When she agreed to play marathon swimmer Diana Nyad in Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “Nyad,” Annette Bening wasn’t going in blind. “I had heard her and she’d made an impression on me a number of times just listening to her,” said Bening, who said her status as “an NPR junkie” made her familiar with Nyad. “And I knew something about the swim, but I didn’t know that much about it.”
“The swim,” in this case, was the one that Nyad undertook at the age of 64, when the world-class athlete decided to do the impossible — swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. It was a dream that had eluded her all of her life, with four failed attempts. Oscar-winning documentary filmmakers Vasarhelyi and Chin (“Free Solo”) wanted to turn the story of that final attempt into their first narrative feature, and they turned to Bening. “I knew they were very special and, like, Whoa, they’re going to direct a narrative movie and they’re picking this,” she said. “I just loved it.”
Growing up in San Diego, Bening was always at the ocean and considers herself “really comfortable” in the water. But that still didn’t prepare her for what she had to do. “I was a bit naïve—more than a bit, a lot naïve,” said Bening, 65. “I’m like, I’m in good shape. Well, I got in the water and then I realized what I’d gotten myself into, and I was like, Wait a minute. It’s me in a bathing suit and it’s me swimming and I have to make it look right, and how is that all going to work?” She realized that she had taken the job without thinking it through, and that she’d have to pause and adjust. “I loved it so I just said, ‘Yes.’ Then I went about trying to figure out if I could actually physically do it.”
According to Vasarhelyi and Chin, Bening trained for more than a year—or longer, because the movie’s start date got pushed back and Bening used the extra time to continue training. “Maybe as we get older, some of us get fewer chances to have a big challenge,” Bening said. She hired a coach, former Olympian Rada Owen, who, according to the actress, had “the perfect disposition” for the job. “She immediately made me feel I could do it. I swam for her.”
Vasarhelyi and Chin have said that Bening was in the water for up to eight hours a day, but the actress is quick to say that she embraced the challenge and might have actually enjoyed the process. “That’s what we love to do as actors,” she said. “We love to be challenged. Yeah, it was hard, but I signed up for it and I loved doing it. Being in the water actually kind of calms my nervous system.” And, she points out, that it wasn’t that bad every day. “There were some days that I was in the water a lot, but then they would say, ‘OK, cut. We’ve got a problem with the camera. Annette, go get in the Jacuzzi.’”
In addition to the physical training, a big component of Bening’s preparation was spending time with the real Diana Nyad. After reading “Finding a Way,” Nyad’s book on which the movie is based, Bening met the swimmer. “She really wanted me to do it,” Bening said. “And then I got to know her and she got to trust me. I wanted to find a way to give the character an arc, which is essential because most people’s normal lives don’t follow a narrative arc. Anytime you’re doing a movie about a real human being, rarely does their actual life add up to a structure that fits into a narrative.”
One part of the narrative that Bening probably wasn’t ready for was the outcry against Nyad by some in the swimming community who questioned the legitimacy of the Cuba-to-Florida swim. Not that Bening is bothered. “Within every elite sport there are haters, and that is quite frankly what they are,” she said. “The bottom line is that she did the swim, and in the real swim there were over 40 people around her. There wasn’t just one support boat like we have in the movie. There were actually two other boats. Tons of people were there. It’s documented. She did it.
“I guess maybe there are some people who don’t believe that and so they have their thing. But I wouldn’t have done the movie if I didn’t believe she did the swim. I thoroughly investigated this and it’s just part of the world of elite swimming.”
This story first appeared in the Awards Preview issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the Awards Preview issue here.
Credits
Creative Director: Jeff Vespa
Photographer: Maya Iman
Photo Editor: Tatiana Leiva
Stylist: Kate Bofshever
Hair & Makeup: India Hammond
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