LOS ANGELES – Days after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, actress Naomi Watts took part in a fundraising telethon spearheaded by George Clooney to help the region’s hundreds of thousands of people in 14 nations whose lives were shattered. Report by Reuters
Little did Watts know that eight years later she would be starring in The Impossible, out in the United States movie theatres today, about a real family’s experience in Thailand. The tsunami and earthquake killed more than 5 000 people, and resulted in 2 800 missing in that country alone.
Yet when the actress was first approached to star in the film, directed by Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona, she hesitated.
“I thought, how do you make a movie about a tsunami without it becoming some sort of spectacular disaster movie?” Watts (44) said. “That would be so wrong.”
However, once Watts read the script, she said was moved by the story based on the real-life Spanish family of Maria Belon, her husband Enrique Alvarez – played by Ewan McGregor in the movie – and their three sons.
Belon’s family were spending their Christmas holiday in Thailand when the tsunami hit. The film follows their struggle to survive, injured and separated, in the aftermath and their perseverance in finding each other amid the chaos.
“I felt a huge amount of pressure because of the responsibility to Maria’s story,” said Watts. “And on her back, she carries the stories of everybody else because hers is connected to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. I felt a sense of responsibility.”
