Young Woman and the Sea’s Daisy Ridley, Joachim Rønning, & Jerry Bruckheimer detail the importance of getting this real life story right.
Young Woman and the Sea’s Daisy Ridley (“Trudy Ederle” / Executive Producer), Joachim Rønning (Director / Executive Producer), & Jerry Bruckheimer (Producer) detail the importance of getting this story right, during the press conference. Young Woman and the Sea is now streaming on Disney+.
The Importance Of Getting This True Story Right
You are telling a real person’s story in this film. Talk about the importance of making sure you got it right.
Jerry Bruckheimer: Well, you do your research as Daisy did, and all of us did. But the book, I think was the bible for this. And that was the gentleman who did that, did enormous amount of research on it. Plus we had the film footage of Trudy and actually winning the race and the parade and a lot of things after in afterlife.
But I think we found all the film footage of her and we had a researcher go through a lot of different things and just make sure we were accurate with the book and what her story was, even though it was, you know, a hundred years ago.
Joachim Rønning: Well, for me, I try to understand why people do things like this, you know? Like what does it take for someone to be so convinced about something that they’re willing to risk their own lives to prove a point? And that was very much the journey for me and the discovery for me, because obviously, you know, when you do a biopic, the rational side of an audience will always know that she’ll probably, you know, make it, or at least she won’t drown.
You know, like there’s always the rational side of you. Although I do think that when you watch any movie, you put that to the side and you just watch it. So I think for me, I’m not so interested in the goal. For me, it has always been the journey and what brings her to do something like this.
Daisy Ridley: I think it’s an interesting thing for me because me specifically playing her, me and Joachim had spoken about her drive really at the beginning. And what I ended up finding was the drive changes constantly through the film. And I think life is an ever-changing course. So I feel like hopefully the real Trudy would’ve been happy with how we told her story.
I found, in terms of telling her story through the lens of this film, there were different motivations at different points. As someone with sisters, I idolized my sisters as a teenager, particularly. I wanted to be like them. I wanted to do what they were doing. And I think this beautifully has that. Trudy, really, I mean as a child, wants to be like her sister, that’s the whole beginning of everything. And then she’s enjoying being with her sister, and then she’s enjoying swimming, and then she starts winning, and then she wants to carry on winning. So it becomes this slightly changing course of things.
And really the lowest moment always was after the Olympics. And really I wanted that moment to be so much of what Trudy does is supported by her family. I wanted the Olympics to feel like the reason she wasn’t able to do it, aside from not being able to train, is that her family weren’t there. And she was really lonely and really homesick in a way that she had never experienced before. So getting back, it’s not just that she didn’t get gold, it’s that the world has shifted on its axis in the time that she’s been away. And the rug is pulled from under her feet, really.
And everything she didn’t realize before she went away about how things work in that day and age of having asuitor that you have to marry because your parents tell you to. And getting a job that you have to ’cause your parents tell you to. That has suddenly come racing to the fore of everything in her relationship with her sister. So in that conversation that she has with her sister, the blinkers come off. Everything is revealed in a way that is very adult. And really for me, I think the most heartbreaking moment is her sister not believing in her, because that’s all she wants. She wants her sister to be with her emotionally, physically, however it is that is possible.
So when she doesn’t swim for that time and then is put back on course by the little girl saying what she does in her understanding that however it is, that the society is trying to put these roadblocks in place, she really needs the support of her family. So then when her sister is back with her and they have that moment after her sister’s wedding, again, it feels like a change. And then I think the understanding is not only is Trudy doing this for herself, but she is doing it for everyone else in a way that I don’t think she was before. And certainly even conversations with our costume designer, Gabriela, I wanted the story to be about a woman who wanted to succeed for herself outside of what she was doing socially.
And up until that point, I feel like she wanted to succeed for herself. And after that she wants to succeed for herself and for everybody else. So it felt like an ever changing thing, which is amazing because on the front of it, she wants to do the swim, she does the swim. So finding the journey between those points of the hurdles that she’s overcoming, that was really important for me. And also really thrilling to play.
To find that new thing each time she does a new swim or has a new conversation with someone. And particularly with Stephen Graham’s character being such a wonderful jolt of energy into the film, and her actually really being able to be honest at that time with him in a way that she then can’t with her family because what she’s saying is, it’s life or death. And then having him there as a new anchor, it was just amazing to be able to chart all of that. And with, also, different characters and what they’re bringing to Trudy.
NEXT: Young Woman and the Sea Review
About Young Woman and the Sea
Disney’s “Young Woman and the Sea,” the extraordinary true story of Trudy Ederle, the first woman to successfully swim the English Channel, will come to theaters nationwide in a special engagement May 31, 2024. Daisy Ridley stars as the accomplished swimmer who was born to immigrant parents in New York City in 1905. Through the steadfast support of her older sister and supportive trainers, she overcame adversity and the animosity of a patriarchal society to rise through the ranks of the Olympic swimming team and complete the staggering achievement – a 21-mile trek from France to England.
“Young Woman and the Sea,” which also stars Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Stephen Graham, Kim Bodnia, Christopher Eccleston, and Glenn Fleshler, is directed by Joachim Rønning and written by Jeff Nathanson, based on the book “Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World” by Glenn Stout. The producers are Jerry Bruckheimer, Chad Oman, and Jeff Nathanson, with John G. Scotti, Daisy Ridley, and Joachim Rønning serving as executive producers.
Stream Young Woman and the Sea on Disney+ now.
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Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. She is also a Freelance Writer. Tessa has been in the Entertainment writing business for ten years and is a member of several Critics Associations including the Critics Choice Association and the Greater Western New York Film Critics Association.