Tom Hanks went ‘bug-eyed’ with terror filming intense Captain Phillips scene: ‘Holding real guns in our faces’

https://ew.com/tom-hanks-felt-terror-filming-captain-phillips-scene-8740391

13 comments

  1. > “Four of the scariest human beings I have ever met come in, and they are screaming at us,” Hanks told host Conan O’Brien. “They are slapping us. They are hitting us. They are pushing us down, and they’re holding real guns in our faces, screaming at us. It was honestly — we are all bug-eyed with some form of terror. Even though we know it’s a movie, that is removed because — guess what? — we all went there.”

    > “We’re overweight, old, middle-aged guys who are gonna be taken over by these pirates,” Hanks explained, “and we have never met the guys who play the pirates. We don’t know who they are. All we know is that they are coming, because the way [director] Paul Greengrass shot that, he had cameras on us and cameras on the four guys, [Barkhad Abdi, Mahat M. Ali, Barkhad Abdirahman, and Faysal Ahmed] — all the guys. We have never met them, and they are firing automatic blanks, you know, machine guns. We hear all this stuff that’s going on. We don’t see anything until the camera outside the bridge of the Maersk Alabama.”

  3. when you get the good columbian stuff before the shot 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

  4. When done right it’s a good move to keep the actors in the dark a little bit IMO. Several instances in movies where they did this and it’s worked out. Of course you’re scared if you don’t know what’s going on, why make them act it a second time to recreate what you already did the first time lol

    Edit: Grammar

  5. Tom Hanks was amazing in Captain Phillips, an incredible performance especially during its final minutes

  6. I really don’t like going into detail about it online, but as someone who is otherwise a pretty normal person, I got wrapped up in some nasty shit when I was younger. A few instances in which ended with a police raid or an armed robbery. Both ended with me having guns in my face and not knowing if I would live another 10 minutes.

    I’ve never seen a movie or actor that portrays the shock and terror of being in a situation like that better than Tom Hanks did here.

    The scene after they save him where he’s being patched up while still in shock and there’s just like, 5 straight minutes of just watching his face switch back and forth from catatonic despondency and a deep down need to just sob and scream Is legitimately one of the most difficult things I’ve ever watched. And I like Gaspar Noe movies.

    It’s genuinely one of the most haunting and realistic scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie like this. Just brilliant acting and brilliant direction.

  8. This was on Conan. Expect it to be mined for another 15 articles.

  9. He was quoted as saying “it felt like spending the weekend at Alec Baldwin’s house.”

  10. Just in case anybody here works in Hollywood, you should know that you don’t have to use real guns as movie props. We’re not taken out of the story by props. No one is sitting there studying them to make sure they pass the smell test. We’re in a movie, you can use a fake gun, it’s fine.

  11. Just a reminder the movie was largely fiction. Captain Phillips was the villain not a hero. He put the crew in danger with his decisions and was sued by them.

    *Nine of the former 20 crew members of the container ship are suing the ship’s owner, Maersk Line Limited, and the operator, Waterman Steamship Corporation, claiming Phillips put their lives in jeopardy and behaved like anything but a hero.*

    *Even more damaging, they claim Phillips ignored maritime warnings — including one issued two days before the pirates stormed their vessel, to stay at least 600 miles from the Somali coast because of a rash of attacks — to keep on schedule.*

    [https://nypost.com/2013/10/13/crew-members-deny-captain-phillips-heroism/](https://nypost.com/2013/10/13/crew-members-deny-captain-phillips-heroism/)

  12. 4th article in recent weeks that comes from Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast. It’s gotten to the point that if you listen to enough podcasts you don’t need other entertainment news.

  13. Tom’s acting at the end of the movie when ship’s doctor (who I read was not an actor, but an actual doctor) is checking his vital is just spectacular.

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