My name's Paul Greengrass...
...and this is the director's commentary for Captain Phillips.
The story starts in a small farming community, Underhill, Vermont...
...where Richard Phillips...
...a Merchant Marine captain working for Maersk Line...
...gets ready to go on a trip...
...something he's done many, many times before.
There are lots of reasons why you make a film.
With this one, it was the compelling story, for me, of two captains.
One from Vermont...
...in charge of a large modern container ship...
...and the other, a young Somali...
...in charge of a pirate skiff. And their collision...
...their trial of strength, their test of wills was really the film.
But also, another reason...
...was that my father was in the Merchant Marine, at sea all his life.
So I felt I knew about these men and what their life was.
You all right?
The first scene is a very important scene, I think...
...between Richard Phillips and his wife...
...in which they really lay out the thematic ground of the film...
...which is unease.
When we started the film...
...we talked a lot about the dominant question being:
Are we going to be okay?
I think all of us, no matter what our professions...
...no matter what our circumstances, have that sense of unease...
...that the future is not necessarily going to go as well as the past.
And I wanted that sense...
...of a fast-moving, fast-changing world.
The globalizing economy that drives all of our lives...
...and drives all of our choices, wherever we are...
...to really underpin the film.
In fact, when we first started the film....
The-- It was based on Richard Phillips' book...
...which was really the account of his first-person experiences...
...and his wife's experiences back in Vermont.
And that was one of the reasons why...
...we cast that wonderful actress, Catherine Keener.
As the story-- Or as the development process unfolded...
...it became clear to me that our story really lay on the water.
And so we ended up just with this one scene...
...and I'm forever in Catherine's debt. She--
I said, "Do you really wanna do this? It's a very small part now."
And she said, "No, no. I really do." And she believed in the film.
And she graced us with her presence.
And as I say, I'm forever in her debt.
She's a wonderful actress.
I just wanted these scenes to be everyday.
Nothing loaded in the farewell.
Just ordinary.
-Have a safe trip. -I'll call you from there.
A big danger in these sorts of stories is to play the end...
...to play every scene with the knowledge of the end...
...so it becomes kind of doom-laden.
But, of course, there would have been nothing...
...in Richard Phillips' mind or his wife's mind...
...to suggest that this was anything other than a routine trip.
And then we cut to a very different part of the world.
Eyl, Somalia.
A pirate community...
...financed by--
From far away.
--by organized criminals.
Because the truth about modern day piracy...
...is it's organized crime on the high seas.
Hurry, Muse!
And, of course, like organized crime through history...
...its roots lie in poverty and desperation and lack of choices.
And we meet a young man, Muse...
...who's a skiff captain.
And I wanted to portray in these scenes...
...the context in which criminal choices are made.
And that context, of course, is the desperate, lawless...
...warlord-dominated, gangster-dominated...
...impoverished world of Somalia.
And also to set up the rivalry between Muse...
...and the other pirate-skiff captain, Asad.
Stay out of my way today.
And to say a little bit...
...about the brutal world...
...of modern piracy.
Muse, take me with you.
These scenes were all shot in Morocco...
...but it was uncannily close to the coast of Somalia.
And we meet the other pirates.
The young-- The youngest of the four, Bilal...
...carrying the khat...
...which is chewed ubiquitously by people in Somalia.
It's also considered an antidote for seasickness...
...which is why a lot of these young pirates use it.
It's a sort of--
It's the drug of choice in Somalia.
Next time bring me something if you want to work.
I wanted this scene to carry echoes...
...of that famous scene, start of On the Waterfront...
...where you see that ruthless people choose who's to work and who's not.
And that creates a whole system of control.
But, of course, you know from this first scene...
...that Muse is going to come into conflict and collision with Phillips.
The two men whose journeys are going to meet.
I want him.
That's Najee.
Why did he pick him?
The hard man of the four, I suppose you'd call him.
So now we know the four of them.
Muse in command, Bilal...
...Najee and Elmi the driver...
...there with the blue fuel bucket...
...and, of course, the ladder.
This was a very difficult scene to shoot...
...because the swell was very big.
And those boats are quite dangerous.
You know, when they pitch into the waves...
...there were a lot of safety issues actually, funnily enough, with that.
As many the-- As with many of the other scenes on the water...
...safety is always paramount.
Faster, move faster!
And I wanted to show the relationship...
...between the pressure...
...that a Maersk captain feels under...
...and the way that same pressure is translated...
...into a vessel off the coast of Somalia. A pirate vessel off the coast of Somalia.
It's the pressure of a fast-globalizing world...
...but, of course...
...it's a harsher, a more brutal world down at the bottom.
And I very much liked Henry Jackman's score there...
...which was a cello...
...with a variety of pans...
...and metal objects...
...used to create percussive sounds of tension.
So now we come back to Richard Phillips at Salalah Port, Oman...
...where he joins the Maersk Alabama.
This scene was actually shot...
...on a harbor in Malta.
And we used some small visual effects, set extensions...
...just to create the additional sense of scale.
Sign right there, sir.
But it worked really well, I think.
I totally believed we were in Salalah Port.
One of the big decisions we made early in this film...
...was to shoot as much as we possibly could on the water...
...on the ocean...
...and as much as we possibly could...
...on the actual vessels.
This vessel was actually the Maersk Alexandra...
...an identical sister ship...
...the only sister ship of the Maersk Alabama.
So it was an identical ship...
...and we were able to hire it and bring it to Malta.
And it just brought to life...
...the piece in a way that shooting on set would never have been able to.
Just the detail of the pirate cages unlocked...
...the engine-room doors unlocked...
...the corridors, the compression...
...the claustrophobia of it all.
It became an adventure for all of us who made the film too.
Phillips comes into his captain's quarters...
...and then he starts by coming up to the bridge.
-Hey, good to see you, Cap. -Shane. Good to see you.
-Good to see you. -Hey. Carry on.
-Hey, bos? -Yeah?
And he meets his chief mate, Shane Murphy...
...played by Michael Chernus.
--grab Jimmy, get on the Lodestar.
It's a tremendous challenge, I think...
...for an actor...
...talking about Tom Hanks here...
...to come in and be a believable captain...
...of a modern container ship.
There's a huge skill set that you have to have...
...to be in charge of a ship.
And Tom spent a lot of time on the Alexandra.
In fact, he took a passage himself on the ship alone with the crew...
...so that he could see how the ship was captained by Captain Larsen.
And by the time we started shooting...
...it was amazing to all of us, I think...
...how absolutely believably he slipped...
...into the role of the captain.
--all the way down to Mombasa.
We need five minutes on that reefer bow.
We should be able to unload the containers around 0800.
Always a difficult judgment to make in a film like this...
...how hard to hit...
...the idea of the dangerous waters.
You have to do it because it's....
Your audience knows that's where the piece is going.
But you don't want it to be too heavy-handed...
...and again, I thought that Henry's score was perfectly judged...
...because you move from just a little sense of unease...
...into this brass chord...
...that becomes the basis for the score as we develop.
Tighten it up.
Hey, slow down.
So then we move into the departure of the Alabama.
We had to use visual effects...
...to change the Alexandra to the Alabama in that previous shot.
There was little visual-effects work in the film...
...but most of it was in that shot...
...again, changing the Alabama-- The Alexandra to the Alabama.
Dead slow ahead.
Again, this scene's important because you need to sell...
...the technological power of the modern container ship...
...with its huge engines...
...its very full cargo of containers...
...and the high-tech equipment that Phillips has at his disposal.
And also to sell its fragility. I always think as you see these shots...
...you feel it's a sort of delicate machine as well...
...as it cuts its way through the ocean...
...and out towards the Somali Basin.
We talked a lot, Tom and I...
...about trying to get as authentically as we could...
...to capture the ordinary procedures of a captain's life.
The three times daily, four times daily, walking around the deck...
...just to check who's doing what...
...how the cargo is...
...how the ship is.
And in a film like this, the temptation often is to cut these pieces.
But actually, very often...
...if you take time to set up the world, to explore the world...
...it pays dividends later...
...because you've become invested, as an audience, in it...
...as a believable world with believable characters.
Again, we had to pick the world of a modern Merchant Marine crew.
It's a hard life.
As I know from my father, it's a hard life...
...and people who go to sea go to sea because it's a choice. It's a calling.
And now I think we know the rhythm of the film.
We're gonna cut between these two worlds.
Captain Phillips...
...and the young pirate, Captain Muse.
And this is obviously the moment...
