Hello. This is Baltasar Kormékur, the director.
And with me is...
I'm Shailene Woodley, and I play Tami in this film.
So, we're gonna talk you through...
our experience on this film,
and hopefully give you some insight of what we were trying to do.
We shot this film mostly in Fiji,
and the film takes place in Tahiti, in the Pacific Ocean.
So, we tried to be as authentic as possible by being there.
The film starts...
with one shot and...
it's a little complicated to get all these shots.
And the idea behind this is...
we are finding Tami...
in the middle of the ocean,
left alone.
And the big questions of the movie is, how did she get there,
and how is she going to get out of there?
Remember when we were shooting this?
Yeah. This we shot in a tank, this inner part. And...
It was actually quite difficult, 'cause the boat was moving on a gimbal,
and we had to get all in one shot
in order to stitch it together with the other shots.
And trying to move with an oil-slicked floor.
I think we shot this about how many times? Twenty times?
Quite a few. It was also freezing.
We were also shooting in New Zealand in the middle of winter, and...
because we couldn't have any steam from the water,
it had to be almost ice-cold.
I remember this, what we're about to see,
this part where I fall, was a real fall.
- Yeah, not like-- - Not staged, yeah.
Richard?
Anyways we had to take out the closest side of the boat, is taken out,
so we could actually operate a crane in there.
And the idea of why I wanted to, really I wanted to give you the claustrophobia...
of being stuck in a boat that you don't know if it's going to go down or not.
You have no idea where you are. You have no idea what's happened.
And then, as you'll see later,
it turns into aquaphobia,
when you realize how quiet it is.
There was a little bottle there that passed by,
champagne bottle that cut her leg.
It was added in afterwards.
- Was it? - Yeah.
It's funny. As it passed by, I didn't recall there being any glass
because of the actual safety hazard that that would have been.
Yeah. Yeah, that was not possible, so...
This was a bit of an issue because
we had to get her out of her costume before she went up.
- Yeah. -...so it would match.
- Because this we shot in Fiji. - Yeah.
- Right? This part. No, this was actually-- - No, no.
We shot it on a gimbal in New Zealand.
Right.
Shouldn't give that away, but...
This was quite complicated.
And it was quite cold there because the water,
obviously, was not very warm in New Zealand...
during the... What was it? Winter in New Zealand?
Yeah, it was the middle of winter.
In Auckland.
So, here it is, basically.
I want to be in her perspective,
and discover her situation through her and with her.
No!
I love the way that the film starts because you don't understand anything yet.
And you're thrusted into it, and then you have the entire... The rest of the...
almost two hours to discover the peril that you experience in that one shot.
Yeah, and I think, you know...
It didn't start like this, the script in the beginning.
It wasn't until not even the last draft we didn't have that.
It was when I shot it,
and during the shooting I was 100% sure that that was what we would do.
You know, that would be the beginning.
And then just to have more like questions and answers through stories.
Now we're going back in time. And now we're actually in Fiji.
In Suva.
It's just outside of Suva, this little harbor with a lot of Chinese boats.
Bonjour.
- What is your... - I think, was he Samoan, this actor?
I forget if he was Samoan or if he was Fijian.
But he wasn't Tahitian.
No, he wasn't Tahitian. But I went to Tahiti and scouted out,
and the actor's society was very limited.
And we tried to get actors from there was almost impossible.
I think he's either a New Zealander or Samoan.
I don't remember.
Okay-
There comes up the name of Robert Richardson, our friend.
Yes, the most amazing cinematographer.
This is shot in a local restaurant, down in Suva.
- I love-- - Like a local market.
A market, yeah.
A little vegetable market that had a bunch of stalls.
Food stalls.
- Just shot-- - This is our first day of filming.
- Was it? Yeah, yeah. That's true. - The very first scene we ever shot.
Wind, I guess.
I was a cook on a schooner,
but when the gig was up, I didn't really feel like going home, yet.
Where's home for you?
San Diego.
California.
This is Grace Palmer.
She's a New Zealand actress.
Never.
And she's so fantastic.
I don't know. Maybe once I've seen the world.
This is me.
- Yeah. - The next shot is not me.
The one thing I wish I could do is surf.
Yeah.
That's probably pretty much it,
apart from the one stunt inside the boat, that is not you in the film.
I think.
This is, I think Austral-- Was it New Zealand or Australian?
I think she's Australian.
- This is you. - This is me.
And that was... That's a world-famous break.
The break that she was just surfing.
I forget the name of it, but it's where everybody travels,
why everybody travels to Fiji to surf.
This is shot in a yacht club in Suva.
Do you remember the name of it?
Suva Yacht Club.
Well, there you go.
Yeah.
I'm a Kiwi, I need a translation, please.
- One who crosses the horizon... - And there is...
Sam Claflin...
as Richard.
Such a great shot.
He had some nice backlight there, sun behind him.
Thanks.
Sorry, what was your name?
- Richard. - Richard, I'm Deb.
Hi, Deb.
This is Tami.
HeY-
Tami.
Thank you.
Yeah, no problem.
So, here we see is kind of the first time they meet and... connect.
I really like these little moments between them.
I do, too. I like that it's understated.
You can tell it's setting something up, but...
Isn't quite...
Yeah, the challenge here was also to...
Remember the hotel we shot this in?
Was it... Could you even call it a hotel?
- Yeah, it was something like a-- - What was it?
Some kind of a, you know, shitty place...
in Suva.
This, actually, we moved around a bit.
You know, it wasn't originally meant like this.
But I just felt that...
it would fit really nicely.
And I think John Gilbert, the editor,
came up with the idea to connect those two pieces together.
So smart. You can see in the reflection of the window.
He added that in the reflection.
And what is she smoking? I don't know.
Some Mary Jane.
So, what was important for me in this part was try to connect them lightly.
You know, not...
This limited time to set this up, we have to kinda get into it.
But I just wanted to do it,
you know, a couple of light touches, and they're connecting.
And I loved the idea, we spoke about this...
as we were working on the screenplay together, me and Shailene,
is that we liked the idea that she would actually approach him.
Do you like fish?
I'm actually a vegetarian.
- So... - Right.
I like them when they're alive.
I was going to see if you just wanted...
And if I remember right, that was actually...
It was in some way... I mean, she was pretty forward in the book, I remember.
You know, when she saw him, although it was a little differently.
It was a little different how that came about.
That sounds great.
Yeah, I think there's something to be said for people who live Vagabond lifestyles,
and are constantly meeting new people and traveling, and...
putting themselves in uncomfortable, new experiences with other cultures.
That it's easier to look over societal taboos about...
you know, how to talk to someone, or when you become friends with someone.
Yeah, and people, actually, in those kinds of communities will say those things.
I'm sure all the climbers, and you know, they...
People create friends around the world
that they keep on meeting each other, you know.
It's a means for survival, so you're not alone.
Yeah. No, but it's...
They sail together. They don't plan it but they kind of connect on the way.
I've seen it. I did research on documentaries,
and I think you saw some of them.
Deep Water, which is a fantastic one of them.
I can't remember the name of the one about the young girl who sailed
around the world alone at 14.
Oh, I don't remember either,
but she was from the Netherlands, I believe. Right? Holland?
Yeah, Netherlands. and now lives in New Zealand. There's a brilliant...
And partly, the first scene, when you talked to the...
The costume guy's kind of inspired by a scene in that documentary, actually.
But, you know... And once he came to Tahiti.
That was a really remarkable story
about this 14-year-old girl who sailed around the world alone, and...
and he learned a lot about the culture.
And it's kind of a coming of age documentary on a boat.
Yeah, she actually self-filmed.
Self-filmed it. And yeah, amazing.
I can't remember the name, unfortunately, of the documentary.
I wish.
If it's not fun...
then why do you do it?
It's a feeling...
I love this scene. I love how this movie...
