@Courtesy of Disney
Q: Trudy Ederle isn’t someone that we know a lot about. What was the creative freedom that that gave you in interpreting and how you wanted to play her?
Daisy Ridley: For me it was amazing playing someone who did something amazing and should be honored and remembered. But you’re right, there’s not that much out there. I did as much research as possible, so in that way it’s wonderful to play someone that was real but also to have that freedom. It was helpful finding how I wanted to play her. I got to have my way of doing it, which was nice. All of the tenacity and the determination and the unwillingness to take no for an answer that she must have had felt obviously like the bedrock of her. What I loved particularly tho was creating the relationship with her family, because we do know that they were very close, but to actually live those relationships and live those intimacies between them all and us finding that between ourselves, it felt a very natural way, was really wonderful. It’s wonderful to play someone that was real, but at the same time to have that freedom. What she did was so amazing for society, but also I did want to honor the part of her that just loved to swim and had her own ambition.
Q: Trudy is the lens for the audience. How did the idea of centering everything through her shape the way that you thought about directing this movie?
Joachim Rønning: There’s always a great responsibility when you make a true story. I’ve done a couple of biopics in my career and I love them. I love history. I think especially a person like Trudy Ederle deserves to be brought back into the light, so in that sense it was very important telling the story through her eyes. Trudy can be a little bit tricky to identify with because she’s so strong and focused and looking ahead, so in regards to what Daisy was talking about tried to use her family to know her a little better: seeing the strength of the mother, the love and support of the sister, and then the opposition in the father.
Q: Her sister is the person that grounds her and centers her whenever she’s feeling powerless. That was one of the things that was really important to you in the story, so what are the conversations you all about figuring out how to make that the core of this story?
Daisy Ridley: When I read the script I loved it. That was the part of the story that I felt really drawn to. I’ve never had a sister on screen, I have two sisters and they are the lights of my life. Being a sister is so integral to my identity. It was a blessing to find Tilda Cobham-Hervey for the role of Meg. She met my real sister in London, it was so sweet to see the two of them together. It’s interesting because in many ways Trudy has freedom that Meg doesn’t have. Trudy is overcoming so much in a social way, while Meg isn’t able to because she doesn’t have the natural talent of swimming, so she actually has to do all of the things that Trudy doesn’t have to do: she gets married, she has to stay at home.That representation of the two of them, two totally opposing parts of what it was like for women back then, when Meg is was representing 99 .9 % of the women. I got to have so many beautiful moments with Tilda. Meg is the barometer of Trudy and Tilda was that barometer for me.
Joachim Rønning: I agree to all of that. Casting this movie was an amazing experience because of the story and the amazing script by Jeff Nathanson based on Glenn Stout’s book. I felt I could pick top shelf people in all the roles, building the family around Daisy with Kim Bodnia and Jeanette Hein as well. It was such a joy on set and out on the ocean, when we were out there in the water swimming for real. We did as much as we could out there for weeks, just having them on the boat so we were able to create that sense of family on set and hopefully in the movie.
@Courtesy of Disney
Q: How not being an adept swimmer did shape figuring out the skill set?
Daisy Ridley: I was not a huge swimmer. I remember the first session everyone thought I was joking, I tried to do a 20 meter length and stood up halfway and was like: “What have I done?” I trained really hard with an amazing coach, an Olympic Silver Medal, Siobhan O’Connor. I trained with her for a couple months and then we flew to Bulgaria but we carried on training. I was able to train with Tilda, it was really a beautiful way of building that chemistry. So much of the film I was in the water by myself, so to be with someone it felt like being part of a team.
We’re seeing Trudy alone but she is standing on the shoulders of all the people around her, that was beautiful. When I was in the sea, I would look and I could see Kim and Stephen and Tilda on the boat. I always felt part of something, even though I felt isolated in the water. In the training process, it was a similar thing being able to look to the right or left of me and have Tilda, it was such a beautiful feeling. Trudy had those people around her encouraging her, otherwise it just would have been insurmountable. During the shooting there was a lot that I had to overcome to do it but I had this amazing team around me building me up. It was fantastic. About Trudy’s style of swimming, Siobhan figured out how she swam like that and how to translate that to me.
Q: How did you make directing choices that we’re going to capture that specific team effort?
Joachim Rønning: That’s what’s so amazing with this story: you’re tracking all of these storylines you know, editing them together because you need to be invested in each storyline. They need to come at different spots, telling different parts of the story so we’re not forgetting about these characters while she’s out there swimming. That was in the script, for the most part as a director you bring your changes here and there. We always keep changing all the way into editing and post -production, and then you put Amelia Warner’s music on it and suddenly you realize this is moving. I hope that somehow the audience can feel that we did do it for real.
Q: How did that play into the real-life logistics of filming in the open water?
Joachim Rønning: Moviemaking is challenging, this is why it has a lot of ambitious people involved. Out there, you’re exposed to the elements, the currents, the winds, some days in the water it’s 60, 61 degrees, your lips become blue and you have to do it again. That’s chaos that also translates into the camera. The beauty of that is that there’s something real about it. Daisy has been the best partner I could ever had. I don’t think many people, men or women, could do what she did out there, delivering lines and acting and being emotional and ready to go again. It was just amazing.
I’m a big believer in being alone with the character every now and then, not saying anything really, just having the audience put themselves into that situation. I wanted to be with Trudy. we needed to be with her, we needed to be in there and see what she’s thinking. In any movie the panic attack arrives half a year before filming, when you have no idea how you’re going to do anything. Then as you move closer and closer to the shooting you become more and more prepared On this film In particular, there were many moments where we were scouting these beaches that she was going to land and they were washed away in the storm, or it was snowing when we were supposed to shoot there in a couple of weeks. Then suddenly you’re there at night and it’s not snowing, and you see all these people walking out onto the beach and suddenly it’s just magic. You get there and you pat yourself on the back and it’s another day.
@Courtesy of Disney
Q: The storyline with her mom is a very quiet and gentle part of the movie. How did you want to direct those scenes to really make the audience connect to these two characters?
Joachim Rønning: It’s the big part of the core of the movie, the mother-daughter relationship representing two different generations. It all started with getting Jeannette time to play Gertrude. She was such a force on set, Daisy loved working with her and creating that relationship together with her.
Daisy Ridley: Jeanette helped so much because she was the bedrock of the set. Whenever Jeanette was at work, I was just thrilled because she’s so stable amongst everything. Tilda and I were able to almost play around this amazing central woman. I remember that filming the scene of Gertrude’s revelations was so wonderful and heartbreaking, but there was so little necessary because it was enough just being there with Jeannette. As a woman as an actress she’s so transformative and transporting, even looking at her face when she is not speaking. Jeanette was just the most perfect central point, she was our North Star.
Q: What did you experience shooting that last very moment in the film?
Daisy Ridley: The last thing we filmed in the sea was a long shot where Joachim just asked me to swim as long as I could. There was a real elation when I finished that, coming out of the water. Elation, not as much. It was really cold. I had a lot of help, I could not stop shaking out of that cold, doing it again and again. But having that amazing moment of seeing all the people at the beach: everyone was so present, so available, an amazing group of people who were there as part of Trudy’s journey, as part of our journey.
@Courtesy of Disney
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