STACK NZ Apr #72

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"I ’m looking at you, sweetheart,” teases Chris Hemsworth as we debate the niceties of cannibalism and who would taste best. Its not exactly polite dinner conversation but then again, we’re talking about his latest starring role in Ron Howard’s epic historical drama, In the Heart of the Sea . It's based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s non- fiction book of the same name about the sinking of the American whaling ship The Essex in 1820, the event that inspired the classic Moby Dick . Rammed by an enormous angry bull sperm whale, the ship split in half, leaving its crew to float at sea for 90 days before coming ashore off the South American coast, where the few survivors resorted to eating each other to stay alive – a grisly detail later documented by cabin boy Thomas Nickerson, played in the film by both Tom Holland and Brendan Gleeson, in their young and older incarnations, respectively. In recreating this grim chapter in nautical history, the cast were required to shed 30lbs during the course of filming, in order to look emaciated for the shipwreck scenes. Restricted to a 600-calorie a day diet,

Hemsworth recalls how he was almost wiped out by a wave because he was so malnourished. “I hadn’t surfed in months, and it wasn’t especially big surf, but I almost died,” recalls the actor, who was filming in Lanzarote in the Canary islands. “It wasn’t at all life threatening, it was just because I had no energy, so thank god I didn’t surf where it was bigger and more treacherous. But you just couldn’t do much, honestly. It was just sleep and food, and by that I mean a plate of vegetables.” Naturally for the surf-loving actor, filming an ocean action movie held great allure, much of which dissipated after the first few days of filming. “In the first week we were out on the water, the waves were coming in eight- foot swells, and it was brutal, I mean half the crew were just at the edge of the boat vomiting,” he recalls, punctuating the story with some impressively realistic sounds.

out in the worse storms. They shut down all the roads and it hadn’t rained that much in like 15 years in the Canary Islands.” As much as filming on the ocean was gut-wrenching, the cast dreaded the days they had to film the cannibal scenes. “But you don’t see the actual eating though in the film,” Hemsworth hastens to add. “You see the preparation, and the suspense of what they’re going to do, and just making that decision that this is what they’re going to do is, I think, more horrifying than the actual eating process.” The cast were able to read the original real-life interviews with the survivors. “In the journal entries, they talk about how once they made the decision they were okay with it and it was like great food, on a very basic level. “But after being rescued, it was traumatic, realising what they had done. I mean one of them actually ate his own cousin!” Gill Pringle

“The camera guys would be hanging on the edge of the rail holding the camera and we’d just be vomiting for 12 hours. We all had the seasick pills so thankfully it was alright, but it was intense. You did not sit down all day and we were

• In the Heart of the Sea is out April 6

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