Viggo

Viggo Mortensen in Thirteen Lives reminds Ron Howard of Robert De Niro in Backdraft, the director said at SCAD Savannah Film Festival.

But he started working with the real divers,” Ron Howard said of Mortensen. But later, they all admitted that at some point or another, they all had a near panic attack in the midst of it. All 13 people were rescued from the cave with the help of rescue divers Rick Stanton (Viggo Mortensen), John Volanthen (Colin Farrell), Richard Harris (Joel Edgerton), Chris Jewell (Tom Bateman), and Jason Mallinson (Paul Gleeson). The movie is dedicated to the memory of Saman Kunan, a Thai Navy SEAL who died during the rescue along with fellow SEAL Beirut Pakbara, who died a year later of a blood infection he contracted during the dives. And Viggo Mortensen really operates that way, and he really spent a lot of time with Rick Stanton.” He wasn’t changing a lot of dialogue or doing a lot of improvisation, but he was creating through discovery.