...where he sees the Alabama.
He doesn't, of course, know it's that ship then, but he just knows it as a blip...
...on its own in the ocean.
We know now the collision we've been waiting for...
...almost from the first moment of the film, is not far away.
Again, this is another scene that....
You don't want to hurry your audience.
They know where you're going. In many ways, you want to lean against it.
Phillips receives the warnings.
There were a lot of warnings issued at that time.
A problem that a Merchant Marine captain like Phillips had...
...was that they were under instructions from the company...
...to continue on their route...
...and the warnings were unspecific.
Pirates were attacking hundreds, if not thousands of miles out into the ocean.
There was no safe distance.
The only way you could get through was to move as quickly as you could...
...through dangerous waters and hope for the best.
Ken, you're the duty officer?
-Yeah, Cap. -Right.
Boat with two armed men is approaching on your starboard beam.
Phillips was a very diligent...
...and professional captain.
And in the end, he came to face an enormous challenge.
An unimaginable challenge that-- No U.S. flag carrier...
...had been attacked by pirates for 200 years.
But through it all, by the end of this entire sequence of events...
...thanks to his courage...
...his ship was safe, got to Mombasa safely--
The crew got to Mombasa safely, unhurt...
...and so did his cargo.
And in that sense, he fulfilled the three prime duties...
...of a Merchant Marine captain...
...but he did it at risk of his own life.
-Watch it, man. -Ready with number six.
All right.
You tied up?
So here we are in the middle of a security drill.
Crew affixed the hoses...
...which are really in the absence of any armed guards...
...because, of course, in those days, armed guards weren't carried...
...on Merchant Marine ships principally for three reasons.
Firstly, you couldn't carry weapons into many international ports...
...and secondly...
...shipping companies weren't prepared to pay...
...the additional costs of security details on ships...
...as they do now since these events.
And thirdly, captains weren't very keen...
...on having weapons onboard, you know.
A Saturday-night dispute onboard being settled with firearms...
...wouldn't have been their choice.
But it left, of course, these ships...
...perilously vulnerable on the high seas...
...as Phillips discovers now.
What's up, Cap? Everything okay?
I don't like the look of that.
This was the first attack, we used to call it.
The first of two attacks.
A long sequence.
And the key in sequences like these is to sort of....
Is to be very clear up front what the pieces are that you want.
And you've gotta hone and work at it on the page...
...to be sure that every single beat is right.
And then when you shoot it, you've got to try and shoot it...
...as freely as you can so you get it to live...
...and rather than just be a sequence of beats or points.
And then...
...when that material is shot, it goes into the cutting room...
...and I'm lucky enough to have one of the world's great editors...
...Christopher Rouse...
...collaborating with me on these films.
And the way he puts this together...
...the sense of architecture...
...and the sense of controlled pace...
...the precision of each shot...
...is a master class in editing, I think, and storytelling.
Now get me U.S. Maritime Emergency.
And a lot of the things that are being set up here...
...of course, are common to the second attack.
You've got to understand how the ship works...
...what the control surfaces and choices are...
...that are available to the captain...
...if you're to make an assessment as an audience...
...as to the vulnerability of their situation.
And the more you understand it...
...the more you engage with the scenario.
And I think...
...you feel...
...in this performance from Tom Hanks...
...the absolute concentration he has in dealing with this unfolding crisis...
...in a very, very believable way.
--with a possible mothership following.
-Potential piracy situation. -Copy, Alabama.
Alert your crew, get your fire hoses ready...
...and follow lockdown procedures.
Yeah. Is that it?
This is a scene that if you wrote it as fiction...
...no one would believe you.
The difference is, it actually happened.
The more that he reached out...
...to the emergency numbers...
...the less help he had.
The more you realize something important in this film, I think...
...which is that unlike the movie world where with--
We're led to believe so often that help can be summoned up...
...in a phone call, you know...
...that actually, if you're a container ship...
...thousands of miles away in the middle of the ocean...
...there's nothing anybody can do. You're on your own.
Now we get a sight of Muse coming towards the vessel.
He and his rival, Asad...
...riding what looked like modern chariots.
Very, very hard to get those shots.
Hard from a safety point of view--
Very hard for all the actors in the skiffs to keep their balance...
...in those immense seas, but very, very hard for us.
We had to use a crane on a cantilevered arm...
...to keep it steady enough to get these shots.
They're remarkable and you really feel...
...the weight of water...
...and the power...
...of the skiff through the-- Through the swell.
Another moment. I remember reading Richard Phillips' book...
...when he gave the account of making the fake emergency call.
Again, one of those moments in the story...
...where I thought, if you made that up, no one would believe you. It's such a....
An outrageous maneuver.
But he did do it.
And as you see, it almost worked.
Our speed is 18.5 knots.
We are being approached by two pirate skiffs--
The good thing is...
...you're starting to build connectivity between the characters...
...between Phillips and Muse...
...between Muse and Asad...
...and between Muse and Asad and the mothership.
So your audience is clear all the time about who the protagonists are...
...where they are, and what's occurring.
And the truth of any action sequence is:
The clearer you are about the characters and what they want...
...the clearer you are about the relationships between them...
...the clearer you are about the physical spaces they inhabit...
...and the more precision you can give each move and countermove--
Each detail in the unfolding story.
--the better your action will be.
It's a great mistake, in my view, to create generality...
...in an action sequence.
Come on! Keep going!
Cutting very fast and waving the camera...
...does not give you true engagement as an audience.
Only precision and detail...
...painstakingly put together in the right order...
...so that you feel an overall building architecture in the sequence--
That's what gives you great action, in my view.
So now we see the....
The great advantage that the modern container ship has.
And you can say it in one word. It's power.
Those enormous-- The thrust of those enormous engines...
...powering them forward...
...creating an enormous wake...
...that it's very hard for the skiffs to get through.
And in the end, when engine is pitted against engine in--
As it is in this sequence...
...there's really only gonna be one winner.
Because at this stage in this sequence now...
...we finally got Phillips and Muse...
...in a relationship with each other...
...where they're locked up...
...and that leads to this moment through the binoculars coming up...
...which obviously is a profound stage in their relationship.
It's the point in their relationship...
...where both have seen each other.
And, of course, we know that they'll meet again.
But for the moment...
...first round to Captain Phillips.
And again, you get those brass chords...
...which are beautifully judged by Henry.
Alternately reassuring...
...and disquieting.
Complete paradox, complete contradiction.
But it's the way that score works.
It offers you both at various times.
--both with armed intruders.
Now, we all know that's a hazard in these waters, but you performed well.
This was an important scene in the film...
...when Phillips talks to his crew.
And we can feel...
...how each reacts to what's occurred.
How do you deal with the fact that you've been attacked by pirates...
...when you're thousands of miles from any safety?
Cap.
They're coming back.
Amen. Yeah, that's right. They're coming back.
If they come back, we'll follow procedure.
We know when we see Phillips there that he knows that too.
We will follow the procedures even if we have to shut down, lock down...
...go dead in the water and wait for help.
It's interesting this-- That was the state of mind...
...both of Merchant Marine crews...
...and captains, and also shipping companies.
They believed that ships with a freeboard--
That's to say a distance from ocean to deck...
...of greater than 15 feet...
...and a speed through the water of greater than 15 knots...
...both of which Maersk Alabama had.
In other words, it was believed that the biggest container ships...
...were not able to be attacked by pirates...
...that they would prefer to go for tankers that were lower in the water, small--
Particularly smaller ones that didn't have very much speed.
And here, Phillips articulates the central difficulty.
There is no safe place to go. There is no running away.
In the months before this particular attack...
...pirate attacks were recorded in the Indian Ocean...
...as far as 1200 miles from the Somali coast...
...because they had these motherships...
...that they used to carry the skiffs out hundreds and thousands of miles...
...out into the ocean to look for unsuspecting shipping.
I just wanted to remind the audience...
...that Phillips had a life beyond the ship.
A wife, a family.
And also...
...that he was doing...
...what I think all Merchant Marine captains would do...
...which is to keep their anxieties well away from their family.
Hufan, I'm telling you, our boat couldn't take it.
Now, we cut back to the inquest on the pirate mothership.
And we start to learn something about Asad.
What we know, of course...
...and Muse knows that Asad bailed in the attack.
So he's giving his excuses early...
...whereas young Muse is only interested in trying to get a larger ladder...
...and more power to the engine.
He's seen the big prize...
...and we know he's determined to get it.
But first, he has to deal with his rival.
