Whalefall director Brian Duffield did not fake the inside of the whale. The 20th Century Studios survival thriller, in theaters now after opening October 16, put Austin Abrams inside a cramped, water-filled practical set and had people pile onto it to sell the moments the whale chews down on him. From the outside it looked strange enough that Disney’s own safety reps were not sure it was safe.
“I remember Disney safety reps would come and just be watching it, saying, ‘I genuinely don’t know if this is safe,'” Duffield told Variety. “But we worked hard, really hard to make sure Austin was safe.”
A Movie Set Stuffed Into A Bag
Abrams plays Jay, a young diver who is swallowed by a sperm whale and has to find a way out before his oxygen tank runs dry. Most of the film happens inside the animal, so the stomach had to be built for real.
Duffield described it as a 360-degree set partly full of water, with every light inside it and the whole thing sitting on a gimbal that rocked during takes. “You take your normal film set footprint and then you put it into a bag,” he said. “And then you also put Austin Abrams into the bag.”
The rubber walls were so thick that Abrams could not hear the crew. For the chewing scenes, a group of what Duffield called “big, burly men” jumped on the set and crushed down while Abrams screamed inside it. That left the director watching a small monitor and hoping the screaming stopped every time he called cut, because a real cry for help would have sounded exactly the same.
Josh Brolin Is Part Of The Whale
Josh Brolin plays Mitt, Jay’s estranged father, and Duffield found a way to tie him to the creature too. At the film’s world premiere, he explained that the team recorded Brolin’s heartbeat to use as the whale’s and gave the whale facial scarring similar to Mitt’s. “It’s just whatever you can do to make it feel as personal as possible,” Duffield said. “Even if it’s something that no one will notice.”
Whalefall is based on Daniel Kraus’s 2023 novel, and Duffield co-wrote the screenplay with him. “The idea of making a movie that had never been made before is always really appealing to me,” Duffield said. “I was really looking for a challenge.”
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