Unfolding in real time, The Desperate Hour is a new thriller from award-winning filmmaker Phillip Noyce. In the movie, Recently widowed mother Amy Carr (Naomi Watts) is doing her best to restore normalcy to the lives of her young daughter and teenage son in their small town. As she's on a jog in the woods, she finds her town thrown into chaos as a shooting takes place at her son's school. Miles away on foot in the dense forest, Amy desperately races against time to save her son.
Despite being an edge-of-your-seat thriller that delivers its fair share of twists and turns, the movie obviously deals with an all too timely and relevant subject matter in high school shootings.
When we spoke to star Naomi Watts earlier this week, we managed to get some insights into that and how spending so much of this movie acting solely against voices on the other end of the phone added to the sense of isolation her character, Amy, is going feeling. The actress also talks about the physical challenges presented by the amount of running she has to do in far from easy terrain.
Finally, we also get to hear from Watts on what it's been like to watch her The Impossible co-star, Tom Holland, go from making his film debut in that movie to starring in Marvel's Spider-Man franchise.
The Desperate Hour is in Theaters, on Digital, and On Demand February 25, 2022.
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk about what I think is a very timely and very important film today.
Yeah, unfortunately.
Throughout this film, your character Amy is on her own and very isolated and, you as a performer (aside from those voices on the other end of the phone) were also alone on set, so did that help you get into her mindset and tell this story?
Yeah, I mean, I did plenty of research going into it. I wanted to know what it would be like. Unfortunately, it is the nightmare of every parent and there is enough information, sadly, because of the stories playing out oh too frequently. I tried to understand that. Then, being alone…yeah. I think mostly, being a parent and imagining the absolute and unimaginable was what got me there. Who would you be in that story? That’s kind of why I wanted to put myself into the shoes of a woman like this, as horrific as this story is and as confronting as it may be for an audience. It’s part of what’s happening in our lives and I wanted this story to reflect that truth that we don’t dare imagine.
Absolutely. It is a very hard-hitting role, as you say, but also a very physical one as well. It seems there was a lot of running involved, particularly in that difficult forest terrain, so what was that side of things like?
Again, I prepared and then you’re in the situation and it’s like, ‘Oh, this is even more challenging than I ever would have imagined!’ I used to run and would consider myself a fairly athletic person. My body doesn't work in quite the same way that it used to, but I did gear up and do some big training in the lead up to it. We figured out when we were on set that doing these really long takes was the best way to shoot it. Sometimes, they were twelve or fifteen pages which meant running for two or three miles, but it worked because the exhaustion would help you access the emotions which were also unravelling. The doubt and the fear and the guilt and all kinds of things along with the physical exhaustion. It just worked best in our favour in terms of the tension building.
On another note as I know we’re limited on time, The Impossible found a new audience on Netflix during the pandemic and I know you've always been very vocal in supporting Tom Holland’s career on social media, but I’m curious what it’s been like to see him in a role such as Spider-Man? That last film grossed nearly $2 billion in this "pandemic era" we find ourselves in, so how has it been to watch that?
So wonderful. I’m so happy for him. I always knew that Tom would go on and have a pretty outstanding career. I didn’t think of Spider-Man [Laughs]. That’s just, you know, not something that came to mind, but I knew that he had all of the goods. This was a kid who was doing his first movie, had unbelievable access to emotions, had great discipline and whether or not that comes from his dance and athletic background, I don’t know, but he had a really great family too. They’re a really solid team of people there supporting him. He’s off on his own now, of course, but just having a really good foundation…you’re going to be up for all of the challenges in our industry that play out if you’ve got a good family. It doesn’t surprise me is what I’m trying to say!
Naomi, thank you so much for your insights on that and into this really amazing, very impactful film.
Thank you!