He’s the decorated CIA officer portrayed by Ben Affleck in this year’s critically acclaimed film Argo… And now Tony Mendez is opening up about the real-life mission depicted in the film.

The 72-year-old Mexican American American retired CIA technical operations officer and the six “house guests” as they were known appear in an intriguing featurette about Argo.

Mendez was decorated for his on-scene management of the “Canadian caper” during the Iran hostage crisis, in which he rescued six American diplomats from Tehran in November 1979. Posing as a Canadian film crew of a fake Hollywood production, Mendez and his “crew” were accompanied by a CBC cameraman. As part of their cover, the diplomats carried passports issued by the Canadian government to document them as Canadian citizens.

The successful mission was declassified in 1997, finally allowing all the key players to talk about it for the first time.

Producer/Director Affleck stars as Mendez, and in this featurette he and the six “house guests” as they were known, along with the actors who portray them, detail the extraordinary rescue and the movie version that has now earned more than $100 million at the box office.