NEW YORK, Oct. 18 (UPI) — Weapons, Resident Evil and Euphoria actor Austin Abrams says the role of a grieving son who finds himself in the literal belly of a beast was exactly what he was looking for when he auditioned for Whalefall.
“It’s just so insane. It was something that I wanted to do, something that I’d never seen before and something that I would want to see and something that felt like an extreme challenge to make,” Abrams recently told the crowd at New York Comic Con.
“It was a challenge to make for everyone involved. We had one of the best crews I’ve ever worked with and, for them, they were constantly figuring out, ‘How are we going to do this?'” he said.
“Also, the emotional, personal story that’s at the heart of it was just so moving and, then, that tied in with the whale and I just found the whole thing so mythogical. I just found it really compelling. I couldn’t NOT do it.”
The adaptation of Daniel Kraus’ best-selling novel follows Jay Gardiner (Abrams), who is swallowed by a massive sperm whale while trying to find the remains of his estranged father Mitt (Josh Brolin) who died by suicide.
Directed and co-written by Brian Duffield, the film co-stars Jane Levy, Emily Rudd, Elisabeth Shue and John Ortiz.
“I read the book when I was in Italy doing Ridley [Scott’s] movie Dog Stars and rarely have I slowed down purposefully when it comes to the end of a book, because I didn’t want it to end. Then, for some reason, which I still don’t totally understand, when I got to the end of the book, I put it to my chest and I sobbed,” Brolin recalled.
“I knew I was in when I finished the book and, then, ultimately, Brian and I talked and, then, when I knew Austin was in it, having just done Weapons with him, I knew it would be a party of discomfort and I couldn’t wait.”
Kraus said that, of the 30 books he has written, this is the one he least expected to be adapted as a movie.
“I thought it was unfilmable,” he said.
“What inspired it was that, to a lesser extent, it happens and I don’t mean the swallowing part, but divers or kayakers, usually, do end up in the mouths of these humpback whales. You can watch the viral videos,” Kraus explained.
“That’s what inspired me. I saw one of those videos. I thought, ‘Is there actually a way that some whale out there could swallow someone and, if so, is there a way that they could survive?'”
Kraus contacted whale scientists, who informed him that sperm whales have enormous throats that could, theoretically, make the story he wanted to tell possible.
“Then I started a three-month course of advanced whale studies, trying to figure out what exactly could someone do inside the stomach,” the author said, explaining he didn’t want to tell a fantastical whale tale like Pinocchio or Jonah. “My only interest was doing it scientifically, biologically accurate.”
The term “whalefall,” as described by Kraus, is used when a whale dies and begins to decompose in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean, creating “shock waves” for other sea life and animals.
“That became, to me, a really powerful metaphor of the death of anyone, the death of any loved one you’ve ever had. They die, but their life radiates out from their death for generations,” Kraus said.
Duffield said: “I thought it was going to be really super-competitive and everyone was going to want it. So, then, I was really hounding Daniel and then I was the lone lunatic.”
The movie is in theaters now.
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