by John Bucher (@johnkbucher)

In 2007, Craig Gillespie brought his first feature to the screen in the Billy Bob Thornton vehicle, Mr. Woodcock. However, it would be his second film, released that same year, that would open future doors for him. Lars and the Real Girl became an instant cult classic and changed the way the film world looked at Ryan Gosling, who was mainly known for The Notebook at the time. Since then, Gillespie has continued to tell stories of interest to wide audiences with Disney’s Million Dollar Arm in 2014 and this year’s true adventure tale, The Finest Hours. I sat down with Gillespie to discuss storytelling, his process, and his latest film.

John Bucher (JB): Can you talk a little about what attracted you to the script and the story of The Finest Hours?

Craig Gillespie (CG): Well, when I came on Chris Pine was on board. The interesting thing about Scott Silver’s writing, even though there’s a lot of action in this thing, I really wanted it to be a character piece — to really delve into what’s interesting about these men and why they did it and who they were. It was the same with Chris’s character. It was really exciting for me to see him delve into Bernie’s personality. He listened to tracks, he really tried to get the accent, he created the mannerisms and we talked about this idea of the underdog and the unlikely hero and how to portray that and build that. We actually even referenced some old films and really sort of went through that and did some rewrites with him and Scott on that, and then in Casey [Affleck]’s case too.

[Affleck’s] character, he’s basically the anti-hero. He doesn’t want to be that guy. He hates authority and we tried to give Casey as many tools as we could to make his character more complex and to see that journey happening. The two of them, to me… I couldn’t be prouder of what they created. They created some characters that are interesting and complex in the midst of all this chaos. That’s something I was excited about.

JB: In some of your early work like Lars and the Real Girl, you really dealt with this internal conflict, almost a spiritual conflict. Now you’ve moved to this very external conflict of man versus the sea. How is it different to try and deal with such an external conflict as opposed to these very internal conflicts?

CG: Well, suddenly the catalyst is the storm in terms of Bernie’s character, but we started with these internal conflicts, which are that he’s not a leader, he doesn’t have confidence in himself, and it was the storm that brings that out. We sort of tried to lay that in — that this is going to be his character arc throughout, and that you feel it from the men around him. They don’t necessarily trust that he can get them through this or trust that he’ll be the right man for the job. He’s got to dig within himself and find that moment. It’s always starting with internal things; it just happens to be the storm that brings him out of that.

JB: In some ways, the film is really a character piece.

CG: It really is. What I’m proud of with the opening of the story is, it is literally how the two main characters met. You know, it was this blind date. She’d picked him up because she was the operator on the call that he was talking to another woman on. He couldn’t make it because their car had broken down, and they met having spoken for months on the phone. Scott did a beautiful job of recreating that moment. It’s basically the first 14 minutes of the film until we get into the exterior storm. It is quite a bit of time, but on the flip side it’s all the real estate we have to create these characters and get you invested in them. I felt that it was a fair trade in a way.

I wanted to take our time because, the other interesting dynamic in this is, once that first 14 minutes is up, they never see each other again for the rest of the film. So, how do we create that connection between them that’s going to carry them through the whole movie? We really felt like we had to put that time in.

JB: Nature, in many ways, is the antagonist in the film. How do you as a filmmaker make water antagonistic?

CG: Obviously you’ve had water films before. But I think, obviously, nature is so many times underestimated. You can see the tragedies that happen from that with hurricanes and cyclones and just the power of it. I love the idea that it was a whiteout and they could hear it and how foreboding it is and just the aggression of it — which is something that, growing up in Sydney, when there was a huge swell you could hear it a mile and a half from the coast.

That was something I really wanted to capture in the film: that it almost creates a personality for nature. You know, as they are about to step into it and go head on with it, there’s got to be a respect for it. They know what they’re going into. They know that they may die. The balance with nature is like having been on the ocean — once you have a respect for it, there’s a rhythm to it, as well. The way that Casey can ride SS Pendleton and know that, between the waves, he can reverse it and use that energy to help them. There is a dance going on throughout.

JB: Can you talk about the rhythm and pace of the film?

CG: It’s interesting: we did change the film structurally quite a bit editorially. There was more time on land, and then you went to the Pendleton, and the nice thing with having this story is it’s separate. You kind of have that choice editorially of how you structure it, it gives you more freedom between the three stories, and Holliday [Grainger]’s story as well. We found that going back and forth kept the tension up. To me, there was just this ticking bomb, and the guys at the Coast Guard station had no idea what was coming down the pipe at them.

JB: What do you hope audiences will walk out of the theater with after seeing this story?

CG: I hope they’ll be inspired just to do good deeds in life. To be part of a community and think of others first. That’s the first thing that comes to mind for me.

The Finest Hours will be in theaters this weekend.

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John Bucher is a writer, speaker, and story consultant based out of Los Angeles. He is the author of several books including The Inside Out Story and the upcoming Secrets of Short Visual Storytelling. He has written for entities ranging from HBO to International Ambassadors. He teaches at The LA Film Studies Center and has conducted story seminars on five continents. He can be reached on Twitter @johnkbucher and through his blog, welcometothesideshow.org.