Shut up, Skinny. You talk too much.
I may be skinny, but I'm not a coward.
Muse's nickname...
...was Skinny Rat or Skinny.
I loved it as a piece of detail and so did Barkhad Abdi.
And he used it...
...to build this particular moment when he's--
Stands up for himself and becomes formidable.
We know in this moment that Phillips has a real adversary.
One of the other important decisions in our film...
...was to cast young Somali actors to play the parts of the--
Of all the pirates, in fact.
We found those actors....
Well, a lot of the smaller parts were found in the U.K.
But the four principal pirates were found in Minneapolis...
...which is the largest Somali community in the U.S.
Obviously, there's no Somali acting community in Los Angeles or New York.
And Francine Maisler, our casting director...
...and her colleagues really had the job of finding them.
And when they went there...
...they found that that community was rich and vibrant...
...filled with storytellers and musicians and writers and actors.
And we were very lucky to have these four young men play the parts.
-Where are they? -Port quarter.
One-point-seven miles, captain.
So now we begin the second attack.
And the trick here is to step the pace up...
...so you feel that the throttle of the film...
...has just been pressed down a little more.
And I think it's at this stage in the film that I always feel...
...that Tom's performance...
...starts to really completely dominate the film.
I want max revs. Take the limits off.
You feel that somewhere in his eyes is a kind of existential fear.
It's not really just about skiffs taking over the ships.
It's some unimaginable crisis that he's facing.
And, of course, that sense of crisis drives the film.
U.S. Maritime Emergency line.
This is the Maersk Alabama. We are under pirate attack at a....
-What's happening? -Ken, get out here.
-I need eyes on the wing. Skiff coming in. -I'm on it.
Now, it's become one tiny skiff versus one large ship.
And we're going through those same gears...
...that we went through in first attack, but--
But quicker, with more urgency.
More sense of desperation under the surface.
Somali coast guard. This is a routine check.
The score here is very, very clever.
It's mixing pulse and tempo, which is perfectly judged, incidentally...
...and the sort of plangent brass...
...lines that, as I say, are both comforting...
...and disquieting all at the same time.
Are they consolation or are they warning?
Very, very skillful scoring here by Henry Jackman.
Stop the ship.
They're not stopping.
Show them who we are, Muse.
Shoot at them!
Shots fired! Shots fired! Hit the hoses.
Fateful moment in our story when the shots are first fired.
Obviously, the pace kicks up again.
Turn!
Now we see Phillips deploy, really, the--
The last line of defense.
The sea hoses that can be used to stop a small skiff getting alongside.
I love the visual-- The visuals of this film.
From first moment really, when thinking about it...
...I loved the idea of the perfect symmetry of the first half of the film...
...being about a large container ship being chased by a very small skiff...
...and the large container ship throwing out these hoses...
...and the relationship between the craft and the water and the cargo.
This all felt very visually interesting. Then the second half of the film...
...being a complete mirror opposite.
A tiny lifeboat chased by these enormous warships.
This was a very complicated sequence to plan and shoot.
There were a lot of safety issues involved with bringing skiffs...
...up-close to a speeding container ship.
Obviously, the undertow from one of those container ships is lethal.
There were a lot of issues with safe distances...
...and trying to make sure we could do what we needed to.
Marrying up all these different pieces and the geography of the skiffs...
...and the firing of the-- Of the flare...
...all involved an awful lot of planning.
But these four young actors were very, very game.
It was no joke to be out in those skiffs...
...in the middle of swell and not wearing much, incidentally...
...for hour after hour after hour, day after day after day.
It was a considerable feat of physical endurance...
...and also of seamanship too. They had several months of training...
...to be able to, you know, drive those skiffs effectively.
All crew! All crew!
All crew to the engine room! All crew to the engine room now!
Well, actually, they were incredibly game. It--
Most of our time was spent trying to stop them...
...doing things that wouldn't have been safe.
They were fantastically determined and fantastically hardworking.
-Port, 30 degrees. -Port, 30 degrees.
So now we're at the end of the second attack.
I think Phillips knows it's-- Time is running out.
He tries to turn-- Twist and turn the ship...
...to create an impact that can throw them off.
But, of course, the guys who drive these skiffs...
...are very, very skillful...
...at navigating the undertow and the swell and the hoses...
...and keeping the skiff there just long enough to get onboard.
But even so, it's a--
It's a very, very dangerous game.
One slip and you're under that ship and dead.
-Starboard, 30 degrees. -Starboard, 30.
I love the way Tom sells...
...the sense of dread, the sense of confusion.
Because he suddenly realizes that his ship has been taken.
-Cronan. Cronan. -Yeah.
The crew are taken down to the engine control room.
Head count, and they're gonna try and hide them down in the engine room.
Meanwhile, the chief engineer, Mike Perry...
...acting with fantastic professionalism and dedication...
...is ensuring that the ship's engines are turned off, disabling the ship.
The roles played by the crew--
One of the things I wanted to do in this film was to pay proper regard...
...to the way that the crew, independently of Phillips...
...worked towards the successful resolution of this hosta-- Crisis.
They weren't just passive bystanders.
They worked together and exhibited great courage...
...and particularly, I think, Shane Murphy and Mike Perry.
But they all did. They all did.
Jesus.
If the pirates find you, remember, you know the ship.
So now we're waiting for the confrontation.
We'd been shooting quite a while when we shot this...
...but it was always my intention to keep Tom away from the four pirates...
...away from Barkhad, so that they--
The moment they would first see each other...
...was the moment they came through the door.
They knew of each other, knew they were there.
We kept them in separate parts of the ship.
We rehearsed this scene separately...
...and then this take was literally the first time they met.
And it gave it a sense of drama and a sense of anticipation...
...that it might not otherwise have had.
-Hey! Don't move! Don't move! -Okay, okay.
-Don't move, I said! Don't move! -All right. All right.
When you cast four young unknown actors...
Don't move! We have four!
...starting on their careers for the first time...
...you never know how it's gonna go...
...until you actually see them face-to-face.
Here is the moment when a young actor Barkhad Abdi comes face-to-face...
...with two-time Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks.
Can he do it? Has he got the desire and the ability...
...to dominate Tom?
That was the question in my mind.
And I suspect in Tom's too.
When we get paid, everything gonna be okay.
But you could tell, as soon as this scene started...
...that he was determined...
...to give Tom a complete run for his money.
To be his equal on-screen.
To be the thing you most want in a film.
To be a formidable adversary.
It's a remarkable piece of acting by a young man from Minneapolis...
...who had never acted before, professionally.
TV and car--? No, no. We just got the food--
Dollars?
We do. Kenny? Kenny, what do we have in the safe?
The way he laces the performance with humor and self-doubt.
He will let any one moment to be incredibly menacing...
...but also oddly vulnerable.
What's that?
It's all right.
Hey, calm down! Calm down.
Get back there.
So this sequence really begins the--
The section of the film that deals with what happened in that first day...
...when the pirates got onboard.
Phillips was up on the--
On the control, on the bridge, with a couple of crew members...
...and the crew were hiding down below in the engine room.
And the problem the pirates had was they needed to get the rest of the crew.
Phillips was determined that the pirates would not get any more hostages.
Watch this ugly one.
What are you doing?
I'm going to fix it.
I like this part of the scene because it's asking the question:
How much does a young Somali pirate captain understand...
...a sophisticated modern container ship?
The answer is not very much.
But out of that, you start to develop the relationship between Muse...
Where is the crew?
I don't know. I don't know. I'm here with you.
...and Najee.
And that relationship, that...
...test of strength between the two of them that goes on alongside the--
The battle between Phillips and Muse...
...is what comes to dominate the second half of the film.
Another minute, I kill somebody.
I kill all your friends. One minute.
I will no call again.
Get that one and put him against the wall.
-I'm trying-- -You think we playing?
-No, I'm doing the best-- -No play. No play.
These must have been desperate moments...
...on the bridge and in the engine room.
-Come on. -You play? You play?
Who was to know...
...whether someone wasn't gonna get a bullet in the head very soon?
In a sense, there was no right or wrong thing to do.
To disclose where the crew were might have made things worse.
Not to disclose the crew might have made things worse.
It was the terrible choices...
...that people had to make that day.
-You killing him. -It's my ship.
-Listen to me. -You killing him.
I'm the captain.
But I think the--
The acting in this scene...
...the company of actors inhabiting, totally, this situation...
...I think, is exemplary.
Corey Johnson there with the gun to his head.
