Exploring the Inextinguishable Human Spirit in Last Breath

In Last Breath, director and co-writer Alex Parkinson tells the true story of a trio of divers—Chris Lemons (Finn Cole), Dave Yuasa (Simu Liu), and Duncan Allcock (Woody Harrelson)—who overcame insurmountable odds to save one of their team. Tasked to repair gas pipes 300 feet underwater, the divers are cut off from their ship when a violent storm hits the North Sea and must find a way to move forward in the utter darkness of the ocean floor.

A veteran of nature and adventure documentaries, including the Emmy®-nominated Lucy, the Human Chimp, Parkinson knew the story inside out, having made the acclaimed 2019 documentary, Last Breath, which originally brought the story to the public. “The documentary actually plays as this incredible thrill ride,” the producer, Paul Brooks, says in the press notes. “We thought, ‘Well, isn't the logical thing to do here to get Alex to direct the movie?’”

We spoke with Parkinson about why he wanted to adapt his documentary into a feature film and the challenges he faced in doing so.

Last Breath is in theaters on February 28 — so get your tickets now!

What made you think that your 2019 documentary would make a good feature film?

The documentary, by the nature of being a documentary, recounted aspects of the story in great detail, but there were also elements that I couldn't address. In a dramatic film, I could explore more fully the emotional depth of the characters. A feature film offered a bigger palette to capture the grand scale and scope of this story. We could also make it a much more immersive experience. With this film, the audience can start to experience the amazing events and emotional states that the people in the story faced.

What was the biggest challenge for you in turning the documentary into a dramatic film?

The biggest cinematic challenge was creating the world that these men experienced. In the documentary, talking heads tell the audience what they are looking at and what is happening. For the feature, I had to use a different film language to express what the characters were feeling. As a documentary filmmaker for the last 25 years, I have used a wide assortment of tools to tell stories. For this, we had to work on the script to make all the actions feel organic to the story and to this world. That was the big challenge for me as a filmmaker—to make everything feel organic as well as exciting and intellectually fulfilling.

Did knowing the characters personally make the casting easier or more difficult?

I think it actually made it easier because I could see if the actors had the same elements as the characters. I could learn as much from the actors from a discussion as from a script read. Mark Bonner, who plays Craig, the dive supervisor, did a tape for me, and it was immediately obvious that he could play Craig. I was always trying to stay true to the fidelity of the story, so that helped me in casting. I was naturally drawn to the right people because they had those elements of the real people within themselves.

Liu and Cole have to perform underwater for much of the film. How do you direct actors underwater?

It's not the easiest thing in the world. It’s a completely different discipline from directing on land. When we’re filming underwater, it’s not just the actors there. There are also all the safety divers, the camera crew, and the people handling the scenery. We would often have up to 14 people in the water at one time. All the information was funneled through our dive supervisor, Abigail Borg, who was the voice of God on the underwater set. I would tell her what I wanted and she would convey it to the talent and crew. Since everybody could hear everything, I had to be very clear about what I was asking for and to whom I was speaking. It’s a completely different discipline from being able to talk privately to actors on land. I also had to be very short and precise, because we didn’t have the time for a long discussion when the actors were underwater. Planning became crucial. Everyone underwater had to know what we were trying to accomplish. The evening before we filmed, I would block out with Finn and Simu exactly what they were going to do. We had models to show them what it would be like. And then the DP and I would go over what the camera angles were going to be. We would rehearse it all so they would have the scenes in their head before they got in the water.

How did you work with the actors to convey their emotions with their bodies as well as their faces?

The actors have to be confident enough in the water so you believe that they are actual divers. That comes down to not only their experience in the water, but also how they perform and how they move underwater. The audience has to believe that they are commercial saturation divers. From that confidence, everything else flows. When things start to go south for Chris, you have to believe that he is actually experiencing all that. The way he moves is part and parcel of all the other things—the underwater structure and the umbilical cord—that convince the audience that this is really happening.

I would imagine for the actors the emotion of terror came pretty easy.

Yes, but there's more nuance in that as well. When Chris realizes that things are not going terribly well, Finn brought this sense of acceptance to the character. It is an interesting, almost counterintuitive response to what's going on, yet it tells the audience so much about the situation. People who have had near-death experiences often recall this calm coming over them. There is a sense of fatalism washing over them as they realize that there is nothing they can do. And the actors really understood that emotional reality.

The story takes place 300 feet underwater where there is no natural light. How did you design the illumination so that it conveyed that brutal reality but also allowed you to film the scenes?

We had a very long and complicated thought process about how to do that. In reality, the situation was pitch black. Much of the action, when the electricity is lost, takes place in complete darkness, but an utterly black frame would not be very cinematic. We came up with different solutions.In some scenes, we came up with the idea of having a flare. It would still convey a sense of powerlessness and isolation because it doesn’t throw its light very far, but you can see what is going on. The manifold, for example, isn't lit up in reality, but by using practical lights we could give the audience a sense of its scale and how it worked underwater. Dramatically, it was really important to have it being plugged in, but equally when the ship drifts away, it gets unplugged and falls into darkness. We took a bit of creative license, but it works for the film to help create a cinematic experience.

The one thing that was important to me is that I wanted all the illumination to come from practical lighting. There is the temptation to have a soft blue light far out to give audiences a sense of the seabed going into the distance. But the second you create that effect; the audience is taken out of the moment and the film doesn’t feel believable. We wanted the action to feel real and visceral. So pretty much everything in the water is lit by practical lighting, allowing everything to go black beyond a certain point. It creates a real sense of danger. You know the seabed is out there. You know that this is a really dangerous environment. You preserve this realism of only seeing what you can see from the practical lights of the helmet lights, the ROV, and the flares. The use of practical lights was a crucial way of getting that sense of claustrophobia in the film.

What would you like audience to take away from the film?

What drew me to the story in the first place is what it tells us about the human spirit and what people can do under extraordinary circumstances. These are the kind of stories I'm always drawn to—ordinary people in extraordinary situations. I hope people take away that this is a very uplifting film about these people never giving up and going forward against all odds.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.