It was really important to us when we were...
figuring out how to write it
and how to find the honesty and the truth in every moment,
to witness two people getting to know one another in a very realistic way.
I think it's easy sometimes to lose sight of...
normalcy and how things actually occur in real life.
And this scene reminds me of a very honest conversation,
a candid conversation you would have with someone...
on a first date or a casual hang.
Not at all. Actually...
It felt quite long on the paper,
but when we did it, and especially when I looked at it after the shooting,
I felt it... I needed all of it.
And I love that...
The subtly of, you know, like we saw just before,
seeing in your eyes how you're starting to kind of fall for him.
- Right. - You know, on a real deep level.
And when you saw him first.
And I think that, you know, it's...
Both of your acting is so subtle and great that the scene holds up,
even though it takes a bit of time.
- Quite long? - Yeah, quite long for this kind of...
For the rhythm of the film.
But I think it's essential to give them time to get to know them,
understand him a little bit,
understand a little bit about why people sail around the world.
This shot, right here,
was the scariest moment for me filming, of the entire movie.
That shot was a helicopter shot.
I was actually sailing the boat, and the marine coordinator was in the cabin,
and I wasn't able to hear what he was saying and how to direct me.
I could just see Sam at the front of it.
And I was telling myself not to crash the boat.
Look at how far it's heeling over.
And when the helicopter went by,
the wind from the copter would rush into the sails and...
tip us over even more.
It was definitely the scariest movie moment for me.
I remember you shouting, "I don't have--"
-"I can't do this!" -"I can't control, I can't do this!"
It was probably the only time you did that, you know.
It was quite scary.
Yeah. And this cut, the cross from the wide to the close is something that...
we wanted to make those...
going from the nicest into the most horrific moments.
So, you jolt the audience a little bit, you know, and...
keep them on their toes as you're going between the stories.
Mayday, mayday. This is the sailing Hazana.
All the kind of details about how far they were and exactly where they...
This is all taken from her logbooks.
So, it's very precise about where the real Tami,
where she had them put down the marks.
The boat itself is pretty close...
It's not exactly the same boat as the real boat,
because they didn't exist. We couldn't find a version of that boat.
Not in that part of the world.
There were some boats in Europe that had a similar type.
But we copied pretty accurately.
It's a slightly bigger boat than the one that we're on in reality.
Right.
And all of this, the puking, the...
This is all taken directly from her book and the experience that she detailed...
when she came to.
Yeah. And she found out, actually, after she came to land...
Maybe a spoiler, but I guess most people have seen the film,
watching the commentary--
- Hopefully. - Hopefully.
That she actually was out for, I think, 27 hours.
She didn't realize that.
She didn't know she was out for 27 hours until she got to land,
and they were able to cross-reference when the hurricane passed through,
and how many days it took her to get to Hawaii.
Yeah. So, there was a day missing,
and realized instead of having been out for three hours,
what she thought she had been,
she was actually out for... 27.
Where are you taking me?
This was an amazing day.
The crew and some locals carved out that path, right? That didn't exist?
No, that path is shot in a totally different place.
So, it connected with this. No, that path existed.
It did exist?
It's a way up, but it's a very different spot from this, so...
So, you were there for sure. It's just probably confusing.
But it was on the island where we shot a lot of the...
Yeah, Yanuca? Yanuca Island, I think.
Yeah, but this location was not easy to get to.
We had to raft down this river.
As you see, there's no other way to get to this location.
The whole crew had to hike for about 25 minutes.
- Hard hats and life vests. - And now you see...
that DP is jumping with him, with the camera, boom.
Such a sick shot.
Here we have another one shot, you know.
So, we wanted to kind of just...
experience through the camera floating with him and jumping, and...
almost like you were with him in the water.
Such a cool shot.
I really like this little joke, you know?
I love, too, it had just rained that morning.
And so the river was quite muddy instead of being crystal clear.
But I do love that it juxtaposes all of the shots we have in the ocean.
Cause rivers do tend to be a little bit more murky than the open sea.
Yeah. And it has this green kind of color,
which is very different from all the underwater stuff...
- All the blue. -...and blue in the sea.
Love this song.
Yeah, this is a beautiful song written by Tom Waits.
And we have two songs by Tom Waits in the movie.
One is later, and he sings that himself.
For some reason, he is not a fan of his own singing in this.
So, he did allow us to use the song, but not his recording.
So, this is Emiliana Torrini who sings this.
This actually came about funny.
John Gilbert was looking for some other version for me,
and he came up with a couple.
One of them was Emiliana.
I asked him, "So who do you like best?" And he said, "Emiliana, probably."
I said, "I actually discovered Emiliana when she was 16 years old."
- What? - In Iceland, yeah.
- She's Icelandic? - She's Icelandic.
Now, he didn't know that. She's half-Italian, half-Icelandic.
- How funny. - I was doing a production of Hair.
- Yeah? - And she was 16.
And she was so incredibly wonderful then, you know.
What a fun story.
And then she, you know, went on to be quite a well-known singer.
And she, you know, she had the song 'm The Lord of the Rings.
- How random. - It was, totally. And so, I called her,
because it was a little bit time sensitive.
And got her into the studio in two days, and she was ready to record it again.
- So she re-recorded it for the film? - Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
So, there's a little bit of Icelandic stuff down there.
You know?
And the other Icelandic element is Heimir Sverrisson.
He's the guy who did the set. He's the production designer.
- And then-- - And Dadi, right?
And Dadi, the visual effects supervisor, yeah.
The dinghy.
Oh, my God.
Richard!
So, the engine, obviously, is not working.
Damn it.
And neither is the rudder.
This is going to come into play later, why the rudder isn't working.
We did quite a lot of underwater shooting.
And we had a great underwater...
- An Australian cinematographer, right? - An Australian named Salmon.
- Salmon. - Yeah.
He was... We had him the whole time in the water.
And a lot of these shots are, like this one is shot, from...
And I like this kind of connection with the water, constantly.
Yeah, the water is a character as much as anyone else is in this movie.
Well, one of the reasons why this was an important...
She's trying to pull the sails in and gets stuck under them, and...
is also to give people this sense of how...
vulnerable and how helpless you are if you lose the boat.
And it drifts pretty fast, and it's really hard to get,
-get to the boat. - The current just takes it away.
And so people kinda get the sense why...
she can't really leave the boat or get off it that easily without robbing herself.
But Shailene, as we didn't know, turned out to be a great swimmer,
so she could do all this, you know.
It worked out well. I love swimming, love the ocean.
And we didn't really talk about it, but this water is full of sharks.
Lots of them. And sea snakes, it turns out.
And sea snakes, deadly sea snakes.
I had no idea that there are snakes in the ocean until doing this movie.
Yeah, they kind of slide.
They are not likely to bite you.
They are, if they can get you between the fingers or the bits of the toes,
they can kill you.
But only in those locations?
Yeah. I mean, there was one in Suva, you know.
One girl picked it up, even, on the tail and everyone freaked out.
I don't remember that.
There's quite a few of them, you know.
Me and Bob, we jumped around like girls when we saw one when we were scouting,
because it came towards us, we were like, "Ah!"
It was very, you know... It wasn't a very heroic moment for us.
You don't expect a snake to come popping out of the ocean.
Nope, but they do.
And Fiji doesn't actually have snakes on land.
No, there's almost nothing there.
Yeah, nothing that can kill you, on land.
Just the ocean.
Looking good, mama.
And this is all based on Tami's experience.
What I think is so great about this film is it'd be easy to embellish things,
and make it seem more difficult than it actually was, or whatnot.
But she got very lucky.
There was an extra jib. There was the bilge pipe, or pump.
All of the things that she needed to survive
the Hazana still had post-hurricane.
Yeah, and we did search through the book,
even though we had a script done and worked on it,
you know, to detail every...
Kind of find out every detail of what she did and how she did it,
so it would be as correct.
