According to Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray, and to the historical record, the story went like this: The Atlanta security guard portrayed by Paul Walter Hauser was wrongly suspected by the FBI and smeared by the media as a prime suspect in the 1996 Summer Olympics bombing. He fit the profile: a loner, disgruntled, living with his mother (Kathy Bates). After a brief explosion of media love, followed by three grueling months in the mud pit of wrongful suspicion, Jewell was exonerated. The real terrorist turned out to be another American citizen, Eric Rudolph, whose lethal crimes were motivated by anti-gay and anti-abortion beliefs. (“Richard Jewell” doesn’t go into any of that.)