In Ron Howard's new film In the Heart of the Sea, you can feast your eyes on Chris Hemsworth, who is almost unrecognizable as a sailor who resorts to desperate and gruesome measures to try to survive following an attack by a sperm whale who helped inspire the classic story of Moby-Dick.
The 31-year-old blond Australian actor, best known for his title role in Marvel's Thor films, went on a 500 to 600-calories-a-day crash diet and lost weight to play First Mate Owen Chase. He sports a mustache and beard in parts of the new movie. An extended trailer was recently released.
The story takes place in 1820 and is based on Nathaniel Philbrick's 2001 biographical book In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. The Essex set sail from Nantucket and encountered a whale, which destroys the ship. Chase and many of his fellow sailors became lost at sea in lifeboats for 90 days, trying to get to America.
Much like in the 1993 plane crash movie Alive, another biographical film that is also set in South America, the new movie sees the survivors resort to cannibalism after consuming remaining rations and the few fish, tortoises and barnacles they could find in the area, which was, unfortunately, a part of the Pacific Ocean largely devoid of marine and bird life.
"A bunch of sailors in a whaling ship get struck by a whale, the ship sinks and they jump onto the small rafts and drift for 90 days. And basically, they begin to die and eat each other," he said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in November 2013, joking that the film is a "a romantic comedy."
In the Heart of the Sea also stars Cillian Murphy, Charlotte Riley, Brendan Gleeson, who played Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody in the Harry Potter films and Michelle Fairley, who played Catelyn Stark on Game of Thrones.
Ben Whishaw plays Herman Melville, author of the 1851 novel Moby-Dick. The author was not actually a sailor on The Essex but rather wrote his book based on his own experiences as a whaler, during which he lived for a while among cannibals, the killing of another giant sperm whale in the 1830s and an 1821 book by Chase, Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex.
In the Heart of the Sea is set for release in December.