And even to this, how she built this make-shift sail she's doing now,
I think it's incredible what she managed to do.
The real Tami who was at hand, you know, was very helpful.
And she sent me a little drawing of this,
how she did it, because I couldn't really figure it out from the book, you know.
You know, how she really did it.
So clever.
Yeah.
And then Shailene got so good at it,
I had to keep going, "No, no. Don't be so good at it."
-"Make it harder." - Make it a little harder.
And this is a big moment for her,
when she finally gets the sail up and gets the boat moving.
Come on, baby!
But, as we find out later, there's something stuck in the rudder.
It's getting really difficult.
And there was a bit of a challenge finding the right places
for these flashbacks, like this one.
Because the stories have to move along together, and
there are different ways, and I ended up after trying different things,
to put this scene there.
Because I think when we stayed too long in one part of the storytelling,
like in the past and the present,
you kind of forget the other part of it.
So, you have to constantly,
even though you're at the point where we are in the present story,
so much is happening you kind of want to stay there,
but it will punish you later if you don't keep on...
- Going back and forth? - Going back and forth.
You know, there has to be a certain rhythm going on with that.
This was a beautiful day. This was actually out by an island.
What was it called? "Yanuca"?
"Yanutha." Spelled like Yanuca, but "c" in Fijian is pronounced like "th."
- My Fijian isn't as good as yours. - Yanuca.
Yanuca.
Bula.
That dress he has given her is actually based on
as close as we could get to the real dress he gave her,
she mentions in the book.
Here she's finding out that the water is not working. Another trouble.
In real life, Tami, she...
did have a gash in her head, and her cut-up leg,
and bruises and cuts everywhere, but...
she describes it, it took about two days for the pain to hit her.
Because she had so much adrenaline, so much shock running through her body,
that she didn't really notice any of the pain.
She was in full-focus mode.
Yeah, and I think that's what happens to people when their adrenaline is so high.
They don't even feel the pain.
So, when that starts to go away,
you know, they realize.
Sometimes when people watch that, they go,
"Why wouldn't she fix her head right away?"
No, there are other more important things to do at the moment.
This was beautiful, shooting this... in the sunset.
- This is a very wavy day. - Yeah.
- Very wavy. - The swells were quite big.
Yeah, it was actually very hard to control...
the distance of the boat, and keeping them both in the frame.
Because we had the third boat we were shooting off.
And this is much more complicated than people realize, to control that.
And now we are in the water with her.
I mean, look at those waves.
There's white caps in the middle of the ocean.
And then she needs to swim back with him.
This was another ordeal to get through.
Until you figured out to use the rope.
- Yeah. - You really--
That was actually Sam's suggestion.
But because the boat kept on drifting away from her,
that she has a rope around her that she can actually use to pull herself in on.
But only with one hand.
I remember doing this take and not being able to swim.
It was so hard because,
you know, obviously I'm carrying all of Sam's weight,
and for an entire take I was dragging him under the water,
to keep myself afloat and didn't notice,
until he finally had to pop up like a minute later...
- He was drowning. -...because he couldn't breathe.
Yeah. But I really also like...
I love shooting stuff like this because the struggle is real.
And you can feel this is all shot... You'd never get this in a tank.
You know, and...
I mean, I don't know, 10 times or 14 times you did this,
and it shows the struggle, and it shows, you know...
And I think that really pays off.
One of the things that's really hard is to get people...
You know, this is something we kind of created a way to get him on the boat.
Because it's one thing to get yourself, haul yourself up there,
but another is to get him.
I would love... Jane is a fantastic makeup artist.
Yes.
And she's English, but lives in New Zealand.
And I think she did a fantastic job, you know.
- What do you call it? A gash? - Yeah.
Gash.
And you know, the big cut on the legs.
There was someone else who came in with that. Remember who that was?
Who did that special...
I don't remember his name.
But, you know, it's one thing to have prosthetics,
in real life, but,
prosthetics with salt water and sweat and sun
is difficult to maintain and they did a fantastic job.
Okay, tell me. Do you know what flower that is?
It's a plumeria, right?
It's a frangipani.
- A what? - A frangipani.
- A frangipani? - Yeah.
One sec.
This was funny, because I, having lived in Hawaii many years,
we called these flowers plumerias.
And in most parts of the world they are referred to as frangipani,
-which we got a big hoot out of. - Yeah, I think so.
And one day, when it can open, it can change color.
And there he brings up his mother, which I really like.
There's a couple of times in the script that he does that.
So, he's kind of a mommy's boy a bit.
You know? And we learn later about... the reality of that.
In this scene, he's seems more kind of raw.
You know, this is just to mask the smell of the burning trash.
And he's talking about... He's being romantic.
So, I kind of like the difference of them.
And he's talking about that if you put it on the left side you're in a relationship,
if you put it on the right side, you're available.
- Yeah. - So...
This is a good sign, you know?
- Check out which side the flower is on. - Yeah.
- Test the waters. - Test the waters.
- I don't guarantee, though. - Yeah.
But that's what we were told.
How was it? Sweet?
Your sixteenth?
No, my mom took me to my first bar.
I had like 10 shots of Midori.
And, yeah. Worst hangover of my life.
- Hands down. - So, your mom's a wild one.
One of those young at heart types?
She's just young, period. She was 31.
What we learn here about Tami is background on her mother.
That she had a really, really young mother.
You know, she was 15 years old when she had her.
Yeah.
She's saying maybe I don't have to.
But it's, for me, it's important background.
It's a family that isn't... You know, her father wasn't around much.
And she was brought up by the parents of her father.
Yeah, her grandparents.
And she left home pretty early.
And was a bit wild back in Mexico.
And lived her life there, and...
Yeah, she hopped in a VW van, at 18, I believe.
And hopped the border, and started a salsa company,
so her and her friend could surf all day and still make money.
I think, actually, that friend of hers possibly came to see the film with her.
- Yeah. - Watched the film for the first time.
- It was very sweet. - That's so special.
- Yeah. -...salsa company and surfing...
And it wasn't that, I don't think...
At least, my conversation with him, it wasn't that...
there was... She was angry at her family, or anything like that.
But I'm sure when you have that kind of background, you know, you might...
you know, be...
She's wandering around, trying to make sense of it all.
Right.
- Can I say no? - Yes.
- No, no. - Yes.
And the backstory of him is, he lost his mother very young.
And apparently, had a kind of difficult relationship with his father.
So, he came from the UK army.
But we had to go by with what we were told, and...
And there were some friends of his,
the Kandells, who wrote the original script,
did some research with the friends he worked with...
in South Africa, when he was building the boat.
Got a lot of information about his character from that.
Hey, Tami.
Yeah?
Will you sail around the world with me?
How could she say no to that?
You can't.
This song they are playing is from O/feu Negro.
I've heard it so many times since filming this movie,
and every time I just think of you and Sam.
It puts a big smile in my heart.
Yeah. It's a song that I used, actually, in an Icelandic play that I did.
One of my first plays at the National Theater of Iceland.
An Icelandic version of it.
And I always kept it very close.
This is a French version of the song.
For French Tahiti?
- Because it's-- - French Polynesia.
Yeah, French Polynesia. But the original version is in Portuguese,
in this wonderful film called Orfeu Negro.
And the other songs in that scene were Tahitian songs.
Put your arm around me.
Ready? One, two, three.
Lift!
God, Sam is so good at portraying pain.
I think it's so hard for an actor to accurately portray pain
without overacting or looking...
He does a great job.
He does such a good job.
What about Fatu Hiva? We could sail there first.
This is shot in the market in Suva, in the real market, you know.
And it was actually open while we were shooting it.
So, we had to try to control the people around us.
And the rest of the people are just doing their thing, you know?
And it was also because in Fiji, they don't speak French.
- Yeah - Like they do in Tahiti, so...
Redressing the market...
