- American Made took significant liberties with storytelling and altered names for dramatic impact in depicting the true story of Barry Seal's involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair in the 1980s.
- The film portrays certain characters and events that did not exist in Barry Seal's real life, such as his wife Lucy's name being changed to Deborah and the creation of Monty Schafer, a composite of various government officials.
- While American Made suggests a direct connection between Barry Seal and the CIA, there is no evidence to support this claim. Seal consistently denied working for the CIA, and the film's portrayal exaggerates this relationship.
The 2017 film American Made, starring Tom Cruise as Barry Seal, captivated audiences with its stranger-than-fiction drama action about a drug runner for the CIA in an operation known as the Iran-Contra Affair in the 1980s. The movie featured a chapter of America's dark history and involvement in the drug smuggling of cocaine onto US soil, depicting the true story with action, intrigue, and sometimes dark comedy. However, as in the case of many Hollywood movies, American Made took significant liberties for storytelling and entertainment.
Tom Cruise took on a drastically different role as Barry Seal, highlighting the worlds of aviation, adrenaline addiction, drug smuggling, and government espionage. However, the line between reality and fiction is blurred in this cinematic account. While American Made offered an attention-grabbing narrative, several elements and names were altered or entirely fictionalized for dramatic impact. The film's director, Doug Liman, described the movie as "a fun lie based on a true story," (via TIME), signaling that American Made wasn't intended as a documentary about the notorious informant.
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American Made Changes Barry Seal's Wife's Name
Lucy's real name was Deborah Seal.
Tom Cruise’s character, Barry Seal, is married to a woman named Lucy, portrayed by Sarah Wright in American Made. However, Barry Seal's real-life wife was named Deborah Seal. Wright plays Seal's foul-mouthed and supportive wife, who throughout the film enjoyed all the extravaganza and rich lifestyle her husband's activities brought to their lives. However, Seal married three times and had five children: a son and a daughter from his first wife, Barbara Bottoms, and three children with his third wife, Deborah Ann DuBois.
Monty Schafer Wasn't A Real-Life CIA Agent
Monty is a composite of several different government officials.
Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson impressively plays Monty Schafer, a CIA handler who recruits Barry Seal in a bar. But Monty Schafer never existed in Seal's real life. Monty a composite character in American Made, created to streamline the story and embody various government connections that Seal may have had. Created to represent Barry Seal's questionable connection with the CIA, Monty Schafer serves as the patriot handler who would go to extreme lengths and morally blurry lines to serve his country.
The Real Barry Seal Denied Having Worked For The CIA
There's no evidence that Seal worked for the CIA.
Barry Seal consistently denied having worked directly for the CIA. While there are ongoing conspiracy theories about his involvement with intelligence agencies, Seal himself has never confirmed these claims. American Made, however, paints a much more explicit connection between Seal and the CIA. In Del Hahn's book about Barry Seal's life, Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal, there is no evidence to support any claims that Seal worked for the CIA. Hahn was, in fact, part of the task force that pursued Seal in the 1980s. He uses several case documents and first-person accounts to dispel this idea and other half-truths about Seal.
The Cartel Didn't Kill Barry Seal's Brother-In-Law With A Car Bomb
Barry never actually had a brother-in-law who was killed by a car bomb.
American Made shows a dramatized version of Lucy's brother JB, played by Caleb Landry Jones, who steals money from Barry and ends up attracting the attention of the local authorities. The cartel decides to deal with JB, even though Barry opposes it. JB then gets killed by a car bomb. However, the real Barry Seal never had a brother-in-law who was killed by a car bomb.
The Government Didn't First Take Notice of Barry Seal's Smuggling Cuban Cigars
It was Seal's drug trafficking that drew unwanted attention to him.
The government's interest in Barry Seal was claimed to stem from his smuggling of Cuban cigars in American Made. However, this is a significant leap from reality. The real Barry Seal caught the government's attention through his involvement in drug trafficking, not cigar smuggling. His criminal operations were far more severe and complex, including the smuggling of substantial quantities of cocaine and marijuana, and these various criminal activities are what led to his assassination, as explained in American Made's ending.
Seal's Involvement With Pablo Escobar And The Ochoa Brothers Was Exaggerated
Seal never met Escobar until after his arrest.
The real Barry Seal was not as acquainted with the cartel bosses as American Made suggests, according to Del Hahn's book. Seal didn't meet Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers in person until 1984, after his arrest, while he was working as an informant for the DEA on an undercover operation. American Made portrayed Barry Seal as having a close-knit relationship with drug lord Pablo Escobar. However, in reality, Seal was just one of many pilots involved in drug trafficking for the Medellín cartel, making this portrayal an exaggerated account.
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Barry Seal Wasn't Recruited By The CIA In A Bar
There's no evidence that suggests the way Seal was recruited is accurate.
This is yet another debated myth since no facts remain on whether Barry Seal was working with the CIA or not. However, American Made dramatized Seal’s recruitment into the CIA by showing him being approached in a bar. There is no factual basis for this scene, marking another departure from reality. Even so, Barry Seal was indeed allowed to fly out of the country and return with illegal drugs that the feds made sure never reached their targets. Undercover cameras installed on Seal's plane captured photos on the tarmac of a Nicaraguan airport. Images showed Pablo Escobar with Sandinista government officials and soldiers, who were loading cocaine onto Seal's plane.
The Plane Crash Incident Was Dramatized
The crash-landing scene never happened in real life.
In Tom Cruise's American Made, Barry Seal crash-lands a plane in a suburban neighborhood while escaping the DEA, who ordered him to land. Barry emerges from the plane covered in cocaine. Seal hands wads of cash to a kid on a bike, telling the boy, "You never saw me." There's no evidence that anything similar to this memorable scene ever happened in real life. Tom Cruise has always been known for performing his own stunts in intense action sequences, and American Made was no exception, which explains this moment's inclusion in the film.
Seal Was Fired When TWA Learned About His Weapon Trafficking
Seal falsely citied medical leave to explain his absences.
Barry Seal did not quit his job at Trans World Airlines (TWA) out of boredom, choosing to live life on the edge as American Made reveals. In 1974, Seal was fired for falsely citing medical leave when he was actually trafficking weapons. He had been arrested in 1972 by the U.S. Customs Service for trying to fly 1,350 pounds of plastic explosives to anti-Castro Cubans via Mexico, according to Del Hahn's book Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal.
The Zero-Gravity Love Scene Never Happened
Director Doug Liman was inspired by his own real-life flight.
The famous American Made love scene with Barry Seal and his wife in zero gravity never happened. Director Doug Liman told Vulture that when preparing for American Made with Cruise, he got the inspiration to create the fictional scene. Liman said, "He put the airplane into a parabolic arc and pinned me against the ceiling, and right at that moment, I had this inspiration. ... Wouldn't it be fun if they were fooling around in a plane and the plane went into the same kind of parabolic arc, and they got pinned against the ceiling?" The steamy scene was easily one of the most memorable moments in American Made.
Sources: TIME, Vulture, Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal
