This week, several of our Kickstarter contributors were on-set for the filming of “Atlas Shrugged: Who is John Galt?” Our Students for Liberty interns sat down with them to find out more about their experience. This interview was conducted by Rebecca Anzini.

Name: Howard Morgan

Question 1: How did you hear about the Kickstarter campaign and what motivated you to contribute?

I had been invited to an Atlas Institute showing of movie number 2, which got me on some good email lists. I was also aware of Kickstarter, and when I saw the connection between the two I went right to it and thought it was really exciting. I saw some interesting ways to become involved. It was my Christmas present to myself!

I think the concepts in Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s libertarian approach are really key and they resonate extremely strongly in today’s environment. There is nothing more important than enabling individuals to do their best and out of that we will have a strong economy and thrive.

Question 2: What has your experience on-set been like or what did you find most interesting being on set?

Well I think we’ve had really fabulous access to the set to really see a kind of controlled chaos. (For instance,) Hundreds of people running in different directions without any clear instruction, to see the actors engaging in finding their character, all of the different cuts and takes, and being able to actually be in some scenes and experience that first hand has been a really great learning experience and really fun.

I have been in three scenes, if they survive the editing. One was at the start of the movie when we’re at Twentieth Century Motors, and they’ve just announced that all workers will be treated equally and John Galt resigns and walks out. The next was a scene in a restaurant where we sort of pantomimed as patrons at a table. In a really neat break we had a chance to sit at a round table as some of the core members of the cast resolve the outcome of the world in a black tie smoking cigars. It was a very exciting treat last night and will be something that I never forget.

Question 3: How has Ayn Rand/ Atlas Shrugged influenced your life or thinking?

I think it has confirmed a way of thinking. I actually spent a lot of time with my father in Eastern Europe through the communist period in the 1970’s and she (Rand) was also a product of that environment. I saw collectivism and socialism at its worst and how desperate people at that time in that part of the world were for freedom and the ability to express themselves and make the most of themselves.

My discovery of Ayn Rand was more of a matching with my personal philosophy and it was such a close, good fit that I just enjoy continuing to ponder it. It is an interesting fun story woven into it with The Fountainhead and of course Atlas Shrugged.

Question 4: What, if anything, do you wish to see the film accomplish?

I hope that the film spreads the word of Ayn Rand’s beliefs. That it can make an emotional and intellectual case for how important it is to support individuals. In this environment, where there is ever increasing regulation, it is harder and harder to do things without the nanny state, and ultimately that will be reflected in behavior, in elections, people who choose to run for election, and how we run the country.

Question 5: Do you believe that stopping the motor of the world, or a similar occurrence of innovators going on strike or “vanishing” must occur before the world you want to see is created?

I think selectively it may take that. People with the strength to innovate and create something out of nothing will sit on the sidelines if they can’t enjoy the rewards of their work, and I think we’re seeing some of that now. I don’t think it happens on mass, but you see people make choices to step away from engaging with the world. I think it is important that we try to bring those people back. I don’t think it happens overnight, it happens over a protracted period of time.

Question 6: Are your closest family members/ friends supportive of your decisions (or “in the know” of Ayn Rand philosophy) in taking a larger role in the financing and production of Atlas Shrugged Part III?

Probably none of them are quite as passionate (about Atlas Shrugged) as I am, and that would go for politics and philosophy as well. I have a freshman son at Yale who is pretty active in philosophy. He is studying archeology and he and I engage pretty well. He is with a group called the “Party of the Right” going back to a lot of philosophy. I think when we have conversations about Ayn Rand and libertarianism and objectivism he does get hung up, like a lot of people, in some of the nuances of her teaching and to me I think that those are distractions. 90% of what she speaks to I believe very strongly in and dwelling in the other 10% is trivial.