Drew Barrymore in Big Miracle.
Life in Hollywood is pretty posh. There's the sunny weather, the fancy cars and the lavish lifestyle, at least for some. It's hard to imagine a greater contrast to the eccentricities and overpopulation of Los Angeles than Anchorage, Alaska. While it may be Alaska's largest city, its 374,000 metro population is a far cry from Los Angeles' 12.8 million. And the weather? Well let's just say it's, err, different.
When Hollywood descended on Anchorage for the production of
Big Miracle in late 2010, the coldest portion of the year hadn't even hit yet. "It was so deceiving when we arrived," John Krasinski tells press. "It wasn't that cold. It was like 50 degrees. Coming from L.A. you're throwing in light sweaters and then days like this hit and you're like, 'Does anyone have a caribou carcass that I could throw on?'" he says, laughing.
Directed by Ken Kwapis (He's Just Not That Into You), Big Miracle is based on the book Freeing the Whales: How the Media Created the World's Biggest Non-Event by Tom Rose. The often too-strange-for-fiction tale tracks 1988's "Operation Breakthrough," an international effort to free three gray whales that became trapped in pack ice in the Beaufort Sea of Alaska. Starting out as little more than a local news story, the plight of these majestic whales grew into a national story involving countless organizations and governments. Perhaps most notably, it finally forced Russia and the U.S. to work together at the height of the Cold War.
Kwapis gathered a terrific ensemble cast to portray the rogue's gallery of colorful characters involved in the incident. Drew Barrymore is Greenpeace activist Rachel Kramer. John Krasinski plays small-town reporter John Carlson, Kramer's ex-boyfriend and the guy who inadvertently stumbles upon the big story. Rounding out the cast are Dermot Mulroney, Vinessa Shaw, Ted Danson, Kristen Bell, Stephen Root and Rob Riggle.
Fandango spent a day on the set of Big Miracle (which at the time was titled Everybody Loves Whales) in November of 2010. Much of the day was spent trying to escape the bitter cold, which hit the low teens during our visit. Alaskans, of course, merely scoffed at our thin blood, well aware that the coldest part of the season was yet to come.
"The fingers and the toes are most important to keep warm," offers Barrymore. "Smart Wool, lots and lots of layers and the feet warmers."
"I feel like you're writing a survival guide," Krasinski jokes of her cold weather tips.
"We've been out on that ice for months," Barrymore laughs. "I have to say, it was a trial and error thing. When I got here, I had nothing. So you just start piling on things you like and then get rid of the things that aren't working."
To prepare for her role as a Greenpeace activist, Barrymore buried herself in research to the point that she found herself thinking and acting much like the character she plays. "I read a bunch of books. I spent week upon week traveling and seeing places with Cindy Lowry, the [real name of the] woman I'm playing. I met with different people in this field. I researched and met with the head of Greenpeace and spent time with them. Ken gave me these books that were just profound. I studied different types of whales from a scientific level. And then he also had me read this book called
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. This was the thing that, after months of all this research, set me into being that guy at the dinner table who's like, 'And you know what, that chicken that you're eating is filled with pus and poison and you don't want to be eating that...' And then I was like, 'Oh my God, Ken Kwapis is a genius.'"
After years of being interviewed by the press, Krasinski relished the opportunity to step behind the other side of the microphone. "It was actually one of the coolest parts about taking this role, to see the process that the press goes through in a huge story, in a media frenzy. It was really inspiring to see the footage. My character is an amalgam of several people, so there wasn't one person I could go and talk to. To me, my whole angle of doing research was the media itself and how much attention was placed on it. There is an extreme power in the knowledge that a certain amount of focus can make a huge difference. Obviously these whales are representative of such bigger things in this movie and in real life."
Krasinski was also drawn to Big Miracle's varying tone and the chance to team up with Drew. "I've always wanted to work with her in a very, very major way," says Krasinski. "So I think I might have already said yes to it and they were like, 'Read the script.' It's one of those movies that I think hits this pocket…. There's a little bit of romance, a little bit of comedy, a little bit of drama and it doesn't really fit into any certain realm that people are used to. It becomes this amalgam of really special storytelling. The fact that all of it is true is really incredible."
Miracle follows numerous stories that intersect in the course of the tale. One character is a somewhat shady oil exec played by Ted Danson. "He's based on a real character, but very loosely," says Danson. "He wants to be able to drill in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, but he's getting killed in Washington with bad PR and all that. So he thinks if he gives them $30- or $40,000 dollars' worth of gasoline and a helicopter, lets them borrow his ice-breaking barge to get the whales out, people will love him and he'll be the green oil company. But none of it works. He ends up spending $14 million dollars. He falls in love with the whales and yet, at the end, he's still an oil guy."
The man Danson portrays is now in prison. "My guy kind of misbehaved in life. Way more than just being sent to prison. I mean, that's what I hear. So my little revenge is, the way I play him, he's a bit of a fool."
Of all the intersecting stories of
Big Miracle, perhaps the most touching and, in many ways, most unlikely is the love story that developed between Colonel Tom Barrow (Dermot Mulroney) and White House worker Bonnie Mersinger (Vinessa Shaw). As the story gained media buzz, President Reagan asked Mersinger to call the National Guard and find out how they could assist. After being diverted to various departments, she finally connected with Colonel Barrow in the middle of the night. The two bonded over a series of phone calls that developed into a whirlwind courtship and the perfect fairytale ending. When they were married, their cake even sported decorative whales.
Shaw had the advantage of working alongside Mersinger, who served as an advisor on set. "When we were doing the White House scene, I consulted her a lot," says Shaw. "She helped me to have a more profound backstory for the character and was so kind to give me the love letters that she and the Colonel had exchanged over the time of this whole whale story. And [she shared] how they fell in love in doing so."
"I still to this day can't believe that Dermot's character and Vanessa's character actually did meet up in this adventure and then did get married after talking to each other over the phone," says Krasinski. "If I wrote that in a script for myself, people would be like, 'That's not getting made. That's not real. It can't be done.'"
Big Miracle hits theaters February 3rd, 2012.
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