind the story, and that Jimmy’s life was just as interesting as any movie he ever made, I looked at the world in the 1940s, and it was tearing itself apart. Literally world war. And what a dark and, and, and, and terrible time. And I look at our world today, and we’re kinda tearing ourselves apart all over again in different ways.
So I hope that by looking at Jimmy’s story, a man who chose, rather than finger-pointing and fear-mongering and blame-shifting or hiding behind celebrity or whatever else you might have, he raised his hand and said, “Put me in. I wanna serve, whatever that looks like.”
He found a way to do that through his service taking out the Nazis, and then he found a way to do that to come home and do that through the stories that he told. I’m grateful for the way he’s inspired me, and I think it’s a great time to inspire a new generation with this guy’s courage.
Erin Underwood: You know, I love that, because one of the things that I’ve been seeing a lot with these World War II films, especially the World War II films that have been coming out most recently, is that we’re getting different threads from these soldiers’ lives, from the experiences of World War II. Whether it’s in Japan or whether it’s in Europe, whether it’s in Hollywood.
I’m just really curious, as a filmmaker, you chose to do this film in the 1940s. Like, the presentation style, it felt very 1940s to me. Not just the dress, not just the atmosphere, but the filming techniques some of the camera angles, a lot of the composition… It really felt like a film that I might have seen in the 1940s. Why did you chose that style? Was there a purpose behind that [decision] for a modern audience to see this 1940s version of a 1940s story?
Aaron Burns: It’s so fun. I love when audiences pick up on that because obviously there’s any lens that you can look at a story through, and with this one, we had two guiding lights as we went to unfold this story.
One is that it’s gonna be a very specific point of view. This is, you’re with Jimmy the whole time. Saving Private Ryan is one of my favorite movies. The Band of Brothers, one of my favorite miniseries. But these are the grand scope of war, and all these epic things, but with Jimmy, you’re seeing it all trapped inside the cockpit with him. Or from his vantage point. It’s a very unique vantage point of a actor turned soldier, and what does it mean? And we kept on the beginning and the end to see his transition into the war and then his transition out of it. That’s a perspective you don’t see often.
And then the other creative choice, creative lens that we brought to it is looking at the style of story that Frank Capra told. He was just a master director who did Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and did It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy. So my producer actually made little mugs for us and wrote, “What would Capra do?” on the mugs as we were in prep.
We thought about his storytelling style and, and we thought about the way, again, blocking, lighting, camera movement, focus, like even the way the actors stand and interact with each other within those pieces. In addition to that, the overwhelming sense of hope that Capra’s movies give you.
In 1946, when It’s a Wonderful Life came out, it was nominated for a few Oscars, but it was largely panned by critics.
One of my favorite quotes about the movie is it was labeled as “sentimental hogwash.” And it says, “Too sappy. It’s too syrupy. The world doesn’t… You know, it’s all a bunch of nonsense. Let’s make dark, gritty, nasty realistic movies with graphic violence and, you know, nudity and all this other stuff.”
They kinda picked on Frank for making movies like It’s a Wonderful Life, and, and as, as, you know, you go through the ’60s and the ’70s.
And Capra said, “You can call my movies corny, but I’m gonna call them Capracorn, and that’s the kinda movie that I wanna make.” So I just love Frank’s attitude. He was this little Sicilian immigrant, dirt poor, worked his way up, uh, and then, you know, had some success. And then he had this amazing transformation in his life where, his is too much detail, but I’ll tell you the story anyway.
He won an Oscar, and then he said, “I am gonna just sit back and enjoy my success. Tell everybody I’m sick.” The next day he gets sick, and actually for the 20 days, he’s raging fever, he loses a bunch of weight, he’s on his deathbed, and some guy comes to visit him.
He said this little guy comes in his room, and he’s like, “I’m sick as a dog. Who, why did, who let this person in?” And he says, “Do you hear the radio right now, Mr. Capra?” And he’s like, “Uh, yeah.” He’s like, “That’s Adolf Hitler talking to thousands of people on a radio broadcast.” But you, sir, are worse than Mr. Hitler because you have theaters that you pack full of people, and yet you have nothing to tell them. So, I suggest that you get your act together and find a message that’s worth sharing.”
The next [thing] you know, he recovers. He doesn’t die. He recovers from his sickness. He’s like, “Who visited me? Who’s this guy who came into my room?” And they’re like, “Frank, ain’t nobody visited you.” And after that, he goes on to make this kind of movie.
So when I was reading Frank’s biography, reading Jimmy’s biography, we say, “Wouldn’t it be fun to take a story with the heart of Frank Capra and the heart of Jimmy Stewart and tell their story as if it was the last film that Frank and Jimmy made together?” So I just fell in love with these guys and their crazy world, the physical comedy that they did, and just all of those different little interesting characters and the quirkiness of it all, but to pack it into their true life story.
