Interview: Mandy Moore and Claire Holt Take Us 47 METERS DOWN

Out in theaters this weekend is the shark-themed horror film 47 Meters Down, which stars Mandy Moore and Claire Holt as sisters who end up in a fight for survival after an underwater expedition goes horribly awry. Daily Dead had the chance to speak with both actresses about the challenges of their ambitious roles in the project, and they discussed how they handled the physicality of working primarily while submerged in 20 feet of water, and more.

Look for 47 Meters Down in theaters everywhere this Friday, and keep an eye out for more on the film later this week right here on Daily Dead.

Can you talk about what went into the making of this film? How long were you submerged in water, how long were you in a cage? It seems like it was very demanding.

Claire Holt: Eight weeks, eight hours a day. We had a week above water in the Dominican Republic, but the majority of this film, 95% or 90%, is underwater and we did do that all.

Mandy Moore: Yeah.

Claire Holt: We had a crash course in diving. We spent an afternoon in the pool and then we went off the coast and did two open-water dives. Then, we were really thrown in the deep end. It was tough and exhausting and really physically draining, but I think we both really bonded over the experience and had each other's backs. When you're the only two people underwater who can communicate with each other, it's necessary. You have to rely on each other. So it was grueling, but totally worth it, I think.

Mandy Moore: Same. I don't think either of us realized how physically taxing it was going to be, just all that time underwater. Even just the littlest movements, or the seemingly simple days. We would get out at lunchtime, and I'm not usually a napper, and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I was so exhausted. You just expend so much energy. And there was so much screaming and hyperventilating and fast movements, so it was exhausting physically, and emotionally, in that sense, too, in a way that I didn't expect.

But also, I was excited about the challenge. Like Claire said, when we both initially read the script, it was like, "Wow, I've never seen a movie like this before that takes place primarily underwater." In that sense, we were kind of guinea pigs. Because no one knew what effects eight weeks every day underwater were going to have.

How would you say your apprehension levels were going into something like this? Because if they tell you, "We're going to throw you in a cage and submerge you," it sounds a lot like how Houdini went out [laughs]?

Mandy Moore: You're right, I didn't think of that. We were both excited by the challenge. It would only be human nature to have a bit of apprehension, but I think we really trusted the process and trusted all of the crew and everyone working behind the scenes that they had.

Claire Holt: It wouldn't be a good look if they killed the two actresses, so we figured we'd probably be okay [laughs]. But, you know, I was certainly apprehensive. I knew how hard it was going to be. I had had some experience underwater before, not scuba diving, but filming in a tank, and I knew how exhausting it was. So I was definitely nervous, but I think we also, by the end of it, had a real affinity for it, and it was calm at times.

Mandy Moore: Yeah, we could last on a tank of air down there, depending on how much we were exerting ourselves, like an hour, hour and fifteen minutes or something, so it wasn't tons and tons of shooting time, necessarily, underwater. But when we weren't shooting, Claire and I were the only ones that could communicate with each other because of these masks. The rest of the underwater crew had the regular regulators and masks, so they couldn't talk to us. The director had a microphone and we had an underwater speaker, so that's how we communicated with him. But we couldn't really talk to anyone but each other, and so when we weren't shooting, we just would sort of float there and it was very meditative, almost. It was a weird juxtaposition of trying to conserve our energy to be able to really give it in the moments that we needed to.

How different is your approach to your performances underwater versus when you're landlocked? Do you have to change your physicality at all?

Claire Holt: It's very different. I don't think we really knew how it would be. We had the majority of our face covered by this mask. We didn't know what would read, we didn't know how big we had to be or whether it was too much, too little, and as an actor you're always conscious of measuring your performance and having peaks and valleys. We really relied on each other with that. You know, "Was that too much? Did I overdo that, or could you read that?" It was really difficult. And the mask obviously has glass on the front, so the lights would reflect and you had to position your face in a certain way, too.

Mandy Moore: It got really technical in a way that you're not used to as an actor, because usually you're like, "Ah, I don't want to think about any of that stuff. I'm just going to do it." But in this case, there was a lot of, "Okay, we're going to do that one more time, and tilt your head down, or tilt it back." And you're already underwater and everything's so cumbersome. Those masks were like 20 pounds, and it would hurt your neck, and the BCD [buoyancy control device] and the tank were another 40 pounds. Granted, you're floating, but it's still cumbersome.

We would have like a little mock, rickety wooden cage and we would go in and just do these bare-bones rehearsals and figure out the choreography. But then you get down there, and it all goes out the window. It just completely changes and you end up doing what feels right.

It seems like Johannes [Roberts] is a director that asks a lot of his actors. Were there any moments during all that time spent underwater when it got a little frightening?

Mandy Moore: I was scared when you had to take off your mask and your BCD.

Claire Holt: Yeah, that was pretty scary.

Mandy Moore: She was such a badass about it. She was like, "Oh, you need it again? Oh, one more time?" We were 20 feet underwater, which is still 20 feet underwater, and she took off her mask and she took off her BCD, and then swims through the thing and I hand it to her, and you did that so many times. And then you have to be able to get your mask back on and clear it in order to breathe again, and I don't know how you did that. I was really freaked out for you.

Claire Holt: I was pretty nervous at the beginning when I thought about doing that. But like I said, we just had really great people around us and I knew that I would always be safe, and I knew that someone may be there to stick a regulator in my mouth if I couldn't clear my mask, or if I was running out of air. We were really well taken care of in that sense. Then also, Johannes would absolutely understand if we were like, "You know what, this is enough. We're too tired or we're too exhausted, or we don't have any more." He’d stop whenever we needed to.

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In case you missed it, check out Heather's review of 47 Meters Down, as well as her interview with co-stars Mandy Moore and Claire Holt.

[Photo credit: Above photo by Matt Humphrey.]