It’s “the greatest rescue the world has ever seen,” announces the trailer for Ron Howard’s survival drama Thirteen Lives, which chronicles the rescue of a junior football team trapped for 18 days in Thailand’s Tham Luang Nang Non cave after heavy rainfall flooded the cave and blocked their way out. Knowing what we know of the rescue saga that gripped the whole world when it happened in 2018, that would not be an overstatement. The chances for the kids and their coach’s survival were abysmal as floodwaters rose and oxygen and food supplies ran low. Even after being found alive, getting them out of the caves was near impossible. The thirteen would have to be extracted, one by one, by an international team of cave divers who can barely fit into the narrowest parts of the cave, let alone swim while dragging the survivors along its treacherous underwater passageways. “It looks easy, but when it’s flooded, it’s impossible,” warns Colin Farrell playing John Volanthen in the trailer. The diving pathway is “barely shoulder wide, pulling against very strong currents,” explains Richard Stanton (Viggo Mortensen). “You try to dive those kids the whole way, all you’ll be bringing out is dead bodies.”
That all thirteen lives were saved is a testament to the tenacity of human will and what a diverse group of people can do when galvanized and united by a shared mission. It celebrates bold creative thinking in the face of insane pressure, as rescuers resort to the untried and dangerous solution of injecting the thirteen with sedatives so that they can be carried out, unconscious, through miles of twisting tunnels (where there is near zero visibility) and into safety. Conveying that it took a village to pull off this miraculous rescue, Howard brings Thirteen Lives to the big screen on July 29 and Prime Video on August 6 with a star-studded cast of actors no strangers to the role of the hero along with Thai actors playing characters with crucial roles in the rescue. “One of the things that I want to convey was that Thai people saved these boys.”
Viggo Mortensen as Richard Stanton
Viggo Mortensen plays Richard Stanton, the British cave diver who literally dives headlong into the dangerous mission when he realizes that his skills and experience as a cave diver are needed to help rescue the boys. Overcoming initial resistance from the Thai Navy Seals, Stanton proves he is essential to the rescue. It was Stanton’s brilliant, life-saving idea to sedate the boys with tranquilizers so they can be carried out through the murky, panic-inducing tunnels, an arduous journey that would take 5 hours and repeated doses of Ketamine to keep the boys sedated. “If they came to in the middle of the dive, they would have panicked,” Stanton explains to The Guardian. While sedating anyone underwater had never been done before, Stanton says, “We had no plan B. The monsoons were coming in, and the caves risked being flooded. We needed to act.”
Mortensen got to experience firsthand just how dangerous cave diving can be when he trained for the role of Stanton, diving and swimming in cramped spaces to simulate the rescue’s actual conditions. The key was to breathe calmly and slowly to avoid using up air, but there was a harrowing moment on set when Mortensen accidentally turned off one of his oxygen tanks. While he was able to revert to his other tank, Mortensen had to remind himself to “Just be calm. Don’t freak out, because you can drown in a few seconds. Once you freak out, and you swallow a little water, you’re done.”
Mortensen’s filmography is proof that the actor is far from being risk-averse. Most famous for playing Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings franchise, he has done four films with director David Cronenberg, the latest of which is Crimes of the Future where Mortensen plays Saul, a performance artist who has his organs removed by his partner (Lea Seydoux) in front of a live audience.
Colin Farrell as John Volanthen
Colin Farrell plays cave diver John Volanthen whose discovery of the missing football team is one of the high points of Thirteen Lives. Finding them was pure luck. Volanthen had swum to the surface after running out of rope, only to find the kids and their adult coach staring back at him. “Brilliant!” British Volanthen cheers upon discovering all thirteen missing were alive. “I was 100% expecting us to find bodies. I simply could not believe they survived. They found the only place in the cave where they could have possibly survived.” Along with Stanton and other cave divers from around the world, Volanthen would execute their bold plan to sedate the boys before pulling them to safety. Unlike in hospitals where the sedated are monitored and checked for vital signs, Volanthen had to take periodic stops to check if the tranquilized kids were still breathing. In a tense moment in the trailer, Volanthen implores one of the unconscious boys to “breathe.” Panicked at one point, Volanthen asks his teammates for a minute to calm himself down before saying, “Okay. We can make it.”
