It’s one thing to sign on to star in a movie, but when Alice Parkinson agreed to take on the role of Victoria in Alister Grierson’s Sanctum, she wasn’t only assuming the usual acting duties, but some serious physical training, too. Based on the true story of co-writer Andrew Wight, the film focuses on a diving team exploring a series of underwater caves. When a flash flood blocks all of their exits, the group is forced to try and navigate their way through what’s known as the least accessible series of caves in the world in order to find a way out.
With James Cameron producing the project and putting his coveted 3D photography to use, it should come as no surprise that one of the goals of Sanctum is to push the technology one step further, taking your breath away as you plunge into the depths of the caves with the diving team. You’d think a movie involving such a dangerous sport would require a hefty roster of stunt doubles, but Parkinson revealed that everything her character does on screen is all her and that meant that not only did she need to learn the ropes prior to filming, but had to keep up with the training all through the shooting process, too.
In honor of the film’s February 4th release, Parkinson took the time to tell Shockya all about her experience from her audition to the pre-filming training, down to a particularly tough scene to shoot in which Parkinson’s character has a panic attack while enduring the pounding force of a waterfall. Read all about that and much more in the interview below.
How’d you get involved with this film? Did the script just come your way?
The script came my way. Obviously I still had to audition for it, but when I was given the script it was very much like there’s a role in this that’s really built for you and when I read it, I was so excited. The female character that I play, she’s substantial; she’s not a handbag. She has a real journey through the film that’s quite interesting and engaging and it’s definitely a very strong woman role, a very strong, intelligent, sexy woman role. Not a glamour role, that’s for sure. But when I read the script I was so excited and then, of course, did the auditions, callback, etc. and I got the thumbs up from James, so that was nice!
How do you audition for a film like this when so much of it involves action and unusual locations?
Yes, it’s an action film and yes, it’s dealing with the sport of cave diving, but of course it involves beautiful human dramas and relationships, so just like any other script there are some beautiful scenes and I had to test with a couple of those scenes. The only really interesting thing about the audition was in one of the callbacks I actually had a bucket of water poured on my head just to see if I could do scenes with water. I found that really fascinating, a fresh new approach to the audition.
That must have caught you off guard a bit!
I was kind of warned that they might do it. I had to first go outside this building and then have water poured on me and then just jump back in and do the scene. To be honest, I just thought it was hilarious. It was so bizarre to be asked to do that, but it was a bit of a blessing in disguise. You’re standing there soaking wet as the character would have been in the scene and it made it easier to just really get immersed in the scene, so I’m not complaining. I would throw buckets of water on my head a lot more often in auditions if I was allowed to.
This film was based on one of the writer’s own true stories. Did you all work with Andrew Wight personally?
Absolutely. Everyday. He was constantly on set. The fantastic thing about Andrew is he’s the real deal. He’s a cave diver in his own right as is James Cameron and so the people at the helm of this movie have very real experiences of what we’re seeing in the film. Andrew Wight’s story is quite confronting. In 1998 he and some fellow divers, there were about 13 of them, were trapped in a cave that collapsed above them. They were in the Nullabor Plain, which is in the middle of Australia, and for 48 hours it was touch and go and of course those harrowing experiences that he had inspired this film. So the great thing for us as actors was that you’ve got someone who’s not only experienced it, but they have this great wisdom about cave diving and the actual experience. You’ve got this encyclopedia that you can go to all the time. And the fact that we are telling a story that is very much close to truth, there’s a certain responsibility that comes with this and I loved having Andrew there reminding us all the time that we had a certain reference when we were telling the story because many people have lost their lives through cave diving. This film in some way commemorates their journey.
So having Andrew there was a big help, but how do you really get inside the head of someone who does something as crazy as cave diving to the point at which you really understand why they take that risk?
To be perfectly honest, I can intellectually understand why someone would do it just in terms of – caving diving, it’s one of the few things you can do in the world where you literally have a chance to discover something that no one else has. You get the chance to explore in the true sense of the word and see parts of the world that no one else has ever seen before. That’s the thrill for cave divers and I can imagine that thrill being quite immense. What I can’t imagine is putting your life on the line so fully in order to get that thrill.
My character was actually a mountain climber; she wasn’t actually a cave diver. She found herself during the course of the story having to cave dive so in a way I was quite lucky because it was a journey that I had a lot of reference points to myself. I shot the climbing sequences and jumping off cliffs. We did all those stunts ourselves, so that was so exciting to do that, but then when my character goes through and has to cave dive I found it quite easy to have that kind of experience of something that’s utterly new because that’s what I was experiencing.
Was there any hesitation when you had to do some of these stunts?
