Actors who didn’t speak English.
Small, confined spaces.
A story that had been told.
Water everywhere.
The challenges for director Ron Howard and his film, “Thirteen Lives,” were many, but the Oscar winner wanted to show how resilient and determined the participants were. “It deserves to be looked at, understood and appreciated over and over again, in whatever format,” he says. “Our job was to create that kind of dramatic empathy with the audience…’What did it feel like to be there?’”
Based on a 2018 incident in Thailand, “Thirteen Lives” follows 12 soccer players and their coach into the Tham Luang caves following a practice. A heavy rainfall flooded the space, trapping them and hindering their ability to get help. For more than a week, they were alone, without food or an exit strategy. Then, two British divers made the trek and found the group. Because it was treacherous for them, a plan had to be devised that would carry each of the 13 to safety.
To duplicate the experience, Howard had tanks built. The spaces, however, were so tight even he couldn’t get in there. “I’ve always been in the water – whether it’s a large tank or the actual ocean water – but there was no room.” Howard juggled two units from land, “but it wasn’t about me getting wet. I was concerned about the actors because they committed to doing all the diving themselves.”
Those confined spots created suspense and drama and connected the characters to the caves, “but I kept asking them, ‘How’s it going?’ And they’d say, ‘Yeah, Ron, we’re OK.’ Later I found out they’d all had like panic attacks or moments of real anxiety in the midst of it.”
Trapped for more than two weeks, the real rescue effort involved more than 100 divers and scores of rescue workers – folks from all parts of the world. To play the trapped teens and their relatives, Howard hired Thai actors. “Some spoke a lot of English, some none,” he says. “Between the interpreters, my co-producers (who were Thai) and our cinematographer, I had layers of help.”
The translation team made sure the dialogue sounded conversational, the details of Thai culture were reflected.
While he has done both documentaries and feature versions of real-life stories, “Thirteen Lives” needed the tension a feature could provide. “There were already documentaries that had been made and were in the process of being made,” he says. “All versions are valid. Our job with a movie version was to dramatize it with honesty, in the information and the details.”
While friend Steven Spielberg has created a fictionalized version of his life with “The Fabelmans,” Howard doubts he’d follow suit and tell his own story on screen. “There’s not quite enough drama to carry a movie narrative,” he explains. “I’m grateful for that.”
He and brother Clint Howard wrote a memoir called “The Boys” that detailed their childhood in the film and television business. “The response people have had to the book has been very gratifying,” Howard says. “Maybe someday I’ll see a movie narrative or a TV series in there, who knows?”
Meanwhile, he wants others to know about the heroic rescue efforts that surrounded the Tham Luang cave rescue. In short, “It’s an amazing story.”
"Thirteen Lives" is now streaming on Prime.
