Diederik Van Hoogstraten’s journey to U.S. citizenship taught him a great deal about America: That included a crash course in the United States’ first president, George Washington.

So when he got the call to co-write a script based on that president’s formative years, he could have idealized the Founding Father.

Instead, the screenwriter penned the “Young Washington” we see on screens starting Friday as “grounded in dirt and mud and sweat.”

The film, by Angel Studios and Wonder Project, explores the future president as a young, determined soul eager to make a difference. That ambition cuts both ways, but his willingness to learn from his mistakes helped him become one of history’s most consequential figures.

And Van Hoogstraten didn’t mind showing him, warts and all.

“Make him flesh and blood,” the screenwriter says. “That’s the purpose.”

Van Hoogstraten credits director Jon Erwin for focusing on Washington’s early days.

“[Washington is] such an enigma to this day … he’s a statue. He’s the painting you see in a museum,” he says. The truth? Washington struggled early in life, losing his father at a young age and falling for a woman who broke his heart.

“We try to make him very much relatable and recognizable ... and also surprising. It’s not a way in which we think about a man like that,” he adds.

Seeing George Washington aligned with British forces may feel jarring, but it was part of his evolution. That change made him the man he would eventually become, and the leader a ragtag group of colonies needed.

“All he wanted to do was to be British and be seen as part of them,” Van Hoogstraten says. “Through rejection he’s forced to learn that there’s a different way.”

“It’s class where he wants to thrive ... and he ultimately rejects it,” he adds.

The film gently focuses on themes like self-determination and self-improvement, shown through Washington’s early struggles. His realization of a better life comes through on screen. It also foreshadows the government he later made possible.

“We can’t read into history more than there actually is … but we want to show the way he developed as a young man,” he says. “It’s a precursor to American values.”

This George Washington is brave and headstrong, cocky but naïve about the changing world around him. 

“Young Washington” also captures how the Colonies were able to adapt to their surroundings and new methods of warfare. The British couldn’t say the same.

One unmistakable irony? Relatively unknown British actor William Franklyn-Miller plays the title role. The potential star is supported by familiar talents such as Ben Kingsley, Kelsey Grammer, Andy Serkis and Mary-Louise Parker as George Washington’s mother.

Van Hoogstraten didn’t set out to become a screenwriter. He previously worked in entertainment journalism, finding a place in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The group is best known for the annual, and sometimes controversial, Golden Globes.

“It felt like a dirty business … especially as a journalist,” he says. He later left the organization during a tumultuous period, criticizing how it doled out money on his exit.

“My wife encouraged me to consider a different career path,” he recalls, so he enrolled at Pepperdine University to learn about screenwriting.

He wrote some “spec” scripts but longed to make something of consequence. His wife later bumped into Erwin of “Jesus Revolution” and “I Can Only Imagine” fame. Erwin mentioned to the future screenwriter’s wife a project he had in mind based on the early days of George Washington .

“She said, ‘Talk to my husband. You share a love of history, a love of America,’” he recalls of their meeting. His first major screen credit slowly slipped into place.

“As a person of faith looking back, there were moments and people and choices were pointing me in that direction,” he says.

“Young Washington” is one of only a handful of patriotic films timed for a release around the nation’s 250th birthday. The film’s release wasn’t an accident.

“Jon Erwin and his team had a very strong sense that this was a great moment for a movie about this particular man,” he says, acknowledging the political divides in the country on its milestone birthday. “We hope this movie can unite ... call it naïve … it’s genuinely not political, not ideological. It’s very American, and hopefully it brings out American pride.”