He started with Phillips' 2010 book, A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, written with Stephan Talty. In addition, his commitment to the authenticity of his narrative required 'a process of a lot of reading and studying,' he said. 'But in reality, there's hardly any.'Īs he usually does, Greengrass made extensive use of hand-held cameras - which provide some flexibility. 'You'd imagine that, in one of those enormous container ships, there'd be lots of room,' the director said. It was all living and breathing right in front of you.'įilming aboard a ship, rather than in a studio, posed some challenges.

We all had this enormous resource on board. So the 25-odd actors - from Tom down to those playing the crew - could have an equivalent person who was part of the real crew. By 7:45, the ship would be under power and operating. 'We used to go out at 7:30 in the morning. 'It's an identical sister ship to the Alabama,' Greengrass said. The ship crew of merchant mariners continued to operate the vessel during filming. The filmmakers managed to secure the container ship Maersk Alexander to stand in for the Maersk Alabama. Most of the film was shot during 60 days on open water near Malta - which, Greengrass noted, 'has deep-water ports so that you can get straight out into the proper ocean in literally 10 minutes' - and near Virginia (because 'That was where we could get the U.S. 'They hadn't met even moments before or even seen each other,' Greengrass said. The two leads met for the first time on the bridge of the ship, filming the scene in which the hijackers board the vessel. Hanks is a two-time Academy Award winner Abdi - like the three men who play Muse's crew - is a first-timer cast after an extensive search among the Somali-American community in Minneapolis, the largest of its type in America. 'I felt, from first to last, that it was at heart a story of two captains from very different worlds,' Greengrass said. The comparative affluence of Phillips' Vermont home, shown as he prepares for his fated voyage, is contrasted with the poverty of the seaside town of Eyl, Somalia, where henchmen of a warlord select Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse (Barkhad Abdi) to lead a crew of men on a piracy mission. Greengrass' cinematic landscape in the film isn't limited to the waters off the African coast. 'Ultimately,' he continued, 'they take the captain instead, and they are hunted down. Speaking by phone, Greengrass pointed out that, despite the title, the film extends beyond the story of Phillips to that of 'four young men who steal a ship - and it goes wrong.' 'But in the story, it is given an incredibly easy, accessible, human, concrete focus.' United 93, in particular, demonstrated his ability to reconstruct a real-life drama without having it seem at all 'Hollywood.'Ĭaptain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks as the title character and set for release on Friday, centers on 'kidnap, piracy, international crime,' Greengrass said. Capitol but ultimately crashed in Shanksville, Pa. 11, 2001, was hijacked by terrorists who wanted to send it into the U.S. He wrote and directed United 93 (2006), a harrowing dramatization of the flight that, on Sept. He scored hits with The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) by using a guerrilla-style film unit to follow Matt Damon on the run through crowded European streets. Hollywood immediately began a battle for the rights to Phillips' story, with British director Paul Greengrass taking the prize.Ī former documentarian, Greengrass has built a reputation as a master of taut, complicated dramas that rely on the immediacy of documentary filming techniques. The leader of the hijackers survived and, in 2011 was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison. The ship's captain, Richard Phillips, was held hostage for five days on a lifeboat before being rescued in a daring operation staged by Navy SEALs.

flag - the Maersk Alabama - carrying food aid en route to Kenya. In April 2009, four Somali pirates operating a high-speed skiff and brandishing assault rifles boarded and hijacked a commercial cargo ship with a U.S.

Captain phillips somali pirates