Tom Hanks admitted that the actors playing Somali pirates in the film Captain Phillips seemed so real that he was terrified when shooting the scenes.
Hanks said in a new interview that he was “petrified” during the scene that the pirates first hijacked the MV Maersk Alabama.
“I was truly petrified,” he told The Mirror about shooting the scene. “We heard them coming and getting closer and, when they finally arrived, they burst onto the bridge and we saw these incredibly skinny, living, breathing guys for the first time. I can tell you it raised the hair on the back of all our necks.”
The film tells the story of the 2009 incident in which Captain Richard Phillips was captured by Somali pirates but eventually rescued.
Hanks gushed about the real-life Captain, saying he’s “an incredibly pragmatic guy who went through something quite extraordinary and barely survived. You know what he does now? He still goes to sea for six weeks at a time,” Entertainmentwise notes.
“He is an absolutely true merchant mariner who has great pride in what he does,” he said of Phillips. However, the real-life crew would probably disagree. They have come forward to say the portrayal of him in the film is inaccurate.
image: NBC