Stuart Townsend was still living in Ireland when the World Trade Organization met in Seattle in 1999, an event that was overshadowed by anti-corporate protests that turned into riots.

It wasn’t until two years later that the actor moved to Los Angeles, so his recollections of the events were vague at best. He would never have thought at the time that he would make it his directorial debut several years later, when he recreated that fateful week in Battle in Seattle .

“My American experience has been in the post-9/11 landscape,” Townsend said during a recent promotional stop in Dallas. “I was studying globalization and I read a book about the battle in Seattle with some pictures, and those pictures really excited me. So I started researching the event and was shocked at what I found, because I remembered the events in 1999, but just barely. I didn’t really know why protesters were out there. Then I started researching it, and thought it would make a great movie.”

Redwood Palms Pictures

Andre Benjamin portrays Django in Battle in Seattle, the directorial debut of Stuart Townsend. The film is now playing at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas.

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Using the true-life backdrop, the film intertwines the stories of four protesters who see their peaceful intentions escalate from a quiet protest into a full-scale riot that engulfs the city, throwing the entire WTO conference into disarray. While the mayor contemplates action, a veteran street cop and his pregnant wife are forced to confront sudden tragedy.

“I really loved the story, and I wanted to tell it,” Townsend said. “This was a war against corporate power. Corporations were ruining our world. You have to have corporations, but the whole point is to try and make them sustainable and responsible.”

Townsend, 35, assembled a high-profile cast for an independent film that includes his fiancee, Charlize Theron, in addition to Woody Harrelson, Martin Henderson, Andre Benjamin, Michelle Rodriguez and Ray Liotta.

But despite his acting connections, the casting was a challenge. It was only two weeks before the start of production, with several big-name stars already having passed on the film, when producers threatened to shut the project down.

Once production got under way, Townsend said bad weather plagued the 29-day shoot in Seattle and Vancouver.

“I read the script, loved the story and loved the importance of it,” said Henderson (The Ring). “I made myself available to Stuart as soon as I read it.”

Townsend’s transformation from actor to filmmaker meant Theron had to take on a different role in their relationship — that of a critic.

“We met as actors, and then all of a sudden I was living with a writer. He was throwing his entire body and soul into this. It was incredibly inspiring to watch,” Theron said. “At the same time, when the script came out of the printer, it was nerve-wracking. We’ve always been very straightforward with each other. But I couldn’t believe this came out of someone who had never written a script before. It really moved me.”

Rodriguez said she responded to the film’s message advocating the right to protest, which might have become most prominent during the late 1960s but still resonates today.

“It’s one of the greatest forms of communication known to mankind. A lot of people take it for granted,” Rodriguez said. “It influences people. It was a chance for me to be really proud of something I worked on.”

Visually, Townsend said he was inspired by Haskell Wexler’s gritty 1969 docudrama Medium Cool, which chronicled violence surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Although he never met any of the actual protesters from the 1999 events, Townsend said he created characters based on his research, with most being amalgamations of real people.

“I was hoping to meet some of them,” Townsend said. “They’re kind of heroes, great Americans and real patriots.”

Battle in Seattle is now playing at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas.