The Meg played to my love of diving: Jason
JASON STATHAM, WHO is a familiar with scuba diving, opens up on how his experience as a diver was a big help while shooting underwater for The Meg.
What drew you to The Meg?
The first thing I consider when reading a script is whether I can do justice to the role. The Meg played to my fascination with the underwater world and to my love of scuba diving. So, it was very appealing to me. It’s probably the first movie I’ve done in a while where I’m not running around with a gun (laughs).
I love scuba diving, and because there was so much underwater work, I knew I could do justice to this role. And it came with some nice perks: during some time off from production of The Meg,
I went diving in Fiji and handfed some bull sharks. That was the pinnacle of my scuba experiences over the past 10 years. I dive recreationally. Whenever I am near open water and have the time, I try to stick on the mask and fins. It’s incredibly peaceful. You can get fingertip close to creatures you’d never see anywhere else. As you become more experienced, you begin looking for dangerous elements – like sharks. Filming underwater sequences can be very tricky, and my experience as a scuba diver continues to be a big help in these situations. I learned to scuba dive many years ago, when I filmed The Transporter. My progression towards scuba certification was unorthodox because I learned to dive in a cave. My instructor back then was a tough military type, who was a bit “off book”— sometimes he’d rip my mask off, with no warning. It was an intense few weeks, but it really got me hooked. I’ve always been into films about the water, and fascinated by free diving.
One of the more challenging scenes in The Meg must have been when your character tags the megalodon, who then drags you at high speed. How was it filming that scene?
When I read that scene in the script, my first thought was, how are they going to film this? We obviously didn’t have a megalodon to work with, so the creative heads were busy planning everything out. I knew that it would be a big popcorn/audience-pleasing moment. We were out in the ocean all day long, and it was very cold. You have to be resilient in doing scenes like that, but I’m always up for the challenge.
What kind of set does director Jon Turteltaub run?
Jon is an absolute pleasure to be around with because he never takes things too seriously. He has the entire weight of a movie resting on his shoulders. We had such a laugh making this movie!