He's done a number of films with me.
Always...
...always absolutely beautifully accurate in everything he does, and human.
I want to search the ship.
One of the things I tried to do in this film...
...was create a rise and fall, a pitch, a sort of--
An undulating sense of tension...
We better hope the emergency power stays on.
...that sort of replicates the structure of the ocean itself.
And that's driven, of course, ultimately by the tension...
...between the two characters, Muse and Phillips...
...but also the tension within the pirates...
...as the pitch of panic and--
And relaxation ebbs and flows.
And capturing that in the right way...
...so that you can vary the pace in the film...
...dominated a lot of my thinking in the run-up to the film.
I'm gonna go to the mess, get water. Get everyone on the lower level.
All right. I'm on 2.
There's Henry's brass chord again...
...just anchoring you...
...keeping the humanity of the piece alive.
Early on, we experimented...
...with more electronic versions of the score, but--
But I think we all agreed that the--
You know...
...the human-scale instruments, brass and wood...
...and cello...
...were where the score needs to sit...
...and that's ultimately the direction we went in.
This is a very important scene...
...as the relationship between Phillips and Muse develops...
...and as you realize that each is lying to the other...
...and each knows it.
And that's a difficult story for an actor to tell.
--we're working our way down, so we should try the cargo deck.
You don't want to signpost it too much, but it's got to be there.
And I really think...
...that you start to really engage now in this scene with the--
With the battle of wits between each character.
Maybe we should get some water from the mess down on A deck?
-Then engine room. Go. -Okay.
He knows that he's lying but he doesn't quite know how.
This is A deck.
Meanwhile, Shane Murphy is coming down to look after the crew.
Shane Murphy moved around the ship a lot during those hours...
...with great courage and risk to himself...
...to look after his crew and try and find out what was going on.
Obviously, we've gotta compress the story...
...into two hours.
When, in fact, this part of the story went on for some eight or 10 hours.
But I think we're very true to the central things...
...that Perry and Murphy and the crew are trying their best...
...to work independently towards a resolution.
As is Phillips.
It's a vegetable room.
And, again, this is one of those moments that...
...if you made it up, you wouldn't believe.
Shane Murphy hiding in the kitchens, almost caught by the pirates.
Phillips, aware that he's there, trying desperately to draw them away.
Well, again, it deepens that sense between Phillips and Muse.
Something is going on between them.
Muse knows he's lying but he doesn't quite know how.
Enough. Engine room.
All right.
-Cronan. Cronan. Do you read? -Yeah, I got you.
They're on their way to you. They're on their way to you.
One is barefoot.
Is there glass you can break, leave on the floor by the door?
Cronan also did tremendous work on the crew...
...of helping to thwart the attack.
Now, we just musically introduce a pulse...
...on that same distressed cello.
It's a simple musical palette, but I think very effective.
Again, Mike Perry's journey that day was extremely dangerous.
He had to find a way of turning off the power...
...of the emergency generator...
...to make it harder for the pirates to find the crew.
-Who did this? -Nobody. It was just a dumb accident.
We should get that looked at. There's a kit in the control room.
Quiet, Irish. You think I am stupid?
I know what's going on.
We're going to search this whole room. All of it. Now go.
Go.
A lot of this film involves...
...delaying moments.
I think you know with a film like this...
...that it's going to get progressively more violent...
...progressively more tense.
But you need to believably hold it up.
I think part of the enjoyment of the film...
...is in living those moments when it is interrupted.
When the conclusion is withheld from you.
Check the other side.
There's no one here.
Please, let's go back.
I love the physicality of this space.
The engine room was an endlessly fascinating place.
Immense cathedral of engineering.
They're coming. Get ready.
But brutal, brutal physical space.
Keep going. Move.
This is one of those moments when the pace starts to step up a little bit.
You don't wanna push it, you don't wanna let it push.
If anything, the action is dragging the film with it...
...rather than the film pushing the action, which I think is as it should be.
-We just-- -Look at me, Irish. Look at me.
Now, the removal of the power, the emergency generator...
...creates another moment...
...another intimate moment between Phillips and Muse...
...which is very important, I think, for their unfolding relationship.
-I don't know. -Was that you?
-I don't know what went wrong. -No.
You'll never find this crew, not without any power on the ship.
You'll never find them. We'll never find them.
Irish...
...I will find.
Not with him.
Look. He's gonna bleed to death.
Look, man, get us out of here.
The cinematographer on this film was Barry Ackroyd.
Barry and I have worked together many times.
I think the job he did was quite superb.
I don't think I've ever put a DOP in as many contorted positions...
...inside a skiff, inside the lifeboat...
...even in this engine room.
But every problem that I threw at him, he solved triumphantly.
I mean, these are very, very, very low-light conditions.
Don't talk. Go.
Trying to make it work and keep it natural...
...is a very, very hard job.
Your friend make fool of us?
I love these faces there.
I think the company of actors were very, very focused.
And I think...
...the actors who played the crew created another whole character, I think.
Collectively.
Time for a bit more khat chewing.
Once again, very, very low-light conditions in here.
And Chris Rouse built the tension up...
...trying to keep the geography clear.
I love also the sound here.
A ship down in the engine room really does creak.
They actually do sound like ghost ships...
...eerie and menacing.
A great place to stage a fight.
Hey.
We got a problem.
Your buddy's hurt real bad.
We actually didn't have a lot of money on this film.
It was a sort of modestly budgeted film, but it--
I think one of the things that I'm most pleased about the film...
...is that I think we managed to create sequences...
...that looked much bigger than that, and we did it, I think, by being--
Spending our money by being very, very well-prepared...
...and I think by shooting the action pieces very quickly.
-Hey. -No.
We have your leader.
We have your captain and his weapon. We wanna trade.
Captain for captain. We want a deal.
Take that off of his head. Cronan, take that off his head now.
I no kill.
Talk. Talk to your friends...
One of the things I remember most clearly...
...when I read Billy Ray's script...
...I didn't really remember the story.
I mean, I vaguely remembered that it happened...
...but I knew none of the details.
I remember when I read this...
...that the crew had successfully taken the pirate captain hostage...
...and then offered to trade, which is such an amazing story point.
And in fact...
...when we made the film...
...probably the biggest single challenge of the film...
...was dealing with just simply the amount of story.
How to boil it down and compress it...
...in a way that felt believable and coherent and consistent...
...and with good narrative shape.
And Billy and I spent an enormous amount of time...
...going back and forth, with Chris Rouse.
You know, one of the things I did...
...was sort of approach it all as a collective effort from the beginning...
...to try and get the film into the best possible shape...
...before we started shooting...
...and I think that really paid off.
So now we move towards the lifeboat...
...which comes to dominate the last half of the film.
And as I say, the symmetry of the film, it's almost perfect.
This is almost the midway point of the film.
The first half, as I say...
...small pirate skiffs attacking huge container ship.
And then, at the midway point...
...small lifeboat chased by enormous war ships.
Hey, Shane. Do you have the captain? Where is he?
-In the engine room. -Bring him up so they can see him.
-I wanna see. -You will.
This, I think, is outstanding ensemble acting.
Every single actor here...
...utterly committed to what they're doing...
...to create a believable, intense scenario.
You get in, you buckle up.
We drop you in, and then you're on your way. Okay? Okay?
No. You come with us. Till we get our guy back.
Now we're moving to, of course...
...the fateful moment where Phillips goes into the lifeboat.
What was important to me was not to portray that moment...
...as a sort of Hollywood hero's moment.
Nobody willingly...
...goes in with four ruthless, armed, desperate young men...
...with nothing to lose.
And I'm sure Phillips didn't. I'm sure he went in as we portray it...
...because that was the only way he was gonna get them off the ship...
...and to ensure the safety of his ship, his crew and his cargo.
There was no other choice, but it wasn't something he wanted.
But it's extremely brave, nonetheless.
-You got a squawk box. -Gas, gas. Enough gas?
Plenty of fuel to get you to Somalia.
-Cap, we got the guy. -All right. Send him on in. I'm coming out.
Okay, send him in. Let him go.
Let him go!
The score, sort of underpinning this now...
...just not pushing hard, just sitting there.
You gotta pump it, one, two, three, four, five, and then you drop.
Cap, come on out.
And then they come face-to-face again, Muse and Phillips.
Now it's gonna be different.
--pump it, then you're in the water, and off you go.
Go!
Go back!
Hey, Cap!
It was a spectacular thing to watch the launch of the lifeboat.
Apparently, if you're on a large container ship...