Farrell met with Volanthen over Zoom calls to absorb the Brit’s speaking style, mannerisms, and wardrobe. Transformations are Farrell’s expertise and his performance as the Penguin in the blockbuster hit The Batman remains a crowd favorite. He is believable in even outrageous roles, playing a newly single man who will turn into a lobster if he doesn’t find a mate within 45 days in The Lobster and a suicidal, guilt-ridden hitman in In Bruges for which Farrell won a Best Actor Golden Globe.
Joel Edgerton as Dr. Richard Harris
Joel Edgerton plays Dr. Richard Harris, the Australian cave diver and anesthetist brought into the rescue mission after it became clear that the boys will have to be tranquilized for their trip out of the cave. “It’s insane, it’s unethical, it’s illegal,” Harris says in the trailer, initially balking at the idea and admitting to a Thai official that he expected casualties. Convincing Harris to set aside standard medical protocols and go ahead and sedate the kids is one of the highlights of Thirteen Lives which is part cave rescue, part medical mission. The kids are essentially “rag dolls” once they’re sedated and Harris made sure their heads are held upright to keep their airways unobstructed. “I can’t tell you how wrong that feels,” he would recall later, having to strap oxygen masks onto the tranquilized children and submerging their heads in the water to check if they would continue to breathe. He would not know if the children were dead or alive until they emerged from the cave several excruciating hours later.
Edgerton is no stranger to the superhero genre. He portrayed Owen Lars in Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones directed by George Lucas, a role he plays again in the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi. Edgerton has played leading roles in huge films like Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby and Zero Dark Thirty and directed critically acclaimed films like The Gift and Boy Erased. “I’m so proud to be showing this movie at a time when people feel a sense of isolation,” says Edgerton of his role in Thirteen Lives. “At the end of the day, people want to help other people.”
Tom Bateman as Chris Jewell
Chris Jewell is the British computer software consultant and expert cave diver called in to join the rescue. It would be his very first rescue mission and the whole world was watching. Jewell is portrayed by Tom Bateman, who is best known for his roles in the historical fantasy drama series Da Vinci's Demons and in the film Murder on the Orient Express. During the filming of Thirteen Lives, Bateman recalls getting wedged between some rocks and getting stuck underwater for about seven minutes. "I could just see my heart rate going up and up and up. But the beautiful gift of it was overcoming that...it's all in your head."
Howard makes sure that Thirteen Lives celebrates the heroism of the Thai people by casting Thai actors to play crucial roles. Sahajak Boonthanakit (Fistful of Vengeance) plays Chiang Rai province acting Governor Narongsak Osatanakorn whose impossible job it was to organize all the moving parts of this multifaceted rescue. Teeradon Supapunpinyo (Bad Genius) portrays Ekkaphon Chanthawong the 25-year-old assistant coach and monk who kept the children alive by teaching them to meditate, conserving air and energy long enough until they are rescued. The coach had been the most malnourished because he gave away his share of food to the children. Sukollawat Kanarot (Malila: The Farewell Flower) plays Saman Kunan the former Thai Navy Seal who dies from lack of oxygen after placing air tanks inside the increasingly crowded cave. An experienced diver and triathlete, his death underscored the danger posed to the missing kids and their rescuers. Pattrakorn Tungsupakul (The Perfect Couple) plays Buahom, the stateless mother of Chai, one of the boys trapped in the cave, whose powerful faith kept alive dwindling hopes for the boys’ survival. Naphand Boonyai (No Escape) plays Thanet Natisri, a water engineer who led the effort to fill sinkholes and divert rainwater that could rise and drown the boys.