- Yeah, we had to redress, you know... - With a bunch of French words.
And also, you know, the Tahitian are a little lighter skinned than the Fijian.
So, we tried also to kind of address that.
And there's a slight difference, you know.
- Really? - Yeah.
We gotta go.
How long would it take to sail there?
Forever. It doesn't matter.
- God, I just wanna go everywhere with you. - And everywhere we will go.
Richard!
- Richard! - Richard.
What?
Tally-ho!
Where the hell have you...
I actually really like how they stay on you guys while they're coming.
We shot it differently, too, but I chose to stay on them.
So, you're waiting for them to--
To know who they are.
To know who they are, until they come into the frame, instead of seeing them.
You know, going out, this is again, staying in their perspective.
Staying in your perspective, especially.
To get their experience, yeah.
I'm glad we ran into you, Richard, because...
well, there's something we'd like to talk to you about.
These are wonderful actors from New Zealand,
Elizabeth and Jeffrey.
I don't know if you'd be keen, but...
how'd you like to sail the Hazana back to California for us?
We can pay $10,000, plus a first-class ticket return.
Seriously?
You're...
- You're joking, right? - No, mate.
What do you say?
And I thought, after talking to Tami, and also reading,
it wasn't quite clear in the book, but I asked her specifically about this.
That the whole thing about her father being sick wasn't such a big issue,
as it was just people of that age who have boats,
don't love to sail them across the ocean, which I understand very well.
- Yeah - But...
So, they get young people, you know,
ready to take it on as a job to sail the boat back home,
as they will stay maybe through the summer or a couple of months,
sailing around those wonderful islands.
- We were hoping to get out no later... - The easy part of sailing.
And I really this here, because this is the first time we see a little bit of a,
in their relationship, something and it's not quite right.
- A little dissent. - Yeah.
And we discussed this quite a lot, to find the right tone.
Because it's easy that she comes off bitchy, or you know,
ungrateful in some way, you know, if she's...
But I really love the idea that it ended up being,
which is more about that he doesn't want to take her for granted, you know?
'Cause she's not tacking onto his adventure.
Either you go together...
And I actually happen to do this a lot myself, with my wife, you know.
- I'm getting better at it. - What's the team?
Yeah, yeah. And it's not because you're a bad person.
It's just like you're so into what you're doing,
you think it's so exciting that...
Just don't forget that there's another person that actually has her own.
Yeah.
And I like the toning of it. I mean, we see it later in another scene.
...suburbs somewhere.
Well, I'd still be in the naval academy if I'd listened to my dad.
But I decided to live my own life.
So, I really like this scene as well, because it's very kind of...
somber and, give it time, but they're basically figuring out...
how lost they are, and how bad their situation is.
I love the scenes like this in the movie, because it does show just how
there's no distractions.
It shows how barren you are out at sea.
It really is so simple.
Yeah, and I think the score complements these kind of feelings really well.
There's this Volker Bertelmann, who did the Lion score...
Yeah, which is also a beautiful score.
He did such a good job in this.
And just this kind of loneliness...
You know, it took me a long time, actually, to find the musician to do this.
There was a couple of people I was looking at early on.
But then I felt that I hadn't found it.
And it's so hard with music, because it's so abstract.
I often say it's like there's a frequency in your soul.
- Yeah. - And if music hits that frequency,
-you love it. - Right.
If it doesn't, it doesn't affect you.
And it's really hard to explain why some music affects some people,
and others, others, you know.
And that's the only explanation I can come up with.
- Well, it is all frequency. - Yeah, frequency of your soul.
I love that.
When I heard this, it was after we shot, because I decided to push it away,
not panic about it because I hadn't found the right musician.
And then when... Actually, Jason Markey, the music supervisor,
sent me his music, I knew instantly that this was the guy.
It just hit the frequency.
And there's something about just traveling,
wandering, loneliness, I don't know how to explain this any better,
because it's really about her being alone at sea, you know.
And drifting.
I think that it's a... really cool opportunity.
But...
I'm not really looking to go home, yet.
Here's kind of the continuity of their conversation we discussed earlier.
It was important to me that the conflict scene that we had in this movie
wasn't angsty or loud.
Tami writes and spoke with both of us
about the fact that she and Richard never actually fought.
They've never gotten in small fights or...
Which is hard to believe if you've had any experience with a relationship.
I do feel that sometimes you have two people who click in a way where...
the small things don't quite bother them.
So, that's why it was important to have this be more of a dialog
and a conversation, rather than a fight.
Yeah, and also the relationship is quite young.
- So, people-- - The honeymoon phase.
Yeah, honeymoon phase. And there are maybe little things, obviously.
It wasn't really about whether you were going to do this or not,
it was just about not being taken for granted.
You know, that's not why I--
- The respect. - Yeah, the respect.
And you know, he's a bit older than she is, and he's on his track.
You know, he has to just stop for a second and realize.
It took me only like 18, 20 years for me to do it.
- That's it. - Yep.
- Just to get that thought into my head. - Stick it out, yeah.
...half knots.
We could hit San Diego in 25 days.
But then, with these headwinds, it could take months.
What if we don't sail to San Diego?
And here's a big decision, you know, which is very accurate to the real story.
When Tami realizes that getting against the wind,
because that means you have to beat all the way to San Diego
or to Mexico, or wherever they would land, on the continent of America.
It wasn't gonna work. They would not...
And I think they wouldn't ever have made it,
because with that little power of the sail,
there's very limited what you can beat.
Firstly, you can't really go much up to the wind.
- Right - And so your angles get very low.
So, you don't cut...
Because you're basically going against wind the whole time.
So, she makes this decision of turning the boat around and heading for Hawaii.
That's to say hang left on the eighteenth.
- Nineteenth. - Nineteenth, sorry.
Like the sailors did in the old days.
Nineteenth latitude?
Yeah, latitude.
That way she can kind of go downwind
and use the drift in her benefit.
But that's...
Just the slightest miscalculation in the navigation can get you...
You lose Hawaii, and Japan is next.
And you're probably never gonna make it there.
And I mean, it's just wild being out there,
filming this in the middle of the ocean, to even...
imagine that one can celestial navigate,
and one can use...
the sextant and the horizon and the sun to measure where you are
when, visually, there's no way of marking it.
It's really all mathematics that you're depending on.
Yeah. And a very accurate one with time, and the sun, and the height,
and we studied all these, and it's still complicated to me how all that's done.
I studied it for months and could not tell you one thing about it.
And luckily, she had learned this when she was sailing... on this schooner.
And she had learned how to do this.
So, she had sailed with someone else, before.
And she had learned--
The person who taught her how to do this...
- Yes, was the guy we met. -...was the guy that we actually met.
He is still a sailor.
And he was in Suva harbor while we were filming there, and we met him.
He was the one who had taught Tami in the '80s...
how to use a sextant, which is the tool that ended up saving her life.
I mean, that's bananas to me.
Yeah. That's incredible. And so accurately she did it.
And also the courage of turning around.
You know, you're closer to America,
and then you decide you're going to sail to Hawaii,
which is a dot in the ocean, you know.
And that is really what saved her.
I really like this here,
we're seeing actually, the boat intact for the first time.
- Right. - And I think, you know, it's...
It's a bit of relation for the audience. You've seen it trashed and in a mess.
And now you're suddenly seeing it.
So, I like how the information comes, you know.
- It's kind of-- - Over time.
Yeah, over time you learn more about things, and how they got on the boat,
what the boat really looks like before they took off.
Yeah.
I mean, it's our boat now, so why not?
So, you're in?
Just for those first-class plane tickets.
Whoa.
Later.
You dirty old man.
This is that same fruit market, vegetable market.
Well, it's outside that, you mean. It's the restaurant outside.
It's the stalls, the shop's around.
Remember the fish soups and stuff?
- Lamb neck soup. - Yeah.
I got this job sailing this gorgeous yacht from down here back to San Diego.
