June 29, 2000
JIM MORET, CO-HOST: Hi everyone. I'm Jim Moret in the heart of CNN Center in
Atlanta. Laurin Sydney is in New York.
"People" magazine's most eligible bachelor, George Clooney, and
rapper-turned actor Mark Wahlberg were welcomed by a wave of fans and media at
the New England premiere of "The Perfect Storm." Residents of
Gloucester, Massachusetts, showed support of the film...
LAURIN SYDNEY, CO-HOST: "The Perfect Storm," based on the novel by
Sebastian Junger, makes its way to theaters on Friday. The cast and film crew of
"The Perfect Storm" had to endure their own waves while making the
movie, waves of nausea.
Mark Scheerer spoke to the cast on the docks in Massachusetts and has this
story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE PERFECT STORM")
GEORGE CLOONEY, ACTOR: No antenna, no radio, we're back in the 19th century.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARK SCHEERER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg
go down to the sea in ships in the film version of the best-seller "The
Perfect Storm." This is actual coast guard footage from the historic
Nor'easter that raged off New England around Halloween in 1991. And this is how
director Wolfgang Peterson and an armada of special effects people recreated it.
The challenges were emotional as well as physical.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE PERFECT STORM")
CLOONEY: Alright then, Gloucester, we're coming home!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHEERER: Some of the shooting took place in Gloucester, Massachusetts, which
lost several townspeople to the storm.
CLOONEY: These people are real, and it's not -- it would be like doing the
"Titanic" eight years after the Titanic was down. You know, this real,
modern history that these people -- these kids are, you know, 16 years old,
children of these guys. They're not like they're 50 and remembering long ago. So
there is a great responsibility.
MARK WAHLBERG, ACTOR: I couldn't really worry about, you know, how this story
was going to be told, or you know, how close to the book it was going to be. All
I could do was really try to do them some justice, and try to make them proud.
And I feel like I have done that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE PERFECT STORM")
WAHLBERG: Hold on skip.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHEERER: The action sequences were shot over several months in a huge
soundstage tank on the Warner Bros. lot.
CLOONEY: Wolfgang pulled us in and says, "it's going to get very rough out
here." And then he just laughed.
JOHN C. REILLY, ACTOR: My fingers were pruning for about four months. They just
never unpruned.
WAHLBERG: I haven't seen an action movie kick ass like this in forever, you
know. It's really set a new standard.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE PERFECT STORM")
DIANE LANE, ACTRESS: My guy's out there risking his life for a bunch of stupid
fish.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHEERER: Diane Lane, playing the girlfriend of a fisherman, got to stay as dry
as a land-lover.
LANE: I know. And I'm having guilt. I feel like I didn't suffer enough or
something. My tear ducts suffered a lot.
SCHEERER: Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays a sword boat captain with better
luck than Clooney's captain.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE PERFECT STORM")
MARY ELIZABETH MASTRANTONIO, ACTRESS: These storms have collided.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MASTRANTONIO: She's looking at it from a different angle. So she's keeping the
audience kind of abreast of what might happen.
SCHEERER: If it wasn't the emotion, it was the motion of the ocean that got
to the filmmakers. George Clooney interrupted our interview with the
director for a seasickness simulation using only bottled water as a special
effect.
Mark Scheerer, CNN Entertainment News, Gloucester, Massachusetts.