How miscommunication almost killed Ed Harris: “For a brief second, I thought this is it”
No actor signs on for a production expecting their life to be in danger, except maybe Tom Cruise, but that’s on him. Ed Harris knew he wouldn’t be in for an easy time, but still, dicing with death wasn’t what he had in mind when he agreed to star.
It would have been clear from the start that the cast should expect the unexpected, though, if only for the fact the movie in question was planning to do things that nobody had ever done before. Every shoot carries an inherent sense of risk because smooth sailing can never be guaranteed, but Harris was hardly contemplating the great beyond when he boarded The Abyss.
Being a James Cameron film, it was inevitable that he’d push the boat out. After all, the filmmaker’s career has been defined by overcoming obstacles and leaping over barriers through ingenuity and virtuosity, which would serve him increasingly well as he moved on to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Titanic, and the Avatar franchise.
The Abyss is famed for its cutting-edge CGI that helped awaken the industry to the idea that not only was the digital revolution coming, but it was right on the doorstep. The sci-fi flick may have won an Academy Award for its visual effects, but it was a practical moment that almost killed Harris.
For months, Harris and his colleagues had been immersed in the massive tank used to shoot the underwater sequences, working flat-out for six days a week. Harris spent a great deal of that stretch being pulled on a cable 30 feet below the surface multiple times per day, having to hold his breath each time.
While the specialised breathing fluid used in The Abyss was real and had been successfully tested on rats, Harris refused to become another test subject, opting for good old-fashioned lungpower instead, which backfired perilously when there was a snafu in trying to bring him back up to the surface.
When his character Bud Brigman’s helmet filled with liquid, Harris held his breath until he couldn’t hold it any longer, after which he signalled a safety diver to bring him a regulator. On this occasion, the diver got held up, and even when another arrived to lend an assist, they put the regulator in his mouth upside down, causing him to inhale a combination of air and water.
“For a brief second, I thought this is it,” Harris admitted to Total Film, dramatically underselling the moment The Abyss nearly killed him as “a bitch.” And yet, he wasn’t even the only person to flirt with the astral plane during production, creating an atmosphere on set that could generously be described as somewhere between nervous and hostile.