So anyway, I’m glad you noticed it and enjoyed it. We had just the most fun making this movie.
Erin Underwood: That’s awesome. You actually answered a question that I was planning to ask you. So you’re very prescient in that way. One of the movies that I actually watched right before I watched this one was The Mosquito Bowl. It’s also a World War II movie, but it is gritty. It is dirty. You are, you are in the moment, in the field with these guys. Your nails get dirty when you walk out of the theater. That’s how you felt.
And then I compared it to Jimmy, because I literally saw this movie the next day, and I think one of the complaints that some people might walk away from this movie with is, “It’s so nostalgic. It doesn’t show the harsh grittiness of war, that glosses over that stuff.”
I don’t think it does. The reason that I think this is that, what we get might be painted in a nostalgic lens because of how you chose to film it in that 1940s Capra-esque style, but when you take Jimmy home after the war, you actually dive into PTSD in a way that we don’t see in a ’40s film.
So, I was really curious about how you approached that part of it for him. Because I’ll tell you, my eyes are starting to tear up just now because I was in tears watching those last scenes with him at the bar. Can you just talk a little bit about how you built the film to that moment in the movie?
Aaron Burns: So through the first half of the film, there’s even a moment where we play a version of this recruitment video that Jimmy made, and it’s way over the top, happy-go-lucky. You can watch Jimmy’s original version of it, called “Winning Your Wings,” and he’s, “Guys, come join the Army. We’re gonna blow up Hitler. It’s gonna be, you know, aw, shucks and ready, let’s go.” And it’s just over the top. It’s absurd. It’s ’40s.
But then as you shift in and Jimmy starts fighting, he starts winning. He’s a good commander. He’s a good guy, but then he starts seeing the toll and the cost that it has on him. Not to have spoilers, but there’s a moment where his boys are, literally someone dies in his arms, and now he’s the one who’s responsible for recruiting these kids and sending them up in the air. And, yeah, you’re winning the war, but you’re losing your soul, and what is it, what does that mean? What does it look like?
And he comes home, so Kelly Stewart is an executive producer on the movie, and she had a journal that Jimmy wrote from this time and was able to share stories from it. All the things he’s thinking, these questions about fear and courage, and all this stuff that he’s asking. Then she had his flight logbook that’s penciled in the ships and the missions and everything, and there’s this little asterisk, and it says down at the bottom, “Ships marked asterisk did not return.”
You think of him writing 130 letters in a day home to Mom and Dad, “I’m so sorry your son will never come back.”
So, it’s kind of starting to peel back. Is, is Jimmy an actor? Is he a soldier? Like, what is his purpose? How does it all fit together? And when he comes home, he, he was really struggling. He was at the end of his rope.
Hollywood didn’t want him anymore. He’s old. He lost hearing in one ear. It’s, you know, kind of amazing how Frank played with that in It’s a Wonderful Life. He’s going bald. He’s all wrinkly, and he aged 15 years in the last three. And Hollywood offered him one role, is you could play Jimmy in Jimmy’s War, and he said, “I can’t, I can’t go bomb a bunch of Nazis on TV, guys. I can’t do this.”
Then his friend Frank comes to him, and he realizes where Jimmy’s at, and he realizes where the world is at and that the world needed hope. He reaches out to Jimmy with an insane idea of making a Christmas movie about the angel named Clarence, and he wants Jimmy to play the suicidal father.
Jimmy says, “I don’t really think I need to go there right now, Frank.” But Frank was such a good friend to Jimmy. He knew that Jimmy had the heart to tell this story and the talent to tell the story, but that Jimmy needed George Bailey just as much as, as we do.
So, Jimmy wrote in this article that he comes to the moment where they’re filming at Martini’s bar, and he goes to say this line, and he said he had a vision of the whole world, and the world is covered in little tiny people, and they’re all crying.
In that moment, he saw that there was a heavenly Father who loved them all, and he knew that He loved him, too.
And as Jimmy disappears into the character of George Bailey, as their lives intersect, you know, George was giving up his dreams. He was giving up his plans. He was constantly sacrificing himself. They lose the money. They lose the business. He’s on his way to jail. He’s bottoming out. Jimmy was at that exact same place. And as those two characters become one, Jimmy finds his own hope.
For me to get to tell that story, it was so fun. Just from the director’s piece, we, the world start to close in around him. So you’ll notice what we do with lensing that, in the first half of the movie, it’s you can see the background and there’s more space, but the camera starts, there’s this one shot of the camera starts to close in closer and closer and closer on Jimmy, and then you’re up in there with him. Everything else is out of focus, and he’s trapped in his own bubble of light and, and, and color.