With the climbing stuff and jumping off the cliff – there’s a sequence in the beginning of the movie where myself and then Rhys Wakefield and Ioan Gruffudd, we all have to jump off a cliff and I loved it so much. I wish I could be doing it everyday. I had trouble getting off the ropes; I was just enjoying that thrill of the freefall. But when it came to the diving stuff, we did a lot of training in order to be safe on set and we trained for a month before we even started shooting and then while we were shooting we kept up the training on the weekends and on our days off we were doing dive training and breath holding exercises and obviously lots of climbing and general strength and fitness because otherwise you were literally up for injuries. Of course there was hesitation and it was very daunting, but thank god for the training because it made you feel that much safer going into these shoot days that were quite grueling.
It doesn’t sound like you got much of a break at all once you started shooting between the shooting schedule and the training schedule.
That’s right. Exactly. The whole thing was like this massive big boot camp. It was really intense, but I thrive on that kind of work. I figure if you had to work, you might as well work and the guys that I was working with, we had a ball together. We all got on really well because we were all experiencing this physically demanding storytelling at the same time. It was a real team effort and so we were able to help each other through some of the more grueling days and we found solace in sharing bruise stories and that sort of thing.
Were there any scenes you found particularly challenging to shoot?
Because, as I said, the training was so grueling, technically, it was all very mapped out. One of the most technically difficult for me was I had this panic attack scene under water. There were some technicalities because, this is going to sound really complicated, but we were using real rebreathers, but for that particular scene, we breathed it so I was actually breathing on scuba rather than rebreather even though the apparatus was a rebreather, but scuba’s on these models. When you’re diving scuba bubbles come out of your mouth and on rebreathers bubbles don’t come out of your mouth, so what I had to do was I had to breathe in a certain way to try and eliminate a lot of the bubbles and at the same time hyperventilate to try and have that panic attack feel. That was technically quite tricky and of course it’s only a matter of time before you start having a bit of a mini panic attack for real because you work yourself up into a state. But I think the great thing about it is what you see on screen is real. Obviously we’re actors representing what’s going on, but because we were down there diving, we were up there climbing, you don’t see the numerous cuts to stunt doubles. I think that alone is going to make this film fascinating to people.
How do you handle those technical aspects and concentrate on acting as well?
I definitely think when you’re so physically engaged in something and you’re literally having to look after yourself safety wise, if you’re just trying to get from A to B in character, it actually makes it a lot easier because you get out of your head. You’re in your body and you’re not preempting things or overanalyzing things in your head because you can’t afford to; you’re too busy trying to stay a live. [Laughs] I personally relish that opportunity to do such a physical role because you can’t help but be in the moment and be organic.
How was it shooting with James Cameron’s 3D photography? Was it much different from the 2D films you’ve done?
I treated it as any other film and certainly that’s the way James Cameron encourages people to do so. It’s a fantastic technology, 3D film, and I don’t think we’ve really seen it used to the full yet across the industry. I think that people are quite frightened about the technology and perhaps are a bit misled by how it should and could be used. I think Sanctum is going to be a bit of a landmark film in a sense that it’s a survival drama. It’s not an animation film; it’s a complex human drama as well as an action film and to see that in 3D, I think it’s actually going to change the way people think of 3D and hopefully at least start that ball rolling. I know obviously Avatar has already done that, but I think Sanctum is a really good example of how 3D can just enhance a film. It’s not the be all and end all; you’re just watching a film and it happens to be in 3D and it happens to be very well suited to that medium.
What’s next for you? Do you want to continue making action films?
I just want to do good work and good projects and I don’t think that is limited to particular genres. I’ll work in any genre, I just want to do quality work and tell interesting stories that engage and move people. I’ve done a couple of other films that are coming out this year. One called The Cup, which is an Australian film, and then another one called Bait, which is also a survival drama that involves a lot of water. It’s a shark movie, so you can watch out for that one later in the year. I kind of secretly promised to myself that the next gig I do it’s a completely dry set.
Is there anything specific you have your eye on? Or perhaps some people you’d really like to work with?
I have a very long list of people I’d like to work with, but you know what? If I start rattling off names, the trouble with that is you’re missing out on the names that aren’t on the list because I’ve never met them before and some of the most extraordinary people I worked with, if you asked me a few months before I worked with them, they wouldn’t have even been on my radar. And then, of course, I work with them and it’s just like, ‘Oh my god. It’s been an absolute gift working with these people.’ An example of that for me was with Gavin Hood on Wolverine. He’s an extraordinary director. He’s some who, again, if you’d asked me beforehand, I’d seen his incredible film, Tsotsi, but I’d never dreamed that I’d be able to work with him. So, yeah, I’ve got a long list of actors and directors and writers I’d like to work with, but at the end of the day, I just want to work with good people on good projects and that may not necessarily be with people that the world has heard of.
By Perri Nemiroff