With the movie “Last Breath” due to hit theaters this weekend, actor Simu Liu recently went into more detail about the extensive training he did to portray a saturation diver.
In the latest issue of “Renegades,” an email newsletter published by Gold House that spotlights “Asian Pacific leaders and creatives who are carving their own paths and defying stereotypes along the way,” Liu talks about the film that’s tells the story of saturation diver Chris Lemons, who became trapped deep in the ocean.
Starring Liu, Woody Harrelson and Finn Cole, “Last Breath” is based on a 2019 documentary of the same name.
Liu said of his training:
“I knew that training underwater would be a big part of preparation for the role, and I think that the types of roles — particularly for Finn’s character and my character — were so demanding that if there was even a shred of hesitancy, we wouldn’t have been the right actors for it. But thankfully, from the first day I got in the water with Finn, we both looked at each other and were like ‘This is perfect,’ and the partnership and bond that we have will be perfect for mutually pushing each other to keep going.
“We trained for many weeks in not just scuba diving but saturation diving, which uses very specialized equipment and in many ways is a lot more difficult. And it was an incredible experience that I think I’ll take with me for the rest of my life, in how unique it was.”
Liu admitted he didn’t know much about the story before being hired to play the role of David Yuasa, Lemons’ dive buddy:
“I don’t think I had any awareness to the story or even the entire occupation of saturation diving before being sent the script, but after I read it and after I watched Alex’s documentary which was released in 2019, I was absolutely hooked. I think it was just so incredible to me that there were thousands of people around the world who chose to subject themselves to these conditions as a profession, and for many of them, they’ve been doing it for decades.
“It’s a very old profession and requires a very, very particular type of person, and I just found that so endlessly fascinating. The more I learned, the more eager I was to do it. It was just such a fulfilling experience: to get to bring that documentary and [director Alex Parkinson’s] vision to life in a narrative capacity; and to get to play this really incredible character and be part of telling this really amazing story of human survival, perseverance, resilience and camaraderie.”
“Last Breath” premieres in theaters today. Check out the trailer for the movie below.