I do love the voiceover in this.
I think it's a good way to show the sign of the times in the '80s,
that you did have to write letters to people, you couldn't just send a text,
or even make a phone call.
Yeah, I know that's a very, very...
Well, you could make a phone call, but it was--
It would cost so much.
Yeah, cost a lot of money, and also not only that...
you're not very likely to be there when you call.
You know, I don't think they even had...
Probably at that time they didn't have answering machines.
It might have been, but I'm not sure
that answering machines, actually, had even been invented, in every other home.
That came, I think, later.
So, I really feel like he's the one.
Bon voyage, lovers!
I mean, people...
Actually, how you met people in cities, when you were going to meet someone,
it was actually, you had to plan a place to meet them, you know.
- Yeah - Now it's just like,
"Text me when you're there."
- This is one of the beautiful... - Modern convenience.
...beautiful sunset shots.
Bob Richardson.
This was the beginning of Sam and I losing a lot of weight to...
match what these characters had to go through in their experience.
Yeah.
And this scene was particularly special,
because we hadn't eaten dinner in about a month.
We were surviving on a couple of eggs and steamed vegetables each day.
So, we were both looking forward to shooting this scene,
because we knew we'd be able to indulge in some delicious, fatty...
- Yeah, which is what's amazing to me. -...peanut butter.
Because the sardines, anything in that bag,
was more delicious to me than--
Than peanut butter? My gosh.
Peanut butter is like a gold mine, it's so good.
You know, I never understood that.
I actually can't eat it, you know. I'm disgusted by it.
That's so funny.
You notice, also, there's, for those who have seen the film,
and this explains it, he never really does anything.
He only kind of encourages her,
but she does all the things herself.
Like, even he suggest she open the... You know, she didn't want that.
There's a reason for that.
And I hope that most people who have seen the film understand why.
Oh, my God.
I really like this cut from your "mmm," into the kind of music here and romance.
Yeah, so...
It's so red.
Yeah.
What?
Is that how you describe a painting by Monet?
We actually had to shoot this over a couple of sunsets.
Yeah, to capture the perfect one.
Also because you have such a short window to do this,
that, I think, three times we had to do it, just to get the whole scene...
Right.
.“Done.
- It's kinda got a-- - It's definitely red.
No, no, no, with a hint of mandarin...
It's so beautiful.
I mean, that's Fiji.
Or Tahiti, or whatever you want to call it.
It's the middle of the ocean.
Sailor's delight.
Who the hell is Bob Ross, anyway?
You don't know who Bob Ross is?
I think no one outside of America really knows who Bob Ross is.
I wonder how they translate this in the other parts of the world, this joke.
Well, I think it works, because he doesn't know who it is.
Yeah.
- Your cheeks... - Let me guess, they're red.
And I liked that, in many ways, you and Sam allowed, and we allowed for it,
that you could take things off the page and play a little with them.
And I feel that benefits, often, a very natural kind of dialog.
Yeah.
It's not always as precise for that, you know, but I do like it,
because it becomes more real and natural.
And there's a great chemistry that is also...
Which you guys had from day one, I thought.
Yeah, we got pretty lucky...
of just naturally getting along pretty well.
Yeah, we had conversations about that. It was very important that...
the guy, because you were on the project way before he came,
that we would find someone who you would have chemistry with.
I think also somebody who is a really...
I mean, with you as the director
and wanting to do everything as authentically as possible,
me being on board with that and being someone who loves the nitty and gritty,
we needed a guy who was. And I...
I think Sam, I don't think there is anybody better than Sam,
who would be willing to go the distance with such generosity.
No, but also the generosity he has as an actor, you know.
I think, you know, it was also very...
I was very blown away by that.
You know, he's...
'Cause in the end of the day, it's very much Tami's movie,
and allowing it to be what it has to be is important.
A lot of actors tend to try to steal the scenery, or...
- Right. -...chew it away a little bit.
And there was nothing of that ever.
- He's so trusting. - For either one of you, by the way.
That, I think, is also great kind of chemistry.
Because then people are working towards the same,
not towards their own, kind of career, or how they see themselves.
Or wanna be perceived.
But it allowed the...
And I'm more and more, kind of into this kind of organic...
You know, the more organically you can make movies, you know.
Yeah.
Because so much is at the machine, kind of overtaking.
If you allow for just things to come to you, and find them and not force them...
- Right. -...l think, you know,
I feel it benefited a lot from that.
Here we have a scene, under the boat,
-not-- Yeah. - This was...
You tell us.
Yeah, under the boat, while the...
The waves were quite big that day, as well, as you can see...
from the boat going... I mean, this shot doesn't look like it, but...
When you were doing it underwater it was actually bigger.
Yeah, the... Just trying not bang your head on the top or the bottom of the boat,
while releasing the sail.
I found all this so fun.
- Yeah, and I was amazed... - A good challenge.
...how long you could actually stay under there and do this.
I mean, of course it's cut out of a couple of trips.
But just to get a sense, see how the boat is really hitting the water? Boom.
Yeah, I had to hold the top of it.
But a scene like that might take half a day,
-you know, to do. - Yeah.
And you have to stay underwater with no oxygen,
you know, again, and again, and again. And it wears you out.
It's quite fun, though.
I loved every time I got to jump in the ocean.
We were lucky we were in Fiji, where it was warm.
Yeah, and most of the time in filmmaking
you would actually shoot stuff like that in a tank.
You know, just a controlled situation, no sharks.
And stuff like that.
But we decided to do it all, because I like the water.
And it's really difficult to get the water to move right,
and also to look right in the tank. It just feels too clear.
Actually, sometimes the water in Fiji felt too clear.
It's just such a clear water.
Yeah, that it didn't feel like the ocean.
While just you were down there, you know, it's very, very clear.
You know, and...
But I do think we benefitted from doing it in the real location.
What's that?
It's okay.
I really like, there's something in this scene that I always...
You know, it's one of the slower scenes, but it's sensual, you know?
Yeah. We don't have any... You know, we did shoot a love scene.
It's not in this film, but I love that you don't necessarily have that.
And all of the central moments come without sexuality.
I love that. I think that really explores, you know, human nature.
And, oftentimes, those are the moments
that you share the most intimacy with your partner.
Yeah, I didn't feel like we needed that, the sexuality.
I think that's kind of...
That's another really good makeup.
Yeah.
But also the makeup on your and his hands, and...
And I thought it was amazingly done.
There's something. I love the hair and the wind in the hair
when you're bending over him.
Stuff like that, that I think, for me, do a lot, sensually.
Yeah.
And sexuality, I think, is overrated,
- I agree. - Compared to sensuality.
That's also a very... I think it can be a very...
European versus American disposition, as well.
Yeah, I haven't tried American sex, so I don't know.
Just, I think, in the cultural approach, too.
Yeah, no. I understand. It was a bad joke.
Nine cans.
Of God knows what.
And you can also see that, a lot of the scenes,
and I'm gonna give this away, here,
is that a lot of the scenes you have the sun behind the actors, you know?
And in both directions.
Bob is really... He really pushes for that.
He wants to have the scenes backlit.
And I agree with him. It makes it look much better.
It's not, you know, always the most natural way of doing things,
but we're also making a movie.
And you see how this is really nicely backlit?
I'm not doing that. I'm not gonna kill...
And it makes for a complicated shoot,
because you have to turn the boat, and you know,
and fight with the wind and find a way to make everything work.
Because you can see the sail behind you on the, you know,
the sun and the wind don't always play together.
Right.
My leg's shattered.
I'm dead weight.
I also like, really, the color palette, you know, of the boat,
and your costume and his costume.
It's just, it's quite simple.
It's naturalistic, but it still has a bit of a...
It's still stylistic in some way.
I think that often it's a very fine line to give things...
a definitive look, without looking too slick or stylish, still being natural.
