LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – Days after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, actress Naomi Watts took part in a fundraising telethon spearheaded by George Clooney to help the region’s hundreds of thousands of people in 14 nations whose lives were shattered. Little did Watts know that eight years later she would be starring in “The Impossible,” out in the U.S. movie theaters on Friday, about a real family’s experience in Thailand. The tsunami and earthquake killed more than 5,000 people, and resulted in 2,800 missing in that country alone. Yet when the actress was first approached to star in the film, directed by Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona, she hesitated.
“I thought, how do you make a movie about a tsunami without it becoming some sort of spectacular disaster movie?” Watts, 44, told Reuters. “That would be so wrong.”
However once Watts read the script, she said was moved by the story based on the real-life Spanish family of Maria Belon, her husband Enrique Alvarez – played by Ewan McGregor in the movie – and their three sons.
Belon’s family were spending their Christmas holiday in Thailand when the tsunami hit. The film follows their struggle to survive, injured and separated, in the aftermath and their perseverance in finding each other amidst the chaos.
“I felt a huge amount of pressure because of the responsibility to Maria’s story,” said Watts. “And on her back, she carries the stories of everybody else because hers is connected to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. I felt a sense of responsibility.”
The British-born, Australian actress delivered, despite her fears. So far, her performance has earned Watts best actress nominations from the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild and the Broadcast Film Critics Association.
The New York Observer wrote in its review that “Watts seems almost spiritually committed to her role” while The Hollywood Reporter said she “packs a huge charge of emotion as the battered, ever-weakening Maria whose tears of pain and fear never appear fake or idealized.” Watts credits the real Maria Belon for being “an open book”
when it came to recalling her personal experience during that harrowing time.
The two met before shooting began, and Belon was on the film set. Belon, a physician in Spain, also wrote detailed letters chronicling her experience, including taking refuge in a tree and the Thai villagers who discovered her weak and injured body.
One of the more challenging aspects of the shoot was recreating the tsunami, a 10-minute sequence in the film that Watts said took six weeks to shoot on location in Spain. Rather than creating the tidal wave digitally, actors were anchored in water tanks with the current pushing at them and “debris being chucked at you.”
