Chatting With The Cast of Disney’s The Finest Hours!

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I had the pleasure of being invited to a press junket for Disney’s newest film The Finest Hours. At the junket I had to pleasure to interview the director Craig Gillespie and a few of the film’s stars: Chris Pine (Bernie Webber), Ben Foster (Richard Livesey), Casey Affleck (Ray Sybert), Holliday Grainger (Miriam).

The Finest Hours shows three aspects of the rescue mission: 1, the crew on The Pendleton; 2, the rescue crew; 3, the people on land. I had asked Director Craig Gillespie if there was ever a time that the film would not show the aspect of the people on land. Mr. Gillespie responds: “There was always the three stories and of course the one story is a love story with Holliday and Chris. Not to say that wasn’t nerve racking because I was always concerned. Y’know we’ve got these epic backdrops happening with Casey’s character and with Chris’ character.” He continues, “… (A)ll the way up until I screened the film that was a concern, if the audience would want to stop and go there and it actually seemed to be the most powerful element to the film. It sort’ve grounded everything and it really made you y’know be invested in Bernie and his journey.”

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Casey Affleck provides a real nuanced and in depth performance as Ray Sybert, an engineer that approaches survival on The Pendleton Tanker with logic rather than panic. Casey talks about how for him it was all about “… constructing a character that would be interesting in this part of the movie. That would contrast with other things around him. And Craig (the director) is a little bit like that. The director himself. I have this theory that sometimes actors absorb personality traits of the director because they are with him so much.” Casey then goes on to describe the director, “He (Craig Gilliseppe) is a bit understated himself. Even when (stuff) is hitting the fan, he has a kind of very flat approach to things. So I like to imitate him a little bit.”

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Casey also talks about a ping pong tournament between the cast and crew of 200. And unabashedly Mr. Affleck reveals that the winner of the giant tournament was himself. “Some of these guys hated to lose to an actor, but I destroyed them.” He also mentioned that one prize was he got to keep the board which tracked all of the names and winners, “I get to see all of the people that I beat on the way to the top.” When asked who his final opponent was, Casey responded: “Some poor (guy) who I can’t remember his name but he didn’t stand a chance.”

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When asked how he felt about Disney films, Casey said, “I think they’re great and for a long time I wanted to do one. I like the wholesomeness of it all. I really like what Disney does. How they have stuck to a set of values and to supporting those values and to um being inclusive with those values and I can’t think of any other entity that has committed to themselves in such a way to not just like profit but sustaining a value system.”

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Holliday Grainger plays Miriam, fiancé to Bernie Weber. Holliday’s Miriam is headstrong and determined but also holds the same values shared among most 1950’s women. Of those values, marriage is most important. So important in fact that she has a specific date picked out. I has a chance to ask her about the significance of that date. Despite this being a key scene in the film Holliday said this about the date’s importance, “We never quite decided.” She learned in the research that there was a date and the scene in question did actually occur, though the date is different in the film. “It must have been an important date for her somewhere along the line. Maybe a grandmother’s birthday or something. An important family date. And for her it’s like the family values of marriage and bringing together, it must’ve been a date for her that meant that.”

Chris Pine and Ben Foster both portray Coastguardsmen and real life heroes, but professed how humbled they were playing men who didn’t want a pat on the back. Chris talked about how people back in the film’s era were different saying of the film: “(It) speaks to a quality of a human being that – y’know, all of us go the Golden Globes want to get our picture taken. These are like not those guys.”

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Ben and Chris also talked about the real boat that was used in the rescue and spoke to how solid this small boat felt when compared to the modern boats used by the coast guard these days. Chris stated: “Old (seamen) say that they would rather, or so I have heard, would rather a wooden hold made boat than the newer steel boats.” Ben chimed with the point that “The Pendleton split in half.” To which Chris continued that, “Yeah a three or four story tanker split in half and this little boat did fine and ended up carrying 32 people when it should’ve only been able to carry 12.”

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Chris said in closing, “Ben was saying there are men and women all over the world every day in our communities that help, that serve and protect. There are firemen and EMTS, there’s teachers that help raise kids, there’s marines abroad, naval officers abroad. I mean people do this for a living. All we do is come in and play make believe and hope to make a story that resonates with people so people know that doing good and doing right and doing good and right without getting a pat on the back is good and right.”

THE FINEST HOURS opens in theatres everywhere on January 29th!

For more info on the film visit the official THE FINEST HOURS website here: http://movies.disney.com/the-finest-hours

Photos courtesy of Disney Studios.

Jesse Delia

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