Yeah, it's a fine dance that I think people...
I don't always think of when I see a movie.
But makes the biggest difference.
Yeah, I love when I read about the Coen brothers,
because they make really stylish movies.
That the most stylish movie, they said, was Fargo, who looks the most natural.
But if you think about it, to create that look,
it actually is a lot of work.
Even though most people wouldn't even think about it.
They'd just think they shot it in somebody's home.
Right.
I can't do it.
It's too hard.
It's okay.
It reminds me, when we talk about this, all the people on the boat.
You know, going around trying to keep everything, you know...
- Secure. -...secured, and you know,
it always looks like it's so easy.
But we had like 2O to 3O people in every shot moving around there.
And you pretty much got, you know, the space of your ass.
You know, that's what you got on the boat, whether you were
in the highest or the lowest position, it was the same.
And if you were in the cabin, and it happened to be a harsh-weather day,
it wasn't always the most delightful experience.
I noticed that.
Yeah, makeup did such a good job, even with our teeth.
They started painting our teeth at a certain point,
so that it looked like there had been decay.
This is the only place where we allowed for some nudity.
And we tried to make that as subtle as possible.
But, in fact actually, Tami was quite a few times naked on the boat.
It was warm, and you know, but...
I think it's just nice to show it without making it being an issue.
And that rainbow shot we actually got...
-from a helicopter. - Yeah, that was a helicopter,
we saw the rainbow and we just, "Let's shoot that rainbow."
What?
This is a Tahitian beer, if I remember right.
- Yeah. - We specially had it made.
- And this actually happened. - Hino?
- Yeah, it's actually-- - Hinu?
Hinu, yeah.
Yeah, this actually happened. They did find, certainly, beer hidden away.
- And some cigars. - Cigars.
And had a little party.
- Party on the boat. - We're gonna have a party!
A little touch of humanity.
And I really like, you know, to find levity in the saddest of moments.
I think, it's also nice when we're screening this and...
people are laughing a little bit when you said, "Gonna have a party."
And then you see this really kind of subtle party. I think...
it opens up the movie a little bit.
It allows people to laugh.
And we are coming into a scene, actually, that I really like.
The proposal scene that comes up.
How it plays and is unconventional, in a way.
Right.
You know, you're not allowed to say something like
propose in the dead mother's voice.
And you know... But I really like that.
It gives it a kind of unexpected angle.
Here we are back into the Tom Waits song.
And if you look behind her, you might notice something.
Yeah.
♪ There on with you... a'
The more people see this film, too, the more they begin noticing.
Yeah, I think on second viewing--
- The little tricks. - Yeah.
Well, I just wanted to be also honest about it.
I didn't want to hide it totally, so the rug would be pulled from under you.
That actually you show it, but,
because you're in her perspective, you want to see it differently.
Like she wants to.
And that pushes the perspective of her,
you know, and that's what I'm trying to achieve with this.
And, you know, John Gilbert, who is a wonderful editor, who edited the movie,
did Hacksaw Ridge, and, you know, some of the Lord of the Rings movies, I think.
We had a lot of conversation about this, balancing this rightly,
how much we show and when.
And I also like this. This is backwards, basically.
You're playing from this memory, before you see him do it.
I think it's an interesting choice.
'Cause if I remember correctly, it wasn't written that way.
I can't remember, to be...
I like the idea that we're not seeing it always,
like first he does it, then you do it.
You know, that actually plans a little more.
Because it can become a little pedestrian if you predict it all the time.
Because it is his guitar. He played the song first for her.
And then she's kind of remembering it.
And really doesn't know how to play it, but kind of remembering the song.
But we see it in a reverse order.
How did your mom die?
You really want to know?
You don't have to tell me.
Just...
curious.
When I was seven, she hung herself.
But I did move the scenes.
And this is the truth, I think.
At least as much as I know of it, what he's saying.
He did lose his mother when he was a young boy.
Christ, the first person in your life who dies is supposed to be old, you know?
Not your bloody mother.
But also what he's saying about his mother,
that later on is also a little key to what Tami's experience is.
It got sort of internalized.
Internalized what?
And this scene was very much written by David Branson Smith.
It was kind of the first scene that I was like, "That's great. I love it."
- Yeah. - He came in a little later and...
this was very much his style, you know?
I'm still missing Dad...
He wrote something called Ingrid Goes to...
Ingrid Goes West.
Goes West, yeah. That's it.
It won the screenwriter award at Sundance for that.
Very talented young writer.
All men really do want to marry their mums.
Oh, fuck. Did I just ask you to marry me in the voice of my dead mother?
This always gets a good laugh in the theater.
I also love your reaction here. It's such a, you know...
Because it goes against what he... He's kind of being a bit funny, but...
you've got more sincere and surprised.
Very nice.
I love you.
And I know that I want to be with you forever.
It actually took a bit of time editing this scene.
I don't know why, because it played really well when you did it.
But it was just...
Find the right balance, you know?
The right beats?
Yeah, just to you know...
Just to fill it in right, and to make it...
Sometimes scenes, what I came out of the scene, it's funny,
because sometimes you come out of a scene like that, it's just like, you know,
that goes together, what you're thinking is...
It will be the easiest scene to edit.
- Yeah. -'Cause you have all the angles,
you have the performances, but...
But it just took us a bit of time to find--
- Figure it out? - Yeah.
I promise, when we get back to the States, we can get you a real one.
No.
And then the other thing, sometimes, you think, "Oh, that's not gonna work."
And actually, it just falls into place.
And that's the great thing about filmmaking.
It doesn't matter how much you believe...
you got it, you kind of know what you're doing, it always surprises you.
- There are always things that-- - Come up?
They come up and turn out to be different than you think.
And I love that.
Yeah, well, that's what keeps it fun.
Yeah. And I love the idea that the movie wants to be something.
And actually, you allow it to become what it wants.
- Almost like a child. - You follow it.
Yeah, well. Yeah. You try to give it your best,
and then allow it to become what it wants to be in some way.
Like you do to your kids.
I remember this scene, we shot it at 2:00 a.m.
in New Zealand in the middle of the night.
- This is quite complicated, the visual-- - Getting the balance of the...
Finding the right... Because, of course, we had to build this in CGI.
But this is all real, you know,
pouring water all over Shailene.
And Sam, who just had to lie there and take all the ice water.
That was probably pretty cold.
This is also a choice that I wanted to give the audience.
Instead of telling them it's a hallucination,
or telling them it's not a hallucination,
that being your perspective, you're not sure.
Yeah.
So, by kind of making it...
It could have been disappearing into the fog,
and it can be disappearing because it's a hallucination.
- Yeah. - So, I think,
all these things actually strengthen the perspective of her,
and give you more of how she's feeling, instead of sitting outside of it,
and knowing better than she does.
Yeah.
We might...
You're not supposed to say that.
You'd rather I lie to you?
Yes! Please, lie to me.
Just tell me it's gonna be okay.
I also think, you know,
Dadi and his team did an incredible job.
- With that-- - Yeah. Those scenes.
So, get the light right in them, you know,
so as much as the water, and you know...
'Cause there's no light source there, so you kind of have to...
There's only the moon.
Yeah.
And it's still partly in fog.
And we actually added the moon later because we felt we needed more...
Or like a clearer light source...
to be able to see anything.
This always hits me in the eye.
You know, it's a strong white shot, suddenly...
- Yeah -...from the dark.
But this is also one of my favorite scenes.
And I...
- Is it? - Yeah.
For what reason?
There's just a tone in it. I don't know.
The tone of the gangrene foot?
No, just... I don't know, just the tone of the scene. Sometimes...
You know, for most viewers, this maybe is one of the least exciting scenes.
Just the way you kind of lost your ways, and you know...
She's changing mentally. There's something happening to Tami, there.
You know, almost like she might be losing it.
Yeah.
And kind of maybe losing him, as well.
