The historical true events behind Amazon Prime's original film Thirteen Lives are already widely known. Now director Ron Howard is bringing his own version of the chilling human survival drama to the screen.
Thirteen Lives recounts the incredible story of the global effort to rescue 13 members of the local Thai soccer team "Wild Boars", who became trapped in the Tham Luang cave in Chiang Rai province during an unexpected rainstorm at the beginning of the monsoon season. Faced with insurmountable odds, a team of the world's most skilled and experienced divers join with Thai forces and more than 10,000 volunteers to attempt a harrowing rescue of the 12 boys and their coach.
While it's about the missing soccer team, Howard's Thirteen Lives focuses a lot on a group of volunteer rescue divers played by Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell and Joel Edgerton, as well as Thai performers such as Sukollawat "Weir" Kanarot and Teeradon "James" Supapunpinyo. The film brings the audience along to witness the dangerous operation that played out not only as a tense drama, but also as a nail-biting suspense thriller. Life recently caught up with Howard as well as Thai producer Raymond Phathanavirangoon in a virtual roundtable interview to discuss the making of the film.
What happened four years ago was such big headline news that shocked not only the Thai people but the whole world as well. Can you share your memories of when you first heard the news? And what made you interested in developing it into a film?
Howard: Well, I was working on a film as I recall. And so I only saw the headlines and certain bits and pieces of news. My wife Cheryl, however, was very emotional about her connection to the story. And we were both so relieved and literally held each other when the boys were rescued. At the time, we came to understand that there was very little hope. I had not developed the script, and I never really thought of it as a movie. But when I read the script two years later, it was everything that I remembered but with so much more detail. There are so many more twists and turns that I felt would be exciting to dramatise into dialogue and story.
Raymond: I was in Thailand when it all happened. And of course, like everybody else in Thailand we were all gripped and we were so worried about the kids. But what was really fascinating to me was that the world started paying so much attention and at first I have to admit, I was a little confused. I was like, 'Wow, why is this such big news everywhere'. It was really such an important thing because that's how the world came together to rescue these children. And I think that really was very special, because it really shows how we can all work together, and really do something really wonderful. And I think that there was something I remembered very clearly.
There's been quite a few films and documentaries made about the incident before. How do you think Thirteen Lives will stand out or be different from other adaptations of the cave rescue mission?
Howard: Well, I haven't seen all of the others so I don't know much about other people's take on it. I've only seen Thai PBS's five-part or six-part documentary series. And then, when we were in post production, I saw The Rescue [2021], which I thought was an excellent film. And it gave me confidence because I felt like they saw the same primary important turns in the story that Bill Nicholson, the writer, and I did. I felt what we had to offer was world-class actors. We dramatised these moments in a way that audiences could empathise with on a more emotional level. That's another thing that my film could offer, and I hope it's meaningful to audiences. But I would also suggest to anyone who's interested in the story, don't depend on one version. Read the books and check out the documentaries.
Raymond: I've also only watched the Thai PBS series. I think we watched that very religiously because it was such a well done documentation and it's coming very much from the Thai perspective. So I thought that was really important because we wanted to make sure we really got the Thai elements right.
Why did you decide to focus on the international team instead of focusing on the local divers and the authorities in your story?
Howard: Well, when the screenplay came to me it already had that focus. But I also felt that they had the most immediate connection with the action. And as a movie, I knew that we needed to still focus on the action. I wanted audiences to understand the power and the importance of volunteerism, you know, especially from the Thai community, and the leadership, but it's still a movie. And I also knew that the most suspenseful drama would lay with the actual physical rescue of the boys.
Ron, you aren't new when it comes to making a film from true events as we have seen in movies like Apollo 13, or several documentaries you have directed. How challenging is it to take on a real story from a remote country and different language and make it authentic?
Howard: I have developed some strategies, which I applied to this but I think this was the most difficult of all. It has to be immersive, you know, as though you were a historian who was going to write a book, or if you were a professor who was going to teach a course on the subject. And to begin talking to as many people as you can, who understand it or maybe witnessed it. Before I came along, there was a lot of good research done, you know, to write the script and so I was able to benefit from that. Then I tried to pass this along to the key team members and in our production offices. I have them put up all their research photos from the wardrobe department, the prop department, the production design, and they just put it all over the walls. And then I get a number of television monitors. On the monitors I show every bit of reference video that I can find, whether they're movies, documentaries or whatever I can find scenes that are relevant, and I try to create a total immersion for the team.
What was the technical aspect of shooting this film, especially the recreation of the cave and those diving sequences? And how did you prepare for it?
Howard: It was a huge challenge. Even though we built sets because it would never be safe enough to shoot extended scenes in a real cave, this was going to be months of shooting. It was so important to get it right and it was very slow because there was an element of danger involved. We had to take safety precautions. We had Rick Stanton and Jason Mallinson, two of the rescuers, as our technical advisors. Once the actors had learned that cave diving technique, they wanted to do all of the diving themselves. But I was concerned about it from a safety standpoint. Later, they all admitted that at various times they had been in duress. No one was close to drowning, but they had anxiety. Colin Farrell said he had an anxiety attack. Viggo Mortensen admitted that he felt pinned in and he couldn't move for a while and then he worked his way out of it. They didn't tell me any of that when we were shooting because they worried that I'd freak out. They didn't want to admit that because they wanted to keep going and doing their own stunts.
Raymond: I really want to give credit also to Thai actor Wier, basically because he did all the underwater work and the diving scenes himself. He's a very good diver and did all of the most important scenes.
