True Spirit: “Jessica’s story is incredibly inspirational”

On Friday Teagan Croft stars as 16 year old Australian Jessica Watson, who became the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe non-stop and unassisted.

Her 2009-10 sail drew international headlines.

Director / Writer Sarah Spillane told TV Tonight why Netflix’s True Spirit was an important story to tell and the challenges of creating ocean scenes.

Jessica Watson’s sail was an amazing achievement, and we remember in news stories. How does the film expand on the personal story behind the headlines?
SS: I was able to spend some quality time with Jessica during my research and got to know her as a person as well as learn about the specifics of her journey. As a storyteller for screen I look for nuances within a character and story, for example her motivation, and how the journey changed her philosophically and emotionally. I was able to portray this viscerally in True Spirit and address themes surrounding family and nature by using one of the greatest metaphors in storytelling history (dating back to Homer’s Odyssey) – the ocean.

How involved was Jessica Watson in the production? Did she attend shooting?
SS: Jessica and I spent a lot of time together before I wrote the script and during pre-production where she served as a technical (sailing) advisor. When it came to the actual shooting Jessica was able to hand over the reins and trusted us to do what we do – make the movie. So she didn’t spend a lot of time on set but to be honest, she probably would have grown bored with the unglamourous reality of set life.

Survival and endurance movies are usually about the battle with the elements, and the character within. Is that what viewers can expect to see?
SS: We certainly address battles with the elements and how that affects the character within. I think what makes this story unique is that the character within is a sixteen-year-old girl alone at sea. One of the greatest challenges for any sailor attempting a solo circumnavigation is the psychological impact when there is no wind. The intense loneliness, isolation, and monotony, is what breaks many sailors as opposed to terrifying weather conditions. We were able to dig deep into this from a young person’s perspective which I think is incredibly timely due to the recent Covid pandemic that saw many people experiencing intense isolation.

A solo sail sounds like a challenging narrative given there are no other characters at sea?
SS: Ummmm – ya! When I was first approached to tell this story I was kind of intimidated and thought how on earth can I make this compelling for screen? But the more time I spent with Jessica, then researched how her journey affected so many people around the world, the more I realised how important it was to bring Jessica’s story to an even wider audience. Not only is Jessica’s story incredibly inspirational, it’s also very spiritual and emotional. So for me it was about taking some cinematic license where necessary, and juxtaposing characters and events on land with what was going on at sea to really bring out these themes and emotion.

How did you shoot ocean scenes? Is it a mix of actual with horizon tank / CGI?
SS: We only shot on the actual ocean for two or three days. Which was just as well because everyone except for our DP Danny Ruhlmann and me became horrendously seasick! The rest of the scenes set on the ocean where a combination of SFX rigs and water tank. We built a huge gimbal in the carpark of the Village Roadshow studios that was surrounded by enormous blue screens and massive dump (water) tanks. It seriously looked like a ride in an amusement park. We came up with a wave scale (between 1-5) to describe the ocean during every water scene in the movie. So any exterior boat shot that was a level 1 or 2 (no wind or smooth sailing) was shot on the water tank, and every scene that was a level 3 or above was shot on the gimbal and required CG waves. We also built three huge rigs on the sound stage that we used for the interiors. One was an airbag rig that we used for levels 1-3 then we had a rotisserie rig that could roll side to side and rotate a full 180 degrees, then we had a breach rig that flipped the interior from bow to stern so that Teagan was hanging upside down from the roof (strapped to her bunk bed).

Tell us about Teagan Croft and the cast.
SS: Teagan’s audition was literally the first audition I watched, once we were officially underway, and I just couldn’t get past her. I went through the process though and watched hundreds of other auditions and met with a bunch of fantastic young actors but I knew from that first self-tape that Teagan was the one. It was almost like she set this benchmark that no one ever else was able to touch.

