Kate Winslet ‘IT WAS A TERRIFYING EXPERIENCE’
THE ACTRESS REVEALS THE GRUELLING CONDITIONS OF HER NEW FILM
What’s the premise of The Mountain Between Us?
‘It centres on two characters, Ben (Idris Elba) and Alex (Kate Winslet) – strangers, who need to get to their respective destinations urgently. Ben has a life-saving surgery to perform, and Alex is getting married.
‘When our flight is cancelled, we charter a tiny plane. The pilot, Walter (Beau Bridges), has a stroke and the plane crashes in bad weather into the side of the mountain. The pilot didn’t file a flight plan – no-one knows where the hell we are!’
How did you deal with the extreme filming conditions?
‘It was completely terrifying – we all lost weight from being so scared. We were very fortunate on this film to be in real scenarios that made us feel afraid [laughs].
‘The cold itself was terrifying – minus 38 degrees Celsius and 10,000 feet altitude [3000m, in the Canadian mountains]. We would get in the car at 5.20am, in the dark. At minus 38 degrees Celsius, you’re actually afraid to get out of that car.
‘We would get into a helicopter and fly up to 10,000 feet. You can’t breathe very well. You lose energy fast at that altitude.
‘I’ve actually heard Leo [Dicaprio] say similar things about filming The Revenant. And we had crew from that film. They did go so far as to say that this film was tougher than The Revenant, which we were quite proud of actually [laughs]!’
How daunting!
‘The hardest part was remembering to act with things stacked against us.’