He moves through the world. He’s kind of lost in it in a way, and it takes the friendship and the hope that It’s a Wonderful Life and Frank offer to help him break out of that. So, anyway, it was really a fun challenge to recreate and to imagine what it would look like.
And we talked to Kelly, like, “Did your dad have PTSD after the war?” And she recalled as a child her mom coming and telling him, “If you hear Daddy screaming at night, it’s not because there’s a problem. It’s ’cause he’s remembering the war.”
He would wake up in bed, and he would start shouting commands and say, you know, “Fighters down below. Watch below you.” And he’d be directing keeping his boys alive trying to protect them, and then he’d wake up out of it. So that continued for years, but he was able to get through it through those things that we talked about.
So anyway, I’m rambling, but yeah, it breaks your heart in the worst way and the best way at the same time.
Erin Underwood: Yeah. It’s lovely that you did this film. One of my most special memories is with my grandfather, who was in World War II, and our family is German. So when he enlisted, they wouldn’t send him to Europe. They sent him to the Pacific. When my grandfather came home and, you know, time went by, never spoke about the war. Like, never spoke about what he did, what he went through. But there were certain movies we watched, and this was one of them.
And I’m getting totally emotional. I’m so sorry, Aaron. So, when I’m watching this movie, I’m remembering these moments with my grandfather and how Jimmy Stewart in that scene affected him. One of the beautiful things about your film, whatever anyone takes away from it, is that there is a very strong social memory, a cultural memory, that many people touch in their lives or through the work that they do in their lives. Jimmy Stewart is one of those people who touched so many people in a generational way.
I think, at least for me with this film, I am hoping that today’s generations, whether it’s Gen Z or the Millennials who may not have that grandfatherly experience that I had, could watch this film… and could maybe walk away from it [thinking], “That was kind of a, an idealized version of Jimmy Stewart’s life.” But because you filmed it in such a Capra-esque way, it gives us this comfortable entry into a very difficult situation that still translates today.
You could watch It’s a Wonderful Life and still feel those emotions that Jimmy Stewart had, and I think you captured that really, really well in this film. So kudos to you on that.
Aaron Burns: Thank you. A word that we talk about a lot on my team is “timeless.” And what makes, what makes something timeless? Why is your relationship with your grandpa and It’s a Wonderful Life, and why are some of these things and themes and stories timeless?
I think it goes to the core of who we are, whether… I’ve never been in a B-24 flying over the skies of Europe… but there’s a lot of things that I have gone through that were really hard, and whenever you start to get to those deep core [ideas] of who am I and what is life about and what matters and, and answering, exploring those questions, that’s something that every human in every generation looks for.
We all are created with a desire for purpose and a desire for value and a desire to contribute to the world around us, and ask those questions that Jimmy asks: “Am I a good man? Am I doing enough? How do I fit in? What is the meaning of all of these things?” And as a director, like Capra was able, to tell us a story to help bring clarity and meaning to those and help us find our own wonderful lives.
We hope that Jimmy can be an entry into the canon of great stories that can point our generation, and future generations, towards hope and purpose and value.
Erin Underwood: You know, Aaron, I have to say you keep touching on the next question that I wanted to ask you. And this next one, and I know we’re, we’re close on time here, so I just wanna make sure I get this one in because I think this is really important to the film itself… there is a through line about: “Am I a good man?” What does it mean to be a good man?
What you do with this story is you actually introduce that question early on, and then that question changes slightly at different points throughout the film when he’s evaluating his own purpose or his own choices or his own impacts.
I’m just wondering, when you were going through this film and you were looking at it and evaluating it and then mapping it out and then making it all happen, did you feel a change in yourself of, what does it mean to be a good man? How did that theme actually impact you as a director and what you wanted to get out of this movie?
Aaron Burns: So, interestingly, when you’re on… I’ll do a little nerd talk and then I’ll tell you the, the heart talk… So, when you’re on set, you film everything out of order, and so you’re almost seeing the whole movie all the time, and it’s your job as the director to help marshal 200 people, all of their attention, all of their thought, to make this particular moment, but then make sure that that one hooks on to the one before and after it. So that’s the privilege of taking the little tiny idea and keeping it alive through the whole production process, through each cast member, each camera operator, each set and prop, [each] piece of wardrobe. It all has to come into focus in the particular moment. So sometimes you get lost in that process of those pieces, and it’s hard to emotionally connect with it.
But I’ll tell you, when we were filming the scene at Martini’s bar and when KJ Apa, who’s playing Jimmy, gave the line, he said, “I see the whole world and it’s crying,” I started to cry. I got lost in the moment of that performance and that thought. I see the brokenness and all of the pain that I’ve gone through, all of the things in my life that sometimes seems purposeless or sometimes seems, just, these terrible things, again, that I’ve experienced. You look at it and you start to ask those questions as well. I think it’s a healthy, it’s a healthy thing for us to ask, “What does it mean to be a good man, to be a good woman? What does it mean to, to, to do that?”