So, it's like, she's kind of holding onto something.
I don't know. It's just...
- There's something a little bit-- - Desperate.
Yeah, desperate and abstract that I...
Are we getting close to... Now things start happening more in the movie.
And it was a balance thing, because during this kind of middle part of the movie,
I really wanted to give you... So you felt the time,
without boring you.
So, but I didn't also...
Because it's easy to just chop it up and go fast.
But then I felt you would a little bit of kind of the feel of the journey,
and the time it takes.
There's a balance of that.
And of course, there's a balance of getting all this information in how long
and far away they are,
without putting too much exposition to help the audience
to understand a little bit the journey.
Qnly...
Yeah, only baby.
No, no. Stay awake, look at me.
Look. Look, look, look.
This moment, I think is really beautiful.
Right about there.
I'm the one who crosses this horizon.
I'm a real sailor.
This is one of my favorites, the little look there. She's like...
not really knowing what's happening.
This actually, here, this scene...
which I really like.
The bird is used twice in the story, and it's something that I love,
because it's nature talking to you.
It's a messenger.
Yeah, it's a little messenger that comes twice.
With a different message, you know.
This is the day that the entire crew got sick.
This is the first day of shooting...
on the water. We had shot a little bit in the harbor, at the yacht club.
I don't know, the wind must...
But as I remember,
you were just... Sam just puked before we shot this.
Yep-
And you were lying pretty much...
I was. I could not move.
Yeah.
I mean, look at that, look at how fast we were going.
- The entire crew was in the cabin just... - Yeah.
- Throwing up. -...puking their brains out.
Yeah, we were just carrying buckets of puke up from the galley.
And the toilets were stuffed.
Look at that.
And I loved it.
Because you weren't sick.
- No, it's the-- - You and Bob.
Yeah, yeah. No, it's...
It's also just that it got everyone real, you know?
- Yeah. - That, you know...
It took them kind of...
Because I remember, just before that, everyone was like taking selfies.
"I can't believe we get paid for this. This is the best job ever."
And then, suddenly...
- You know? - Life hits.
Life hits, and then now we have six weeks ahead of us, and...
1 O hours for that day, so.
So, I just... It got real, and I love that.
- People get-- - And poor Sam in this scene.
- Yeah, there was quite a smell. - He was in the cabin where it smelled.
What if we just alter...
But everyone got better, you know, because people also got real.
They started taking their pills, and having their little bandages,
which I loved their little sea band, or what do you call it?
Yeah, the little acupressure points.
You're right, let's do it.
- We need to make sure... - But I was also excited,
because you'd go out on the first day, you've got really good wind, you know.
Okay, great, we actually...
And there were some waves, and it doesn't always look like that,
but it was actually...
And Bob, the crane broke down in one of these.
This was actually shot on a different day.
But the crane was... Because it had it a...
We had like a technocrane out there with an oculus head
it just doesn't go well with salty water.
- Yeah. - And waves.
Turns out...
Turns out, you know.
Who knew? Electricity and water.
This is... Actually, there is...
There is a... It's really hard to predict...
I love this. This is very kind of heroic, her standing there.
Look at that.
Wake up.
What do you make of that?
I love that the sunset and the sunrise is a theme...
-throughout the film. - Yeah.
- And this red sky-- - It's a thread.
Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.
Red sky in the night, sailor's delight.
We, you know, used that kind of rhyme...
to play with it. I like that.
It's just a kind of little play they play between them, and it calls back here.
Finally.
It's red.
Red sky in the morning...
Sailors take warning.
I think it has to do with, red sky in the morning, because there are clouds,
because they color the sky, you know,
so, there might be bad weather coming up.
Was that a copter shot, this? Or is this a crane shot?
This is? No, this is a helicopter shot.
We went really close to you, and actually,
we had to change the costume on you afterwards in visual effects,
because you had a hat and a different shirt on.
And I just loved, there was something about that shot I would try to find.
But I was like, "This is a little bit unraveled,"
and it connected the scene really well.
Because they're expecting another storm here.
There was not really a storm that came in reality, it was a bit of squall.
Because we're now starting to juxtapose it with the other storm,
here starts the storm, here we go.
Jesus, look at that thing.
So...
This was all filmed on a gimbal.
Yeah, it's filmed on a gimbal in New Zealand.
And of course, there was a lot of visual effects,
but there was a lot of water coming on, we used a lot of practical water,
and the gimbal was going wild. So, it was...
It wasn't easy even though it wasn't...
Because, you know, people might think, "I thought they shot it all real."
But if you would have shot this real, we wouldn't have brought anybody back home.
Yeah, and insurance wouldn't have let even stunt men do this, right?
No, no. They wouldn't even do it over 3O knots, you know.
And I wanted to shoot as much in weather as I could,
and we shot all the weather we could get.
But you wouldn't be allowed even to stand on the dock in this kind of weather, so...
So there's no way.
But again, you know, I think they managed to do a great job on the visual effects,
and also the way it's combined together and worked.
And in my experience, you really need to push it when you're shooting it.
It's not... You have to do everything you can to get it in camera.
- You know, like-- - And not depend on visual effects.
It's amazing, isn't it?
How just a little sheet can make the whole world feel like it disappears.
Do you see?
There's a little backstory of Tami's childhood.
When I was little...
my dad used to come visit at my grandparents' house.
We never knew when he was coming, he would just show up.
- When he arrived... - We thought about for a while,
maybe to shoot some of this,
but then I felt it would complicate the movie and take it on the wrong track.
To shoot like the flashback?
The flashback of her small, doing this,
but then I felt, you know, that would break the perspective.
I allowed for this only kind of two times,
and to stay in her kind of vicinity.
Close to her.
Starting when I was about 10...
'Cause flashbacks are delicate. They can break the spell, as well.
Yeah.
He would just fly into a rage.
Screaming and shouting and...
I'm thinking a lot about memories these days, you know,
-and how memories change-- - Affect us?
Affect us and change us,
and blend with dreams.
And, you know, somehow movies are...
...when it was happening.
They're so close to that, you know. Because it's a visual thing.
Like memories, dreams is a visual element.
I love that part in Tree of Life.
There's a middle part where it's just about memories,
and it's so beautifully done, like brilliantly how I see memories.
Kind of fragmented, and you know...
- Just colors and... - Yeah.
...moments, kind of essence of things.
Another episode.
Hurricane Raymond is now classified as a category four.
Mayday! Mayday! This is the sailing yacht Hazana. Do you copy?
Remember when we had cut half the boat off you were standing in, actually,
-in the gimbal, it was the-- - Right.
...we can sneak below it!
What did you say?
Yeah, the boat was out in half.
Yeah.
'Cause we needed the interior, there.
'Cause we didn't really have the interior on the gimbal boat,
because it was too heavy.
So, this half you're seeing into, the rest was cut off the boat,
because we couldn't have the whole boat with an interior on it.
It was too heavy for the gimbal.
- There's no way we could control it. - Is that why it was cut?
So interesting, I never knew that.
So, there's quite logical issues about, you know,
the trust boat, the--
'Cause we only one... Two boats, right?
Well, we had a boat that was built first for...
Because when the boat is sideways and pulled by the sail,
we needed to have that, and then we brought that back to New Zealand,
while we were shooting on the boat that was a real boat.
I really like this shot, it's just so aggressive.
I love how the water hits the camera.
It makes you feel like you are there.
Yeah, something I really wanted to make you feel like it's shot and...
'Cause water would be hitting the camera, if you were there.
So, it gives... All this kind of...
This was also, I would say, new, and you know, not the first time, but...
beginning of these kinds of visuals, people didn't really do that, you know.
I really liked in The Revenantwhen the bear blows into the land,
and you just feel the animal is there. Of course, that's visual effects.
But...
You kind of have to remind the people that we're shooting this.
You know, it's not...
Now, the big reveal is coming up.
