Mark Wahlberg Sits Down With His 'Deepwater Horizon' Real-Life Counterpart | The Influencers | TIME

Mike, what disappointed you when you heard he was playing you in the movie at first? Actually, I was a little disappointed. What did you expect? The first thing was that you know Die Hard. I'm thinking about the guy who blows things up and always survives and gets the girl and all that kind of stuff and I was thinking there's no way why Mark Walberg would be interested in my story, men and women who go out and do jobs that They are not as glamorous and they do things that are dangerous. and doing things that in my opinion are quite extraordinary, are very fascinating to me, those are the type of stories that attract me and the type of things that I like to be a part of, it's funny that when this project first started. came up I didn't know that, as a filmmaker, anyone could write a story about a bunch of redneck guys who are out there working hard for a living after talking to you at the beginning, when you saw the 60 Minutes piece. and Pete had that great conversation about you know, that's the story.

I walked out the door and thought, I've accomplished what I set out to accomplish. I got out at least now I can breathe. I may die here, but I can breathe every

time

I remember something about the Deep Sea Horizon. It's always like it's registered with the natural disaster. BP now admits that more than 5,000 barrels a day leave. This spill is already the second worst environmental spill in the United States. recorded disaster I never recorded the fact that you know 11 people lost their lives When did you start working on a platform? I went offshore the first

time

in 2006.

It was exciting, it was fascinating. We do dangerous work, but it's usually controlled, uh, obviously, tonight we lost control, it happens, it is and I won't say it won't happen again because it probably will. I was trying to figure it out for myself if they would just take the extra time and spend the extra money. they would have saved a considerable amount I have to tell myself every day that they made the best decisions they could with the information they had so far they still don't know that all the evidence is in 5,000 feet of water um and of course completely destroyed, we were opening roads and completing tasks that had never been done before, anything that came up in the pit, of course, they would record it, write it down and send it back to the city and build regulations based on what we knew we were.

Figuring out the regulations as we drill Mark I. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the kind of emotional experience of connecting with this character, especially after meeting the

real

guy right after I met Mike and you know, I convinced him to would come and work on the film with us. So I had the privilege of meeting Sydney and Felicia and then

real

ly understanding their drive and their desire to get home to those two, it was quite re

mark

able and then of course being on set had to see certain things recreated and then it came to the set and saw me with the wounds and injuries that Mike had suffered.

You know, his daughter crying. You know he didn't want to look at me and those things were very difficult. Very powerful, what was the most difficult part for you in making the film? That's a very good question, by far the hardest part for me was and forgive me for putting it this way, but allowing Pete to show these 11 men. Parish, had no firsthand knowledge of any of the situations they were in, other than he knew the area of ​​the platform they were on. It's all up to interpretation, giving that information to Pete and then allowing him to put his creative skills and talents into play.

For me, that was difficult. I'm a nut, you know, the math kind that allows for someone's creativity. Showing how those people were killed was probably the hardest thing for me, maybe Mike, you could talk a little bit about what it was like. I wish you had endured something so incredibly hellish and then discovered that the public narrative is completely misaligned with the experience you just had, so earlier you said about the environmental impact and that was the main thrust of the story you were getting and then, once they finally stopped the oil, the story just kind of faded away and the new cycle changed to honor those 11 men with this project, um, for me, it's back in the spotlight as we speak right now, there are men. and women on the high seas putting their lives on the line so we can do what we do, driving in cars, flying in airplanes and all that kind of stuff, giving that attention back to these 11 men who lost their lives is vitally important to me. . that was our main focus, the loss of human

life

and honoring those people, the extraordinary things that you and they did to survive and help others survive, was incredible and to me I find that such an inspiring and heroic hero is not a It's not a badge I even want to wear.

What we did that night was react to a very bad situation. You will either fight it or flee. Most of us choose to fight, so for me the term hero. This is irrelevant, we were doing our job, we were doing everything we could to save as many people as possible. I hope most people did the same.