World Trade Center’s factual accuracy
I really didn’t think Hollywood could recreate a lot of things to an extent, because you aren’t able to experience what I had experienced. But what they conveyed to the audience what happened down there is really accurate. People ask me how accurate is the film. I say, “95 percent.” The Jesus scene was real, when I talked about the little girl in Turkey was real, the G.I. Jane stuff was real, the laughter was real. It was all real and they really did a great job.

Oliver Stone’s reenactment of Jimeno’s vision of Jesus Christ
It was really close. This is how I saw it. I had made my peace with God. We had been crushed. We had been burnt. We had been shot at. I closed my eyes, made my peace with God, said thank you for my family, my friends, my sergeant. I knew we were all going to heaven. And everything went black, and I remember seeing first a field of tall, waving grass and way in the back of a lake with some trees. Real peaceful. Then I saw a figure coming toward me. And it was glowing. I was born a Catholic. I was born in Colombia. My mom’s of strong faith. And I see this person coming toward me. I cannot see the face, but in my heart I already knew who it was. It was Jesus. He didn’t have the heart there. Those are things that Oliver’s trying to convey to the audience, and I appreciate that.  I didn’t see the face, and he had a bottle of water. And as he was coming toward me, the only thing I could think was, because I did ask him when I made my peace, “I hope when I get to heaven, I can have something to drink.” Like Michael (Peña) says in the movie, “My mouth feels like a beach.” And he never made it to me. I snapped out of it and said to the sarge, “Sarge, we’re going to get the f--- out of here. We’re got to keep on fighting.”

My faith, my belief, I needed at that point. I try to tell people, it doesn’t matter whether you believe in Buddha, Allah, this or that. We’re human beings; in a bad situation; believe in your faith. If you don’t have faith, find something you believe in to help you survive.

Putting on a brave face while trapped in the rubble
You’ve got to know police humor. Humor alleviates a lot of tension. A lot of it actually happened when they rescue was happening. We talked about my wife’s cooking, BBQs, anything to get your mind off it. It also helps the rescuers, because at that point they could die at any moment. If you’re going to die, at that point you’re going to go out with a smile in terror. We had been through so much terror as well as everybody on the outside. The only thing that separated us was that we didn’t know until the spring of the following year that we were the only two. John and I, we’re no different than anybody else. It just so happens to be the circumstances and all those us around who came in to do the right thing.

The moment he learned about the collapse of the World Trade Center
When they pulled me out of the hole. When I asked where everything was. It was a simple question. “Where is everything?” Someone said, “It’s all gone.” I realized, OK, those sounds that we didn’t know what they were, now I knew. And it was devastating. You gotta understand, there were a lot of people still in the concourse trying to get out, guys still trying to rescue people. I didn’t know the extent of the casualties, but I knew we were going to have a lot of deceased people.

How the ordeal changed him
I’ve always been an optimistic person, a very family-oriented person. It comes from my parents and my wife. I think it made me prioritize things better. ... When you’re watching a good TV show or the World Cup, and your daughter comes to you and says, “I want to show you a dance move,” get up and go over there, because you can always catch it on a rerun. That little girl is only going to do that for so often, and before you know it you’ll be walking her down the aisle. So it’s those important, really taking the time to enjoy life because life is short.

Whether audiences are ready to see World Trade Center
First of all, I want to say I respect the fact that someone if say I can’t see this movie. … If you’re not ready to see this film, don’t go see it. That’s the freedom we have here. I think you’ll miss out on it. But that’s the difference in this film. You’ll not going to see the towers fall. You’re going to see the good aspect. It’s like turning on the news. No matter where you are the country, the first 10 minutes is horror. But man, when you get that one story of someone helping someone, it changes it. We’re ready for this more so throughout the country because people want to know the good of that day. And this film is showing that. And me and John are just vehicles. You see how insignificant we are on that poster. We’re too little guys. We’re here because of the love and the honor and the courage of so many people. Our wives—that’s a story in itself. It’s going to show women how strong they need to be for their husbands. Or vice versa if you wife is a firefighter or a cop. It’s not too soon, and the way is brought up makes it not too soon. This is not exploitive. This is telling you the good of that day. And if you don’t tell you the good of that day, it would have been a tragedy. Mark my words, this movie—even if it doesn’t do well, which I hope it does, so people go with these message 20, 30, 40 years from now—there’ll be a movie about 9/11 that shows you everything, but people are going to say, “Son, daughter, you want to see the good of the day, watch this day.”

This transcends America. Eighty-year different nationalities were affected that day. This is the world coming together…. You walk out of there with hope, faith and love. If you don’t walk out of the theater without that, then you need to question yourself: am I logical person, am I really getting messages?

How Jimeno—who doesn’t consider himself a hero—describes himself
A lucky individual, a cop doing his job. And we’re here today because of this teamwork. I hope I’m a hero to my daughter, but that’s it.

World Trade Center is now in theaters. Click here for more information.

Click the links below to read World Trade Center interviews with:
—Director Oliver Stone
—Maggie Gyllenhaal
—Michael Peña
—Allison Jimeno

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