Memories of Manitoba? ‘Cold,’ Harrison Ford says

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/06/2002 (8802 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

New York — Harrison Ford, typically a man of few words, just has one to describe filming a sequence from the historical thriller K-19: The Widowmaker on Lake Winnipeg on March 7 last year:

“Cold.”

Ford was in the Gimli area for less than 24 hours to shoot a sequence set in an Arctic Ocean ice pack, where the titular Russian nuclear submarine crashes through a metre of ice to launch a test missile. Ford says the experience didn’t allow him to “get much of a sense of the place because it was under snow, and because we were pretty much confined to the middle of the lake and back to the hotel.

“I didn’t really get much of a sense of it,” Ford said at the film’s press junket in New York yesterday.

The cold was a problem for cast and crew alike, says the film’s director, Kathryn Bigelow.

“I loved it there, but you know how cold that lake is,” she says. “We also had, like, blizzard conditions, with 70-mile-an-hour winds. Frostbite was a real threat and we were very sensitive to it.”

One of the film’s producers, Joni Sighvatsson, is a native of Iceland and had actually considered shooting that sequence in Iceland.

“But it wasn’t financially feasible, so we selected the next best thing, the Icelandic settlement in Canada,” he said.

“We were really very lucky, because we had a two-day window and the weather had to be right for it to work in Gimli, and as you can see in the film, it was perfect for our needs,” Sighvatsson said.

“They have a very good (film) infrastructure there and we got some wonderful stuff.

“It’s one of the best sequences in the film,” Sighvatsson said, adding the film will be featured in the upcoming Gimli Film Festival Aug. 2-8 at the Gimli Theatre.

The movie shoot was the talk of the province for weeks. More than 500 Manitoba men turned out at the Gimli Recreation Centre to audition for a bit role as a Russian sailor in the submarine drama; about 70 were hired for the shoot. Meanwhile, Gimli residents armed with binoculars lined the frozen shores of the lake to try to catch a glimpse of Ford, something only a handful managed to do.

Coming to Gimli in August would suit actor Christian Camargo, who plays the pivotal role of a K-19 crew member for whom an error in judgment has almost apocalyptic consequences.

Camargo’s character plays soccer on the frozen ice field, and he looks like he’s having a lot more fun than he actually did.

“That was acting,” he said.

“It was really freezing, especially with the authentic costumes we had to wear,” he said, referring to Russian crew uniforms that were made of the same materials as the real Russian mariners wore in 1961, the year the film is set.

“It was so great, because all the crew had on these $1,000 boots and thick gloves and they were saying, ‘C’mon, let’s do it again. What’s wrong?'”

Camargo says he was tempted to employ a trick to keep warm, taught to him by real Russian sailors while they were shooting a scene in freezing temperatures on location in Russia.

“They were dumping vodka on our hands and on our faces and taking our boots off, and dumping vodka on our feet, and it worked, it was amazing,” Camargo said. Unfortunately, he said, they didn’t get a chance to try that trick in Gimli.

“We tried, and then they locked the mini-bars,” he said. “From now on, vodka will be in the contract.”

Asked if he was familiar with that novel use of vodka, Ford looked skeptical.

“I’ve got a better sense of what to do with vodka,” said the actor (who was indeed, spotted knocking back a double vodka on the rocks at Gimli’s Lakeview Resort after shooting).

K-19: The Widowmaker opens in theatres July 19.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca