There’s huge buzz on Jim Sturges‘ upcoming film, The Way Back. The film, starring Sturges, Colin Farrell and Ed Harris and directed by Peter Weir, chronicles a group of inmates escaping a labor camp. During 17 months, they walk to through Siberia, Mongolia, China, the Gobi Desert and India to their freedom.
He talked to the WSJ about the making of the film and the awesome things he gets to do as an actor.
On making The Way Back: “There was not a scene shot in a studio. We were amongst the elements every day. We filmed in snow blizzards in the mountains of Bulgaria where it was freezing cold, and then we dreamed of getting to Morocco. When we got there, we were trekking up huge sand dunes in the heat.”
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done but also the most exhilarating. I was traveling to places I’d never been, and we were there as a team making this amazing Peter Weir movie. From an acting point of view that’s as good as it gets.”
“We did a whole survival course where we learned how to build fires and skin rabbits. We went on these huge hiking expeditions and cooked and felled trees.”
“You get to do crazy s—t in your life that you’d never get to do. I just spent a day with Ed Harris and he had a giant metal contraption in his hotel room. He’s learning how to tightrope walk.”
