Horror and thrillers are some of the trickiest genres of film. While they have the potential to produce tons of money on limited budgets, the process of routinely terrifying the actors (and eventually the audience) during filming is something unique. Plenty of horror actors and scream queens have opened up regarding the emotional or physical trauma they have suffered while working in the genre, like Shelley Duvall in The Shining. So when I got the chance to speak with Dane DeHaan about Gore Verbinski's A Cure For Wellness, I was eager to hear the horror stories behind the horror.
When speaking with Dane DeHaan about his lead role in A Cure for Wellness, I asked which scene was the most difficult or scary to film. And while he went through tons of crazy and scary scenes (you'll see), it appears that his work in the sensory deprivation tank we see in the trailers was the hardest. He elaborated:
That whole process took like two weeks to shoot. And I was pretty much underwater the whole time, like bolted into this tank, and breathing through an oxygen tube. I was not dry for two weeks and had to communicate through hand signals, so that was the most physically demanding.
You know that feeling of being in a pool for too long and feeling your fingers getting wrinkled? That was basically Dane DeHaan's reality for the weeks it took to film his scenes in the tank.
The scene where Dane DeHaan's character Lockhart was in the sensory deprivation tank is one of many thrilling and scary moments from A Cure for Wellness. And it makes sense that production was forced to film the scene for two whole weeks. Not to give away any spoilers, but there was a significant amount of CGI used during the sequence, so it stands to reason that plenty of extra shots were needed in the can before the visual effects artists and editors could craft the movie magic. And having a variable as big as a full tank of water and oxygen tubes is sure to result in a longer shoot time than traditional scenes.
You can check out my full conversation with Dane DeHaan about the soon to be infamous tank scenes below.
Dane DeHaan did have to be quite brave in order to shoot in the tank for so long. Because communication can only be done through hand signals, and he was already acting in a scary scene, there seems to be a terrifying margin for error. We saw just how bad this type of filming could get in Now You See Me; actress Isla Fisher nearly drowned while filming a scene where she had to escape from a water tank. While she attempted to signal the crew for help, it just seemed like Fisher was doing a phenomenal job acting as if she was drowning. But she was actually calling for help, and luckily was saved before suffering any permanent damage.
A Cure for Wellness will swim into theaters on February 17. Read our full review for the movie by clicking right here.
