(WSVN) - The fight to stay alive is front and center in “Deepwater Horizon,” the story of the BP oil spill. The worst oil spill in history sure made a mess, but it also makes for one heck of a thriller.
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, sending millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Now, the accident has been dramatized in a new film.
Mark Wahlberg plays oil rig worker Mike Williams, who survived the explosion. He says the film honors those who lost their lives.
Mark Wahlberg: “Read the script, and read the New York Times piece and it was like, I, like a lot of people now seeing the movie, didn’t realize that it was 11 people lost their lives. As well as these amazing acts of heroism in the people that survived.”
Kurt Russell plays a tough-as-nails supervisor who disagrees with BP executives about the well’s safety.
Kurt Russell: “I learned that there had been a disaster on a human level that I didn’t know anything about. And if I put myself in the position of those people on that boat, or on that rig, I would’ve felt pretty short-changed compared to the amount of focus and attention that was spent on the ecological disaster part.”
The film follows the events that led to the explosion, and the chaos that followed.
Gina Rodriguez (as Andrea Fleytas): “Mayday, mayday! This is Deepwater Horizon!”
Gina Rodriguez plays the rig’s navigator, who makes the first mayday call.
Gina Rodriguez: “When she first calls mayday, to do that was taking a risk because she wasn’t the superior on the bridge. She did have somebody above her in the chain of command, but she was making sure that everybody was safe, and she saw something and reacted. So it was great playing someone so courageous.”
While the film is action-packed, there’s plenty of emotional drama to keep viewers entertained.
Mark Wahlberg: “You know, these are the kind of stories that I gravitate towards and, you know, to be able to play a guy like Mike, who was this ordinary guy doing some pretty incredible things under some pretty horrific circumstances.”
“Deepwater Horizon” is in theaters Friday, Sept. 30.
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