And this was very delicate, we...
Very tricky.
To do this, I want to do this very subtly, not forced.
Make it kind of lope, but then also clear enough...
for the majority of the audience to get it.
And because if they wouldn't get it, you know,
they wouldn't have the emotional,
kind of... They couldn't be emotionally in the movie, as we go on.
We see what happens now. This is all one shot.
And it's a very complicated shot we created,
you know, because it's practically shot,
you know, even though it's, of course, not in the water,
because it wouldn't be possible.
But we wanted to be, again, more in the perspective,
instead of cutting around it and going out and wide scene.
You just, now you see it with them. There's a huge wave.
- And there was 6O feet waves, at least... - That's crazy.
...in the reality, that's in the book.
And the wind was blowing over 100 knots, you know.
So, even though it looks exaggerated, it's probably no less than it was.
- Than it surely was. - Yeah.
So, we used the wave to turn the camera around, to follow her, pull into her.
And now... the boat is in freefall and hits the water, boom, she goes down.
Oh, God, watching this.
And this is why she is so bruised in the beginning, you know.
And this is just brutal.
What was the decision to have him hit that?
One of the ideas about that is just to make it clear that...
this is different than what we experienced when we saved him.
So, it will be even clearer that...
- He's definitely gone. -...he's definitely put out, you know.
And there's a wound on his forehead that we didn't see.
So, there's a continuity thing, you'd say.
So, the path that she imagined,
of course, she wouldn't have known that this had happened to him.
- Right. - So...
But also, I think, in that kind of...
You would pretty be thrust around and pretty hurt.
And that's probably why he couldn't go up, also.
Yeah.
He got knocked out.
And this shot was very important to me to make it very, very simple.
So, it's not about being gimmicky or clever,
it's about... staying with Tami.
For me, there was a choice of...
And I think we had this conversation before we shot thoroughly,
that it's not that she thinks he is there.
She holds onto him and she makes him up there.
But then she lets him go. It's more of a decision, instead of discovery.
I'll love you forever.
And this is the truth. People do hallucinate and see...
In her memoirs, she spoke to him the whole time, to a voice.
Sometimes it was him, sometimes it was someone else.
She even built him, you know, some kind of part of him.
Now you see from behind, he isn't there anymore.
And this is done very simply, you know.
And I think...
Hopefully people...
respond to it emotionally, rather than, "That was clever filmmaking."
Yeah, I think it's so great that it's her decision to let him go, as well.
Yep-
She knows that in order to survive, she has to come to terms with her reality.
And I think it's all about that.
And how, maybe, the imagination of him gets her over the worst of it.
And then, at some point...
For me, it's also five stages of grieving.
Right.
Which is, a little collegy, but...
if you think about, there's delusion, and then there's acceptance in the end.
You know, have depression and anger, and you know,
but once you've gotten through the worst of the grief,
I think acceptance is a huge moment to move on, you know.
You're gonna love me even more.
God, it was so heartbreaking.
Then I wouldn't have us to remember...
Yeah, and I think for me it was very important,
and it was something we worked on...
during the shooting and during the development of the script,
is to give her enough time after this...
so we could understand and feel how the whole trip was.
You know, and I think that's very important. I think it's also...
I have to do this on my own, now.
It's very important that it's not...
I don't want to go sappy, I just wanted to go authentic emotionally.
You know, allow it to be very emotional.
Because we build in to this moment for such a long time.
Oftentimes, you know, gaging emotion...
is about thinking how it's going to affect the audience
more than how it's even going to affect the actor.
You know, what is the most emotional play for?
- Yeah, I think-- - The audience.
Because this is their reveal, more than it's even Tami's reveal.
But I think what it allows for, and we decided to, later...
give a more stronger emotion,
but it's more, as she's letting him go, there's just this...
I think somewhat relief, you know?
And in some way, sadness.
As if saying goodbye to someone.
- Right. - But then the grieving,
kind of more when we come to Tahiti.
This, I love. I really...
And this actually is based on a true...
- I think this is how it really happened. - How it really happened.
- I think so, at least. - I can't remember...
if this is or not.
Whether I made that up, I can't...
But it feels...
It's just...
Subtly allowing the bird to tell her that she's coming to land, you know.
Like nature talking to you.
I remember, reading the script, for me,
it was this moment that always made me emotional,
when she realizes that she made it.
Yeah, I think it's...
There are very different places where people...
After they've seen the film-- Well, not too many have at this moment,
but where the emotional moments is strongest for them.
It's interesting to me.
I think this is one of the moments that are one of the strongest to people.
Because there's some victory in it.
There's an achievement.
Actually, the moment here, I really like,
when the boat starts moving towards her and she gets happy and emotional.
I think that's very really beautifully done.
This.
I remember in the book, this moment always got me.
Me too, when she raises the British and the American flag.
It doesn't have the same impact in the movie, for some reason.
But it did in the book, because it's something about--
- Honoring both of them. - Yeah.
Yeah.
And this was in the book, right?
When she talked about biting into an apple for the first time,
having fresh food for the first time in 41 days.
And the juice of the apple...
Yeah, I wanted just to give that full...
biting-apple moment, you know, no sounds.
And these shots, they came in at the last moment.
I had them and I took them out,
but I really felt that I wanted to feel firm ground.
- Yeah. - Feel land.
- Yeah, away from the sea. - Yeah, just land, you know?
And this one of my favorite Tom Waits songs of all time.
I'd say there's very few people who can sing,
"I love you, I love you, I love you until the wheels come off..."
- Yeah. -...without sounding corny.
- Yeah. - But he gets away with it.
- He can pull it off. - He can pull it off with that voice.
I'll never forget, shooting this scene was so emotional.
More so, I feel, like, even just...
I just remember thinking about Richard, the real Richard, while we shot this.
It was almost like I couldn't stop crying.
You could feel the energy and the love that these two people had shared.
That's what I felt the most affected by.
Yeah, and I...
I really liked the way...
It's tricky when an actor has to...
give us a strong emotional performance.
And the way you kind of hold it back,
but then it just comes through it.
I think that makes it very interesting for me.
Because then you're not pushing the emotion.
You're trying to hold it back, but the emotion is stronger than your hold back,
and there's a...
There's something very, you know, strong for me in that.
Remember when you shot this little shot?
- This was the scene where-- - Supposed to be swells in the movie.
I just loved it there.
That's the scene that I...
lost a toenail.
My toe hit the anchor and I lost a toenail.
I'm sorry about that.
- It looks so romantic without the toenail. - It does, it does.
Maybe I've never told you that, but also your nipple came out there.
- Really? - Yeah, we had to--
Oh, my God that's so funny.
That's one of the visual effects in the movie.
Cover up the nipple.
So, that was a, yeah...
That's funny.
Wasn't intended, so there was no reason for it.
That was the one moment of nudity in the film.
Or, I guess the second moment of nudity.
- Also I like this little play with the-- - The throwback.
The throwback to the kind of the romantic places, the shadow.
Actually, I saw a picture somewhere that kind of gave me this idea.
This like, the place is the shadow, not the place.
♪ I love you baby
♪ And I always will
♪ Ever since I put your picture... a'
-4' In the frame a' -4' In the frame a'
I love these little excerpts.
Yeah.
She was 24 years old, that was it.
Imagine 41 days alone out there...
- That's absolutely amazing. -. . navigating...
...pulling it through.
See how much weight she lost?
And there she tells you, that's, you know...
- The voice was him. -"Richard kept me alive."
That's her with...
I felt it was better to have her say it, instead of having the character say it.
I like that the real Tami says it, you know.
So, that's why I wanted to put it there.
We got her down to... She came down to Fiji,
and stayed with us, and we decided to shoot her sailing.
Because this is the real woman.
A real hero.
Well, thank you so much for listening.
Thank you.
It's been a pleasure.
- Thank you, Shailene. - Thank you.