...you have to practice it as a drill at least once every six months, I think.
All the crew have to get into the lifeboat and launch it.
A bit like going on a funfair ride, I suppose.
A bit more brutal, perhaps.
So now we move to the military responders.
Task Force 151, which is the count--
International multilateral counter-piracy...
...naval effort.
Many nations.
The call came into the Bainbridge...
...and the captain of the Bainbridge, Captain Frank Castellano.
Four men have taken the ship's captain hostage in a lifeboat.
Presumed Somali pirates. Over.
Roger, ma'am. Do we have any other information? Over.
Not at this time, but best guess is they're heading for the Somali coast.
Your orders are to proceed and intercept.
Further to follow. This is CTF 151 out.
So 820 miles, even at...
...a modern warship's top speed, that's going to be many, many hours...
...before the Bainbridge can get there to provide any help.
Bridge, captain, full left rudder. Come to course 285.
One of the discussions...
...that Billy Ray, who wrote the screenplay, and myself had early on...
...was about the lifeboat scenes.
I think it was one of the areas that we...
...agreed most profoundly on.
We used to joke afterwards that we disagreed...
...about everything on this film except the most important things.
And one of the most important things was that we both believed...
...that we should not, in this film, short-change the lifeboat scenes.
It was something Billy felt very strongly about...
...and I totally agreed, and he was totally right.
It was crucial for this film that when you inhabited the lifeboat...
...that you didn't feel suddenly that time was starting to telescope.
On the contrary, I think you need to feel...
...that it was an agony of waiting.
It was going to be an ordeal.
And how were these characters in this confined space--
Richard Phillips and his four captors.
--how were they going to react...
...in the furnace of a small lifeboat on the Indian Ocean?
Unbearable heat, swell.
Just a physical ordeal.
And most of all, could they be caught?
Because in the end, the structure of the film, at this point...
...is a race.
They're trying to race in this small five-mile-an-hour lifeboat...
...to the coast a couple of hundred miles away...
...before any...
...counter-piracy vessel can get to them to intercept.
It's a gift.
Hey.
Irish.
You lie, Irish. Your ship no broke.
They come Somalia too.
Going back...
...to the discussion earlier...
...where I was saying that one of the things I like--
Liked about the story was that everybody was always telling...
...less than the truth to everybody else.
And then they'd find out, you know?
Phillips had spent a tremendous amount of time...
...when he was on the bridge telling Muse that the ship had broken.
But of course that was a lie...
...and as soon as the Alabama gave chase, Muse knew it.
But of course, Muse was busy lying...
...to Phillips as well, telling him it was gonna be all right.
Give me some khat.
Why? You've had more than your share.
Says who? Give me some more!
Shut up!
Both of you, shut up.
Just take it.
These four young men were obsessed with khat.
As I said earlier...
...it's chewed ubiquitously...
...in that part of Africa.
And one of the realities of this experience was that...
...when the khat started to run out, as it did...
...the pressure and the tension began to grow.
This money, taking you, that's all it is.
You come to our waters, you got to pay.
We were in international waters.
Not your waters, international waters.
Somali pirates always say that--
Two things, I think, are common to all Somali pirates.
They will always tell you that the money that they're trying to get is just taxes.
And the other is that they're just fishermen.
One of the things that was interesting, studying the subject...
...was that there's no question...
...that the modern rise of Somali piracy definitely...
...was a response to over-fishing and toxic-waste dumping...
...off the coast of Somalia.
As Somalia collapsed into civil war and there was no central government...
...there was no attempt to police...
...the coasts.
And, of course...
...fishing vessels over-fished and dumped.
And local fishing communities began to strike back.
That was in the '80s and early '90s. Very quickly, once money started to be made...
...the warlords and the gangsters moved in, and by the time of these events...
...piracy had become highly organized.
International...
...organized crime.
But many of the young men...
...involved...
...liked to talk about themselves...
...as just fishermen.
Not true, of course, but....
But a necessary fiction, perhaps.
Go ahead, come here. It's all right. Your foot. Give me your foot.
Come on.
This scene, I think, beautifully played...
...because it's starting to develop...
...the crucial relationships inside the boat--
Inside the lifeboat, between...
...Tom and Bilal, the youngest pirate.
And of course...
...with Najee...
...the most dangerous of the four.
Slowly but surely, the relationship between Phillips and Najee...
...comes to dominate the film.
And that process takes a big step...
...in this scene.
Go back. Get back there.
But of course, the challenge for Muse is...
...what does he do?
Is he is charge or is Najee in charge?
And which policy is most likely...
...to give them a successful outcome in their own terms, to get the hijack money.
That's really the question of the second half of the film.
Who is in charge, Muse?
So meanwhile...
...the military response starts to take shape.
First of all...
...the lifeboat's put under aerial surveillance.
And that material...
...and other intelligence material is relayed to the Bainbridge...
...so that Captain Castellano is in the best position...
...to formulate a strategy as to what to do when he arrives...
...and intercepts the lifeboat.
According to ONI, that vessel's under the control of Somali warlord Garaad.
We're working on getting the IDs of the kidnappers.
If this is Garaad's guys, they're looking for a payday, which means they'll talk.
If we can get them talking, we can wear them down. Over.
All these scenes were shot...
...on the USS Truxtun...
...which was the sister ship of the Bainbridge.
And...
...with the exception of Yul here...
...a lot of these men and women are the crew of the Truxtun...
...without whose support we would never have been able to convey...
...the reality of these command posts.
If you haven't gotten Phillips back by the time they arrive...
...the SEALs will take care of it.
And again, one of the things you've got to do...
...I think, if you're gonna convey downrange...
...real audience involvement, is to take your time now...
...to show people how that control room works.
Who are the dominant characters? What are the procedures in there?
And I think that all starts to pay off dividends later.
The heat inside that lifeboat must have been unbearable.
The motion too.
When we first started shooting on the lifeboat...
...off the coast of Malta...
...within half an hour we had two or three people physically sick...
...from the turbulence inside.
What it must have been like for four or five days...
...I just can't imagine.
It literally must have been a hell on Earth.
And of course...
...tempers soon get frayed.
Hey. Hey.
That's enough.
Take it away.
From now on this water is only for us.
This scene's an important scene because it really brings Muse...
...into the picture.
What is he going to do, knowing as he does...
...that Najee is starting...
...to lose control.
And of course...
...you can see in Phillips's eyes there, in Tom's look, that he knows...
...that Muse's got a problem.
And he's watching and watching and watching...
...and now he tries to manipulate Muse...
...to use his problems against him.
And that's part of the battle of wills between the two of them.
I know what I'm doing.
Yeah, yeah, sure, you do. Of course. You're the captain now.
Tom, I think, is a magnificent...
...player of the everyman.
The way he inhabits this role...
...and brings all the colors out...
...but in a simple, very real register...
...is magnificent.
Just that constant watching, that constant feeling that he's--
Although he's helpless, he's looking for any small opportunity he can...
...to manipulate the situation.
Brilliant acting.
We should be heading northwest.
We've got to get to Garaad's port.
I am, but there's a lot of wind.
-Just go! -Okay, then let me do it.
It's the same principle really, as with the first and second attack.
You mustn't hurry the film.
I think the power of the film lies in really inhabiting the lifeboat.
So you feel as Phillips does.
How can he turn this situation to his vantage, or can he?
--or don't come back at all.
Sounds like there's a problem. Is there a problem?
Problem.
No problem, Irish.
Everything gonna be okay.
Barkhad Abdi is brilliant, I think, in this scene too, because he....
He tries to brush him off...
...but you know the pressure's building on him.
Bainbridge CO has until your arrival to negotiate a surrender.
But upon boarding, you will assume command.
Now we get another piece in the unfolding story of the military response.
As the SEAL Team 6 are mobilized.
But of course it's gonna take them many, many hours to get there.
But obviously each step down that road...
...raises the stakes inside the lifeboat.
It's almost as if...
...the most dangerous thing, if you're a hostage...
...is not to be rescued...
...but the next most dangerous thing is to be rescued.
And it's that central...
...terror...
...that this film tries to depict.
I can't feel my foot anymore.
It's like hell in here.
I love the way Tom...
...is sizing up the situation every moment.
He wants air.
Looking at each pirate in turn, trying to work out what's happening.
Talk too much. Too much.
It's funny, whenever I watch this film...
...when he opens the window, smashes it out...
...I almost can feel the draft on my face.
It feels so hot and claustrophobic by this stage.
