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Ryan Phillippe can be seen in the war epic “Flags of Our Fathers,” and currently the actor is working on another war film. In “Stop-Loss” Phillippe plays a Texan who volunteers for the Army after 9/11. After completing his tour of duty, he’s told he has to go back. That’s when Phillippe’s character goes AWOL.

“It’s going to push a lot of buttons,” Phillippe tells us. Word is “Boys Don’t Cry” director Kimberly Peirce will call the film “Stop-Loss,” the Pentagon’s term for the mandated duty. The filmmakers “are keeping it under wraps while we’re shooting. They don’t want people demonstrating.”

The PR machinations remind Phillippe of that “Mission Accomplished” photo-op when President Bush landed in his flight suit aboard an aircraft carrier. “Every country fights a war partly through propaganda,” Phillippe said at the SoHo Grand party that drew his wife, Reese Witherspoon, his castmates Jesse Bradford, John Slattery, John Benjamin Hickey and Joseph Cross, as well as Sarah Jessica Parker, Lauren Bacall, Aidan Quinn and Rosario Dawson.

More of the story, and more photos of Ryan Philippe and Abbie Cornish shooting their new Kimberly Peirce film, after the jump.

Side Dish [Rush & Molloy]

Written by Lauren Burch

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