After I cast Teagan, our work process was kind of unique because of COVID. I’m a big fan of rehearsals and like to spend time talking about the character, backstory, and nuances within scenes and sequences. For True Spirit, a lot of us had to spend two weeks in hotel quarantine when traveling to the Gold Coast due to the Australian COVID protocols at the time. The upside for me was that Teagan was my captive audience. We were able to connect on Zoom every single day for two weeks, almost completely uninterrupted by the usual demands of pre-production. It allowed us to gain a great rapport and trust, and really talk through the character and the complexities of a lot of these sequences on a creative level – and sometimes also on a technical level because Teagan is incredibly smart and she’s very interested in those elements.

I have been a long-term admirer of Anna Paquin, going back to The Piano and then of course her more recent work, like True Blood. She has children of her own so when we first connected we talked about that as well as a lot of the shared values we have, so I immediately knew she was a great fit. I felt this natural protectiveness of the other characters when she stepped into that maternal role of Julie Watson within the storyline. We struggled a bit with the casting of Jessica’s dad, Roger Watson, so I was thrilled when we found Josh Lawson. Josh is so nuanced and had such a range of performances with great vulnerability. I watched a lot of his work and felt he was the perfect fit for Roger.

Similar to Teagan, I applied the same style of pre-production with Anna Paquin and Josh Lawson, who played Jessica’s parents, because both Anna and Josh were also in quarantine. I would often Zoom one on one with each actor and then would also set up group Zooms where we would work on family dynamics and bring in Teagan, Bridget Webb (Emily Watson), Stacy Clausen (Tom Watson) and Vivien Turner (Hannah Watson). We’d role-play a lot and actually treat it like we were a family Zoom.

Cliff Curtis was the only lead who did not have to quarantine because he was coming from New Zealand. There was an Australia-New Zealand bubble at the time with COVID, which actually worked perfectly for his character. Ben is somewhat an outsider in relation to the rest of the Watson family. So, I had the others in quarantine doing family Zooms and all the rest of it, whereas Cliff and I would meet up in-person on the Gold Coast where we shot. Cliff and myself are both secret philosophy geeks, so we had a lot of in-person dinners and conversations where we went really deep into his character and kind of geeked-out on backstory.

The character of Ben is a fictional one – a combination of different people that were in Jessica Watson’s life and largely inspired by my own mentor Jack Thompson. Cliff and I also landed on the French existentialist philosopher ‘Jean Paul Sartre’ as a reference for Ben, especially his play No Exit which contains the famous line ‘Hell is Other People’. I suggested to Cliff that this is what Ben was like up until the time he meets Jessica. It’s also a quote that I think a lot of solo sailors relate to. So on the first day of filming, Cliff brought me a badge that says ‘Hell is Other People’ and pinned it on my jacket. There’s also a lot of Sartre lying around Ben’s boat cabin in the film if you look closely.

Are you hoping the Netflix platform brings an Australian story to a wider audience?
SS: Netflix has changed the way that movies are consumed throughout the world and in the case of True Spirit I could not be happier to be partnered with them. On Feb 3 Netflix will drop True Spirit across the globe, making it accessible to people in more than 190 countries, and more than 30 languages. Jessica’s story is truly a universal one so what better place to land than a truly universal platform like Netflix?

What’s next for you?
SS: I’m thrilled to be working with our producers Debra Martin Chase and Susan Cartsonis again, although on two separate projects. I have to admit I’ve been kinda bitten by the action filmmaking bug so I’m also excited to be attached to another female driven action movie that involves fire fighters which will make my three-year-old son very happy!

When the tenacious young sailor Jessica Watson (Teagan Croft) sets out to be the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world, many expect her to fail. With the support of her sailing coach and mentor Ben Bryant (Cliff Curtis) and her parents (Josh Lawson and Academy Award winner Anna Paquin), Jessica is determined to accomplish what was thought to be impossible, navigating some of the world’s most challenging stretches of ocean over the course of 210 days.

Cast: Teagan Croft, Cliff Curtis, Bridget Webb, Vivien Turner, Stacy Clausen, Todd Lasance, with Josh Lawson and Anna Paquin
Director: Sarah Spillane
Writers: Sarah Spillane, Rebecca Banner, Cathy Randall (Based on the book by Jessica Watson).
Producers: Debra Martin Chase, Susan Cartsonis, Andrew Fraser

Friday February 3 on Netflix.