--you'll get a million bottles of it.
-All the water you want. -Really?
So this is a very important scene now...
...because it brings out the triangular relationship...
...between Phillips, Muse and Najee.
And, of course, develops this idea of everybody lying to everybody else...
...as Muse tells him the story...
...about the millions he's made from hijacking.
And Phillips calls him out on it.
Your problem isn't me talking to you. Your problem is you not listening.
You think you have any power here?
-Let him go. -I should shoot you and be done.
Take your gun off him.
I'm the captain. Who do you think you are?
So now...
...Najee throws down.
But before it can be resolved...
...the Bainbridge arrives.
This was an immense challenge to shoot this scene.
Bringing a modern warship very, very close, at high speed...
...to a small lifeboat was no small....
No small endeavor.
But it was quite spectacular to watch a pair of those vessels...
...and the wake they create. Enormous, enormous waves.
I love what Tom does here. You see the elation...
...and the terror all mixed up in one.
Get something to tie the doors.
Alabama lifeboat, this is Frank Castellano...
...commander of the USS Bainbridge.
We wanna get Captain Phillips back safely and end this thing peacefully.
We worked a long time to get the score right here.
And it was a question of finding...
...some piece where the score could sit but would...
...have some drive...
...but not push too hard and allow us to bring brass through.
But Henry ended up with this very simple little ostinato.
Very, very powerful.
We just want to talk.
Made me think, occasionally, that I made a film...
...that felt a bit like Assault on Precinct 13.
It's got the same musical sense, which I love, incidentally...
...because I love that movie. I think it's a brilliant film.
There's something about that ostinato that made me think of it.
No tricks, or your captain dead.
I love Tom's look here, and the way that Chris picks up Castellano's look.
One look pulling you to the other, binding characters in, building tension.
-Shane Murphy? -Yeah, that's me.
Lieutenant Hicks. You're entering a military engagement zone, sir.
Need you to bring the ship left to 210. We are here to escort you to Mombasa.
Your captain'll be in good hands.
All right. You heard him, guys.
One of the structural problems of the story, of course...
...is that the Alabama disappears at this stage, from the story.
And we wrestled with that problem for a long time in advance, how to...?
And it's often the case in films, you often have to wrestle...
...with how to lose characters and situations in a way...
...that your audience doesn't really notice or doesn't care.
And it was about doing it in a way that you bait and switch and move on...
...to develop the drama in the lifeboat.
And now, from here on in, the story becomes the story of the lifeboat...
...versus the military.
Irish, your crew...
...run.
Ship go.
Brilliant acting, I think, at this stage.
You better think about what you're doing.
Navy good. They protect us. Back to Somalia.
The Navy's not here to protect you.
Bravado from Muse.
No choice.
I got you.
You know the situation is inherently unstable.
Just that one shot shows you, in a nutshell, I think...
...the difficulties Barry had to contend with.
How do you get images on the water when you're in small craft that are...
...you know, sufficiently stable that you can understand them?
It's a big, big, big problem.
People sometimes criticize me for the shaky cam.
I'd love to bring those people out onto the ocean in a 4-foot swell...
...and say, "Well, how exactly would you get stable images?"
The wonder is that we had any images at all, to be honest.
Okay. Wait.
To me, this...
...is very, very real, very intense.
And you start to feel the different ways...
...these four young men are responding.
How Phillips is responding.
And the problem from the anti-piracy task force's point of view.
How do they resolve this situation peacefully?
I'm in Seat 15.
You understand?
I'm in Seat 15.
All stations, TAO, log it: Seat 15.
Break, CICWO. TAO. Send that to CTF 151 and SOCOM.
Don't worry, sir. We'll handle it.
Get him back inside.
Again, spending time inside the control room...
...to show how it works, who does what.
Where's the money?
I don't want your food. I want your money.
-We got another on top. -OSS, maintain camera footage.
-Hold on a second. -No tricks, sahib.
All these vessels, as part of the international anti-piracy patrol...
...have Somali speakers onboard for these encounters.
They're treating us like children.
Ten million dollars, when?
It's not that easy...
...so we need time.
You can imagine how the tension rises.
They've got expectations of a huge payday.
And, of course...
...what they can't understand is that no deal can ever be done.
But somewhere, on the U.S. Navy side...
...they need to resolve this thing peacefully.
So each holds cards that the other doesn't have.
It's asymmetrical.
But also perfectly balanced.
Four young men with AK-47s and nothing to lose...
...versus the might of the U.S. Navy.
It's a standoff.
-I say he okay. -I need to hear it from him.
And, of course, caught in the middle...
...is Captain Phillips.
-Talk. -Yeah, yeah, it's me.
Are you okay?
It's falling apart in here. He just fired off a round next to my head.
-Is the leader there? -Yeah, he can hear you.
Captain, listen to me. We will not tolerate this.
As captain, you're responsible for the lives of everyone onboard.
Right now you are putting them in jeopardy.
We wanna resolve this thing peacefully.
Let's find a way out of this together before someone gets hurt.
Pressure on Muse now. What's he going to do?
Alabama lifeboat, respond.
I talk when I go Somalia.
Sit down.
Sit down!
He just wants the money.
So he doubles the ante. He's gonna keep on going...
...he's gonna keep on pushing on, see if he can get to Somalia.
If he can get Phillips to Somalia...
...the stakes get much harder for anyone trying to rescue him.
ETA on the SEAL team is 0400.
But from Castellano's point of view...
...the window of opportunity to negotiate a peaceful outcome...
...is fast diminishing.
Military reinforcements are coming...
...and the SEALs are not far away.
Irish, no worry.
I think right in those two shots there, you feel...
...the pressure that both Muse and Phillips are under.
After this, I go America.
I always wanted to go America.
In a sense, their interests are both served by a negotiation...
...not by a....
An unsuccessful standoff.
There are two more ships, one on either side.
Phillips can see that Muse is beginning to struggle.
His arm is being infected, he's starting to run a big fever, he's sick.
Sit down! Sit down!
-Sit down! -Down! Down!
And now Phillips can see the reinforcements.
He knows what's coming.
And as I said earlier...
...the biggest danger is not to be rescued...
...but the next greatest danger is to be rescued.
He's gone. He's left you alone.
You had a plan to take my ship.
That didn't work, so you thought you could take me?
-Shut up. -Make a run to Somalia?
They got the Navy out there. You gotta give up. You gotta stop.
Brilliant scene, this, I think.
Absolutely beautifully played by the two of them.
They can't let you win.
They would rather sink this boat than let you get me back to Somalia.
It's over.
I come too far, Irish.
I can't give up. No.
It's a fateful moment, I think, between the two of them.
Phillips can see he's never going to give up.
So the stage is set, really, for the denouement.
Roger that.
I think Castellano, at this point, knows...
...that the space and the time and the room for negotiation...
...is almost at an end.
And I think Phillips knows it too. And I think Muse knows it as well.
So now, finally, all that watching pays off.
Phillips looks, sees that Najee is sleeping.
Something's gonna happen in that lifeboat.
But on the other side of the story, the SEALs are inbound.
So the stakes are ratcheting up.
Phillips looks at the door...
...sees Bilal put his weapon down.
He sees that Muse's not concentrating...
...in a world of his own.
So he has a chance.
One chance. The chance he'd been waiting for.
Saltwater would be good for your foot.
He got out!
Turn the boat around!
Bilal, you idiot!
They must have been desperate moments, swimming...
...seeing the U.S. Navy ships just across the ocean.
Unbeknownst to him, of course, the SEALs are inbound...
...on the other side.
Now Najee is awake.
The pirates try to turn.
Captain's in Combat.
Cap. We got two in the water. Two in the water.
Starboard side, I see them both.
Two guys in the water.
Castellano is brought up to the bridge.
But the problem is...
...they're in no position to know who's in the water and who's not. Is that Phillips?
Is that Phillips or is that just two pirates? If they open fire...
...they might kill Phillips, so they can't shoot.
So now we've got simultaneous action.
Which, I think, any filmmaker will tell you is always the....
The thing you're trying to find if you can really....
If you can get simultaneous action occurring and it feels natural...
...then you really can drive a sequence.
We shot these pieces in the tank at Malta.
In fact, when we started the film, I thought--
When we initially began discussing the film, I thought we'd shoot a lot of it...
...in the deep-water tanks. But as it turned out...
...I think we did two nights, two short nights, just for this one sequence.
The swimming under the lifeboat.
The rest of it was done in the ocean.