Jimmy found his answers, and I think that there are answers out there to those questions. And for people to take the time to watch a movie and to explore it and reevaluate their own life and then say, “I wanna finish well. What does it look like to finish well?” I’m so proud of Jimmy that he did. And that’s something for me. I hope when I get to the end of my journey, I can look back and that, that my kids or my friends would be able to say, “Yeah. He finished well. He knew what he believed.”
And I think what Jimmy would say… I’ll just share, I’ll get away from the movie just real quick and talk about Jimmy the man… So after he makes It’s a Wonderful Life, Jimmy meets Gloria. You know, he dated all the cutest girls in town, and what attracted him to Gloria wasn’t another pretty face. It was she was a courageous, strong woman who was a mom and had these two little boys, and he said, “I can be a dad to those kids, and I can love this girl, and I can embrace these things.” So he becomes a dad. He has two daughters, they have twin daughters together, and Jimmy was a wonderful husband. He was a wonderful father. He re-enlisted in the Army Air Force Reserves and served for 20 more years.
He was a great friend to people who are very different from him. Like his best friend was Hank Fonda, and their politics and religion and worldviews couldn’t have been farther apart, but he looked at the person and had kindness to them. He, Jimmy, was a man of faith, and he valued those things.
Kelly told us a story. Okay, as I said, “like, “What was it like to have like Jimmy Stewart for your dad? And she said, “It was like having Jimmy Stewart for your dad. He was just Dad, you know, to me.” She didn’t even realize he was famous until she was nine years old, and they went to a soapbox derby where her dad was riding this little airplane, and Roy Rogers was riding a wooden horse, right? And all the crowds were roaring, “Jimmy! Jimmy!” She’s like, “How do all these people know Dad’s name?” because he just, he was there and present for her as a father.
When she was going off to college, she said that he sat her and her twin sister down, said, “You need to come in my office. We need to talk.” And she’s like, “Great. Is this gonna be about boys or money or grades or like…” And he said, “Girls, I want you to be kind.” And they’re like, “Okay.” And that’s who he is, and that’s where he found his hope, and he found a good man. He finished well.
So, I hope that as people watch it, that they’re inspired to find what it means, what is their calling, what is their vocation, where can you be, uh, where can you serve. I think America will be a better place if more of us grow up to be like Jimmy.
Erin Underwood: Honestly, I think that’s the perfect place to end. That was brilliant, Aaron. Thank you so much, and the film is a really wonderful addition to our historical canon as well as our World War II canon of films. Thank you so much to you and all the other people who put their love and energy into this film.
Aaron Burns: Oh, thank you. Thank you, Erin. Pleasure to spend some time with you today.
I want to thank Aaron Burns again for that interview, and I hope you all enjoyed it. I think it gets to some of those deeper creative questions that I mentioned earlier in my review and also addresses why filming a new movie in an old Hollywood style was so important for this film.
So, to the big question, is Jimmy ticket-worthy? Is it worth your hard-earned money when there are so many other films to watch? I think the answer is yes, for a variety of reasons.
Artistically, it takes on a big challenge that was a bit of a risk when Aaron decided to film Jimmy like a Capra film from the 1940s, but it worked. The film also uses contemporary film techniques to create something that feels modern and nostalgic at the same time, which I think creates a fantastic bridge for multigenerational viewing.
This is a movie that you can take your parents, grandparents, and older children to see. It’ll give you a historical perspective that can open up conversations after the movie and keep those conversations going if you watch It’s a Wonderful Life this holiday season.
You will also get the perspective of a man who helped encourage others to enlist or get psyched up for a mission and then had to live with the moral and emotional impact of leading men into combat, losing friends, and fellow servicemen along the way.We also see how a man made his way through the pain to find some kind of peace while never escaping the weight of his past.
This looks like a lighthearted film, which it is at times, but it never goes for a laugh at the expense of the truth or the people it honors. I think this film is an easy yes because it’s a historical war film that doesn’t shy away from the emotional cost of war while still giving us some normalcy in life, and it helps us to understand the past and the people who shaped it. I honestly loved this movie. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t need to be. It tells the story that needed to be told, and sometimes that’s enough.
So, Jimmy, have you seen it? Are you familiar with Jimmy Stewart? Let me know what you think of this film or tell me about your favorite Jimmy Stewart movie.
Editor’s Note: The interview transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. Filler words, verbal repetitions, and speech mannerisms have been removed where appropriate without altering the meaning or intent of the conversation.
Image Credits: Promotional images sourced from IMDb and screenshots captured from the official Jimmy (2026) trailer released by Burns & Co. Entertainment and Fathom Entertainment. All images remain the property of their respective copyright holders and are used for review, criticism, and commentary.
