Rising stars Josh Lucas and Emmy Rossum consider themselves fortunate that they got out alive after filming director Wolfgang Petersen’s action thriller “Poseidon,” which opens in theaters on Friday. Nearly every actor on the set got what was commonly referred to as a the “Poseidon crud.” Hospitalizations, surgeries, pneumonia and concussions became the norm for the actors on the set. Lucas and Rossum recently sat down to discuss the harrowing experience and how they rose from the sinking ship.
How physically challenging was filming? JL: “My arms became black from the bruising because there was so much weight on body. I started to think, ‘God damn, this thing is already kicking my ass and I’m not even wet yet. And then once I got wet, I was wet for basically five months ... I would go to work and then literally go to bed. I would sit there and say, ‘thank God no one died today.’” ER: “I knew it was going to be challenging physically but I didn’t really know how physically challenging it was going to be and then Wolfgang said ‘now you go to scuba diving training’ and I said, ‘huh?’ And then a day later I went to training and they introduced me to the cage of death, this Plexiglas cube that they would slowly sink over my head and then I would finally be trapped under water. It was pretty intense.”
Did either of you have experience with water before? JL: “I’m 34 and really the best shape of my life, a certified diver and I was hospitalized twice and had to have serious surgery. I would walk away from it, saying ‘what am I doing?’” ER: “Once on vacation about two months before we started shooting and I was terrified. I was in the Caribbean with my friends. They convinced me to go and they took me down about 30 feet. I totally hyperventilated.”
How did you deal with the intensity? JL: “I drank hard and swam a lot. The moment I walked off that set, I would have a drink and bizarrely, I would sit in my pool because I was practicing sometimes just to hold my breath.” ER: “I’m not good under crisis. I mean if I spill a cup of tea it is a disaster for me. A few of us had panic attacks. It was incredibly claustrophobic. If I had a panic attack I got out of there. I went to craft services and remembered I was in Los Angeles.”