-Can't tell who's in the water. -No clear shot at the Tangos.
Nobody shoots unless there's a clear shot.
Where is he?
Here he is! Here he is!
Phillips in a desperate situation here.
Of course...
...the Navy are lighting the sky up...
...when, in fact, what he wants is darkness.
But the truth is, the distance to the warships was too far.
Muse was able to jump in and....
Help!
And no matter how hard he tried to escape...
...the truth is, he wasn't going anywhere.
All right!
-Come! -All right!
-Come! Forward! -All right!
Got him.
Come!
Okay, okay.
Go in, Irish! Go! Go, Irish!
Sir, the SEALs are coming aboard.
Prepare to board the SEALs.
Trying to create connectivity with Castellano.
SEALs are almost aboard, he's really only got one more throw of the dice...
...Castellano, if he's gonna resolve this thing.
And also, of course, they knew...
...that Phillips was gonna be beaten when he got back...
...in the lifeboat.
Waiting for you on the bridge, sir.
Not today!
Stop him!
That's enough!
I think the score is quite brilliant here, the way you get that...
...progression of percussion.
Those descending cello lines...
...and the high-string pieces.
There's a sort of a terrible beauty in it.
Bainbridge to lifeboat, you must surrender.
You will not be permitted to go further.
It's a helicopter!
So Castellano plays his last card.
Alabama lifeboat, respond.
Hurry! Go!
I'm trying.
Go!
You have a choice to make, captain. Surrender now and this ends peacefully.
Panic in the desperation...
...inside that lifeboat.
That was amazing acting, really.
Very, very real.
It's easy to make a noise, easy to make a commotion.
What's really hard when you're a group of actors...
...is to create real rising and falling tension and real detail...
...so you understand each character, what each character's doing.
Fashioning moments...
...dramatic moments along the way that have got proper shape...
...so that you invest in the experience.
Go!
Up ladder.
Make a hole.
The music's alternately twisting and turning...
...as the tension ratchets up.
Target in the hatch. This is Bainbridge out.
They're holding a gun to Phillips' head.
He's kind of yelling and waving his pistol back and forth.
I kill him! I kill him! Now! I kill him!
We got shots fired, captain.
-How many shots? -Who fired? Who fired?
We're losing this.
That's the bridge of the USS Truxtun, there...
...with its full complement of men and women.
Without them, this would never have had the reality that it does as a sequence.
Give me the radio.
The helicopter is coming back.
Earlier on, you'll remember we had the scene where Muse tells Phillips:
"We're just fishermen."
This is a very important moment when Phillips recalls that.
And throws it back in his face and it lands with Muse.
Talk. Talk.
They got a gun to my throat, and they're gonna use a survival suit as a body bag.
You're not just a fisherman.
Men of the Alabama lifeboat--
That's a magnificent moment between the two of them.
The battle of wills has just taken another turn.
Who is this?
I'm the negotiator. I'm authorized to negotiate with you.
And then the SEAL commander speaks.
And continuing that theme...
...of everybody telling lies to everybody else.
He tells Muse he's gonna do a deal with him.
Muse will get his money.
No one in this film speaks the truth to each other.
Or very rarely.
We spoke with the elders of your tribe.
They are coming here to negotiate a deal, an exchange.
We get our man, you get your money. But this has to be done in confidence.
We don't want anyone to see the exchange. Neither do the elders.
It's a lie.
You're low on fuel. We got some weather coming in...
...so I'm suggesting that we tow you out to the exchange point.
The difference, I think, between Max playing the SEAL commander...
...and Yul playing Captain Castellano: The way they framed...
...the different sides of the military response.
The accuracy with which they framed them...
...and the conviction with which they played them...
...was quite remarkable, I think.
They made those parts really, really play.
It's an ambush.
And equally, in this scene the way Muse and Najee...
...frame up their differences.
Filming this last sequence...
...was probably the biggest challenge of the film.
We didn't have a lot of time.
Keep me posted on status.
The Navy provided us with these ships.
And we had them for a very short amount of time.
And we had to execute a very complicated....
A multifaceted action sequence...
...involving four vessels and three or four helicopters at night.
At high speed...
...with a lot of safety issues...
...and a lot of coordination issues.
And it took a remarkable amount of planning.
And we were very lucky.
Which is something that every director needs...
...shooting a scene like this.
Once again, you need to sell the geography, always.
Don't let anyone in.
I was saying earlier, one of the interesting things about the piece...
...is the way that characters very rarely speak the truth to each other.
Apart from in this scene.
Which is obviously the culmination of the relationship...
...between Muse and Phillips.
I go Navy ship...
...get dollars...
...you go home.
It starts conventionally.
How many times have we heard Muse say, "Everything's gonna be okay"?
But then it takes a turn into the truthful.
--ransom...
...nobody get hurt.
You had $30,000 and a way to Somalia.
It wasn't enough?
I got bosses.
They got rules.
We all got bosses.
There's gotta be something other than being a fisherman...
...and kidnapping people.
Maybe in America, Irish.
Maybe in America.
Alabama lifeboat, this is the U.S. Navy.
Magnificent scene.
I remember reading those two lines in Billy's first draft.
And thinking, "Right there, that's the film."
And in many ways, the film is all...
...trying to get to that place in a way that's believable...
...so that that conversation feels believable...
...between those two characters.
Without sentimentality...
...without creating moral equivalents.
Without suggesting in any way that Phillips sympathizes with Muse...
...because he doesn't.
But so you understand both characters.
And when you've had that moment, you're ready, then, for the endgame.
Be advised, I have eyes on the package.
And again, same point as earlier.
You've got to take the time in a sequence to set up the rules of the sequence.
Who knows what?
Who's doing what? Who's in control? What are the communication systems?
Put this on, captain. We need to keep you healthy.
All the time, you've gotta--
You must never compromise the accuracy...
...and the time you spend setting things up.
The more you set up, the more you can pay off.
Inside. Go.
Go.
-Where are the elders? -The elders are being flown in.
Put the gun inside. We'll take you to your elders.
Anything happen, he die.
I give you my word. Everything will be fine.
Put the gun down.
Gun down.
Wait.
These guys were all ex-military.
And they were able to bring their training to bear.
We got you. Come on. Nice and easy. Okay.
I think you feel, when you watch them, that they know what they're doing.
Captain, it'll be over soon. Hang tough.
Stay in the same seat you've been sitting in.
It's funny, even just watching this now...
...in a studio, I can feel my palms...
...starting to sweat a bit.
Stern seas.
And that's because you're responding...
...to the human situation.
To the insight that great actors give you into a human situation.
You become involved.
You become truly involved.
-TAO, initiate high-speed maneuver. -Aye, sir.
Halyburton, Boxer. This is Bainbridge.
Commence high-speed maneuvers. Over.
Cause and effect...
...character development...
...architecture, control of pace.
Come up this way. Up this way.
Chris Rouse and I watched this and worked it for weeks.
But he has a wonderful eye for the architecture of these sequences.
What weight to give each side.
Stand over here.
As you move from environment to environment...
...you need to be specific.
From darkness to light.
You know, light can be as disorientating as dark.
Relax. We're gonna take care of you.
And now you're watching a man who realizes he's being lied to.
But again, he doesn't quite know how.
He doesn't know what he can do about it.
Your captain knows what he's doing. You're gonna get your money now.
Likewise, all these guys are ex-military.
What's going on?
And I think, again...
...it's much better to get former military professionals to act...
...than it is to get actors to be military professionals...
...in my experience.
We're going to initiate the tow.
I repeat, we are going to initiate the tow.
You need to tell your driver that he needs to stay in his seat...
...and continue steering.
Music takes a turn, obviously, at this point. You get a heartbeat.
This thing is building now.
Alfa team is green at this time. One green, two red.
A lot of the musical pieces that have been put in place earlier...
...now start to come together.
The brass is starting to stretch and twist.
The pulse has become a heartbeat.
-Hey. Hey. -I'm putting on the shirt like they said.
If he moves again, shoot him.
Sir, the pirates have just issued a threat.
One of the extraordinary things...
...about Tom's performance, I think in this film, is that he...
...takes pieces of doubt and fear...
...and hopelessness...
...and yet he manages to fashion out of them...
...a story of endurance.
It's almost counterintuitive, really.
He's not playing the hero.
On the contrary, he's playing the reality of the situation...
...at every step of the way with accuracy and restraint, self-discipline.
And so...
...in an era, I think, cinematically dominated by superheroes...
