Chris Pine and Casey Affleck on Playing Non-Brooding Heroes in 'The Finest Hours'
- Details
- Category: Interviews
- Published: Monday, 25 January 2016 23:11
- Written by Lupe Rodriguez Haas
In THE FINEST HOURS, Chris Pine and Casey Affleck play real-life heroes who saved over 30 men during a blizzard in Cape Cod in 1952. As the heroes of THE FINEST HOURS, both actors are low-key in their performances, but the two actors say the real men were actually not the brooding kind nor hard-edged heroes like the modern day James Bond or superheroes we see today. Instead they took on a different approach and played the characters as old-fashion heroes in a film that's a throwback to a more innocent time.
On February 18, 1952, a massive nor’easter struck New England, pummeling towns along the Eastern Seaboard and wreaking havoc on anything caught in its destructive path, including two 500-foot oil tankers. Chris Pine plays Bernie Webber, a U.S. Coast Guard coxswain ordered to go out with a three man crew on a CG36500 lifeboat to look for survivors in the dangerous storm. Casey Affleck is the senior officer on an oil tanker ripped in half by the storm, tasked with keeping the ship afloat and the men alive until help can get to them.
During a Los Angeles press event for THE FINEST HOURS, the actors talked about their approach to their characters. Both Pine and Affleck wanted to portray average men doing "great things." Pine says modern day heroes are too bogged down in angst.
"I loved the character who is wide-eyed, soft non-hard-edged hero. Nowadays, everything is so… even James Bond, for god sake, is brooding. There’s a simple elegance to the story that was without the usual 2016 Freudian complications that seem to bog everything down so heavy-handed, so dark in the world that it’s kind of nice to have some escapism, I think."
Casey Affleck also reiterated the same idea of his approach to his character.
“The characters are drawn in such a way they sort of embody some of that idea of what virtue is and old-fashion courage and selflessness you would expect from someone in that position. He doesn’t do it in a kind of chest pounding, barking orders kind of a way. He does it in a very, quiet, thoughtful, intelligent way.”
Their co-star Ben Foster added that being pummeled with cold water throughout the shoot wasn't difficult in comparison to what the real men endured.
"We’re actors. We make believe for a living. That’s our job. We’re here to represent people who have very difficult jobs. And the men and women that we are representing… that’s a noble profession. The privilege and the challenge for us is trying to represent that spirit or value system respectfully."
Catch the heroic action-thriller based on the remarkable true story of the most daring rescue mission in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard when THE FINEST HOURS opens January 29th.