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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2013 ‘Captain Phillips’ director Greengrass explains why the closing scene with Hanks was so authentic aptain Phillips,” the true story of fine.” I was aware of it just because it was atively easy to grasp. You have that combi- work that was at hand, we could see the Richard Phillips’ abduction by in the news. So in preparation for reading nation of guys doing their job, and it’s not day changing. ‘Cpirates off the coast of East Africa, the screenplay, I read Richard’s book. a romantic job, per se - you know even Hanks: This is probably the epitome of turned into the hardest project ever for What was great was that it was very Richard Phillips said, “Hey, we’re the truck- how our environment defined our behav- director Paul Greengrass, who knows straightforward and detail-oriented. It’s ers of the ocean.” The job of being the cap- ior. There’s only so much you can do inside about challenging shoots. Filming on a not a matter of plot or a gimmick or what tain of that ship is fraught with pressure (the rescue craft). It’s a very small, smelly gargantuan cargo ship and a claustropho- the audience needs to understand or buy. every single day regardless of the fact that place. I don’t think we were ever in a fake bic rescue craft, Greengrass brought It was, here are the facts, very simple to they are blips on the radar screen. version of what it was. There’s a lot of together real-life Somalis and the Oscar- interpret, that don’t need a substantial There’s just a ton of stuff that he con- places to conk your head, and it’s not real- winning Tom Hanks for gripping drama amount of embellishment. Then that just stantly has to do, all to keep the big ly comfortable - when you had to get up required the getting together of who the wheels turning. Stuff has to move from and move around, you were moving filmmaker was going to be. And that was there to there, and without it, guess what? around in a real defined space. Honestly, Paul. The global economy comes to some the stuff that happened to us happened to Hanks: I remember seeing “Bloody degree to a standstill. So you’ve got allof us in real, physical time and space. Sunday” years ago, before I even knew these very complicated, immovable forces Then we have to learn how to say our who he was, and I thought, well, whoever that end up still being an eyeball- to-eye- lines and take part in the scene, but this made this movie has just rewritten the ball conversation by two guys that have odd thing happens in movies where you’re rules of non-fiction entertainment. Paul pressures on them that are extreme. And in this huge space and there’s trucks and had this desire: some kind of empirical that becomes an examination of the cables, but eventually it comes down to authentic way in order to examine the human condition, as opposed to a story of this very specific focus of eyeballs. Not just theme that I just think is very bodacious. retribution or a story of the great injustices close-up, it’s a microscopic examination of So we had to get together, because he of the world. what goes on. Behavior then becomes so could have said, “I want to do something Greengrass: I remember we had a con- examined that it’s better when you don’t different,” and I could have said something versation up at the office. I gave a big spiel know if your behavior is being caught on like, “I just really want to fire a submachine about globalization, and I remember you film or not. gun,” and then in which case we wouldn’t saying, “Yeah, but it’s kind of about a guy I can’t speak for Barkhad, but after a have been making the same movie. who’s in peril on the sea.” while in there it wasn’t about where the Greengrass: One of the reasons I made It seems like you took on insurmount- camera was. The camera is always some- it is very personal - my dad, he’s very old able things. The contrast between that place. It was always going to get us some- now, nearly 90, but he was at sea all his towering tanker and the tiny lifeboat - how, what we had to do was just move This film image released by Sony - Columbia Pictures life. I grew up in that marine life as a kid. I which actually looks like a little bathtub and think in the real place and all the work shows director Paul Greengrass during the filming of wanted to make a film about my dad’s toy from afar - is so remarkable. was done for us. “Captain Phillips.” — AP world, and it was a great, great pride to me Greengrass: It was an exact lifeboat. Barkhad, I understand you are a limo to bring him down to London when it was We did build another one so that we had driver in real life. and bravura performances on the high screened the other week. He wore his two, but they were exactly the same craft. seas. The director, the star and the intrepid medals. It’s like being in an orchestra, it’s like being How did you end up in this movie? Barkhad Abdi, in his first acting role, spoke The Merchant Marine, as you call it-the in a band, it’s a collaborative activity. We’re Barkhad abdi: There was an audition to TheWrap about the experience. Merchant Navy is what we called it, we all going through our own individual crisis. in Minneapolis. I came to Minneapolis don’t have that anymore - that’s the Sometimes it’s right down to, Can we get through the visa lottery. After the war in Sharon Waxman: What interested you lifeblood of the world’s economy. one (take) before we have to turn the ship Somalia I went to Yemen, and when I was in making “Captain Phillips?” Everything we wear, everything in our around? Because if we turn the ship 14 we won the American visa lottery. We Paul Greengrass: Firstly, it was just a houses, it all comes in containers. That’s a around, the sun is on the wrong side and have some family in Minneapolis, so we fantastic modern crime story. I loved that it hard, hard life. It’s a calling. There are many we can’t do it anymore. What everybody moved there. And then the auditioning was real-world pirates as opposed to cud- dangers. For this particular ship, it was assumes is that every shot is planned, but call came for the Tom Hanks film. dly Hollywood pirates, and I loved that it piracy. I didn’t want Johnny Depp. I want- we went back and shot scenes two or Greengrass: I wanted Somalis. It was was a film that felt ripped from the head- ed darker, I wanted the real world of it, to three times in order to get moments, very important to me for the authenticity lines but you go into it in a way that you find out what that’s about. because we didn’t get it the first time. Not of the film, for all sorts of reasons, The plan can’t get from the news. And secondly the that we failed to shoot it. We failed to was that [casting director] Francine was fact that this gentleman [gestures at Tom Tom, what was the theme that you were imagine it the first time, so we had to go going to try to find 30 or 40 people that I’d Hanks] was involved, that was a big part of looking for? back and rethink it a little bit more and then meet, and we’d choose from them. it. Hanks: It ends up being an examina- play around and see what happens. But But I remember her saying to me, because Tom Hanks: I heard about it long tion of the mechanism of global com- there was a substantial physical reality that they were taping 800 people, so we could before there was even a screenplay, merce. These ships have to carry goods was in our pocket on this, in that we all got winnow it down, “You’ve gotta see these because a crack team of show-business through these waters - that’s it. That’s all on the ship in the morning and we went four guys.” And they all came in together, experts informed me, “We’re tracking this, there is to it. Then the backstory that out to sea together. So we weren’t scat- and you could see that they were just fan- we’re tracking this,” and I said, “Alright, comes from the mainland of Somalia is rel- tered; our focus was very much on the tastic. Just brilliant. — AP Liver and let die: James Bond was an alcoholic dry martini. Just hand it to quest, the evidence may not have This leaves 87.5 days, during which me, and I’ll do the shaking stood up, it says. The conclusions are Britain’s top spy glugged down a ‘Amyself.” This, according to made by a trio of British doctors who whopping 1,150 units of alcohol, or 92 British doctors, is somewhat how read all 14 of the original James Bond units a week-four times the recom- James Bond would have been in real books authored by Ian Fleming, noting mended amount.

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