...he's always chosen-- And dared, I think.
--to play the ordinary man.
And that takes--
You have to accept restrictions.
Restrictions on who you are, restrictions on the powers that you have.
The behaviors that you can exhibit.
You can't just, you know, rely on some special power that you have.
You're just an ordinary person.
And yet out of that...
...slowly but surely, you feel this deep reservoir...
...of humanity underneath, and he's done it time and again.
And I think never better than in this-- The end of this film.
American ship, answer me.
You, I think, literally do feel you're with him...
...in this unfolding situation.
As the sympathies twist and turn.
Do we--? Do we want them to open fire or don't we?
What's gonna stand the best?
What's gonna give the best chance of a successful outcome?
That's the question you're asking as an audience.
And always that thin fragile line that connects the lifeboat.
Irish. Irish. What you doing?
What you doing?
We know what he's doing.
Although it's never spoken.
We're doing what any of us would do in this situation.
If you knew some violent endgame...
...was about to play out in which you might or might not live...
...who would you be thinking about?
Give me a distance.
Two twenty. Still 129 out.
Stop writing, Irish.
If he sees you, he kill me and you both.
Those breathing chords, brass chords.
U.S. Navy, answer!
Anxious.
I want to speak with him!
Alfa and Charlie teams green.
They're saying, "Wake up."
And they're slowing rising and building.
Where are the elders?
Where are elders?
American ship, answer!
Hey.
Hey! What is this?
Subterranean movement giving you unease.
They've got something going on. I think it's a fight.
Well, we've waited for this throw-down since the earliest moment.
Phillips himself said he always thought...
...that he'd get a bullet in the head from the big, tall guy.
He was the one he was most frightened of.
Stop Irish! Stop Irish!
Bring the rope!
Alfa and Charlie are red. We are three red.
Alabama lifeboat, this is the negotiator.
If you harm the hostage, we do not have a deal.
Do you copy?
Tie him!
The interesting situation is that with Muse off the lifeboat...
...command and control really breaks down.
What are you doing?
Captain Phillips, can you hear me?
-Captain Phillips, can you hear me? -He's screaming, sir.
-One fifty-five. They're 64 meters out. -One fifty-five, check. Speed up the tow.
Now we are moving towards the conclusion.
The situation is running out of control.
Shut up!
Get a blindfold!
Can you see this?
Can you see it?
Let's reacquire targets, weapons release on my command.
One thirty-five meters. That's 44 out from optimal.
Alfa green. Bravo and Charlie are still red. Two red.
Blindfold him.
Kid, just put your hands up. You're just a kid.
Now all that preparatory work between Phillips and Bilal...
...pays off in this scene, I think, because we know this character.
We know the young kid. We know who he is.
Andrea, I love you.
I love you, Ange.
Honey, I love you.
I love you, Danny. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I'm here and not there with you.
Can anybody hear this? I can't stand this anymore.
One thirty meters. That's 39 out from optimal.
Two red. No shot. Still at two red.
I need sights on targets. I need three targets green.
Don't kill him!
The elders are coming.
We will get our money.
You are both idiots.
No one is coming.
When you make a film and you direct a film...
...when you look at it back-- At least I find, anyway.
--often my overwhelming feeling...
...is of the mastery of all that work...
...that you've been able to be around.
It's almost like:
Isn't that wonderfully shot? Isn't that wonderfully performed?
Isn't Tom magnificent there?
Isn't that group environment in the control room magnificent?
Isn't this beautifully edited?
As a director, you're a jack of all trades but a master of none.
But you're surrounded by masters.
And it leaves you with a feeling of tremendous humility, I think...
...that your film has been made by so many hands.
And that it can end up by fashioning this moment.
Shock.
Violence.
Resolution.
Safety. Confusion.
Horror.
A great, great actor fashioning a great, great moment in cinema...
...I think, for me.
We're gonna get you out of here and get you home.
Ending this film was a great challenge.
There were so many obvious ways you could end it.
And however you end it, you have to resolve your characters.
As surely as you have to set them up, you have to resolve them, pay them off.
Most of all...
...I wanted it not to feel triumphant.
I wanted it to feel real.
This way.
-Watch your step. -Step.
Careful, sir.
There's something about this story...
...of four armed, desperate young men from Somalia attacking a large ship...
...taking the captain hostage.
Trying to take him back to Somalia before anyone can rescue him.
That speaks to larger forces in our world, I think.
And larger challenges that we face.
It's a crime story, really.
A story of crime and retribution, as all great crime stories should be.
A story from the far edges...
...the far oceans of the global economy.
A story about four men locked out...
...trying to take their prize.
And what it means to an ordinary man.
A man a bit like my father.
A man who'd spent his life at sea.
Can you talk?
-Can you tell me what's going on? -Yeah.
So when he's finally safe...
Are you okay? Because you don't look okay.
...the shock and the confusion...
...is our shock and confusion, I think.
What do we think about what we've seen?
How do we make sense of it?
The guilty have been punished.
The innocent man is free.
The tension is over.
We're gonna put this on, get your heart rate and oxygen level...
-...make sure you're breathing. -Okay.
-I want you to keep doing that, okay? -Gonna put this on your finger.
Can you tell me what happened to your head?
Put it on your finger.
They....
And I think in this scene...
...Tom explores the reality of that.
I want you to look at me and breathe.
-Understand? -Yeah.
Okay, all right.
He dares to explore vulnerability.
Vulnerability with control.
Vulnerability with insight.
The truest power of acting, really.
To make you feel that you're really there.
That you've really lived through it. That it's meant something to you.
But that meaning remaining elusive...
...whilst the personal cost of it is clear and true.
That's brilliant acting for me.
A great way to end, I think.
The only way, as it turned out, to end this film.
You'll be able to call them as soon as you are taken care of.
Sir, I need you to breathe, okay?
You are safe and you are fine.
It's gonna be okay.
Everything's gonna be okay.
That was the question that was asked in the first scene.
That everything is gonna be okay, isn't it?
The men and women of the Truxtun were extraordinary...
...in their commitment to this film.
You ask them, you meet them, you explain what you're trying to do.
And they make a decision. Sometimes they help.
They've helped on some films. They haven't helped on others. It's....
The good thing is that when they help, they're with you a hundred percent...
...as they did in this case.
Richard Phillips came to the set a couple of days into the shoot.
Tom had spent some time with him, quite a bit of time with him, earlier on.
He was a very nice man.
Every inch a Merchant Mariner.
And one of the nicest things of the whole experience...
...was to show him and his wife the film when it was all over.
And I remember Ange, his wife, coming out in floods of tears.
I think she'd found it very, very overwhelming...
...to be taken that close to the experience.
Richard is a very phlegmatic man.
He said, "It's a good movie." He said:
"But it's not the same as having a real gun put at your head."
I think the more you can involve military professionals...
...if your film is set in their world...
...the better chance you've got of authenticity.
And that was certainly the case here, you know?
I think anybody who is familiar with those worlds...
...would say that this is a pretty accurate depiction...
...of how they respond to these kinds of emergencies.
When Barry and I began discussing the movie...
...we initially thought we'd go the digital route.
But in the end, we knew we would be on water.
We knew we would be in a lot of small skiffs.
And I was worried we might have technical problems.
And in the end, we chose to go back to 35.
Although some of the stuff in the skiffs we shot on 16.
Because you get a bigger lens, and a lighter weight.
And it gave us the maneuverability we wanted...
...in very, very dynamic, physical, challenging conditions.
Khat, khat.
Khat is a plant. It's a leaf.
And it's a drug.
It's actually a little bit like a--
Not as strong, but going towards like a coca leaf.
And it's a drug that's ubiquitously used throughout Somalia...
...and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa.
And people who live on the water particularly use it...
...because it combats the effects of seasickness.
I'm pretty good, actually.
Tom and I, we were fine. And, you know, a few of us--
But some people found it very challenging.
But, no, I was all right. I don't really get seasick, luckily.
One of the attractions of the film was working with Tom, from my point of view.
And he and I knew each other...
...and we'd talked about finding something to do.
So when this came up, I jumped at it because I thought--
You know, he was already involved. But I thought he was perfect for the part.
And, you know, I wasn't gonna miss the chance to team up with him.
Tom's just a wonderful actor and a total gentleman, you know?
And he had to put up with a lot on this film.
So I just wanna say a big thank you...
...to everybody who helped us make this film.
And there were many of them.
And this is Paul Greengrass, signing off...
...on the director's commentary for Captain Phillips.