Behind-The-Scenes Stories From 'Apollo 13'

Tom Hanks saidhe felt excited about playing Lovell, the commander of the Apollo 13 space mission.Apollo 13space mission:

I always wanted to play an astronaut. I wanted to shoot a movie section totally enclosed by metal, glass, and switches. I finally got that chance. This is a real dream.

Hanks toldEntertainment Weeklyin 1995 that he followed the space program closely as a kid. He named all the crews of Apollo 7 through 12.Apollo 7through12. Then Apollo 11.Apollo 11, he said, about Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. That moment stopped the whole world. I stood still for each of those Apollo missions.Apollomissions.

In the scene showing astronauts entering their suits, the suits matched the real Apollo 13 astronauts' gear.Apollo 13astronauts.

With the helmet secured, each suit was airtight.airtightand needed oxygen pumped in so the wearer could breathe.

For their roles, Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon trained with real astronauts at the US Space Camp in Huntsville, AL.trained alongsideThe actors had to train with actual astronauts at the US Space Camp in Huntsville, AL. Their training required them to learn the function of every one of the 500 buttons and switches in the spaceship.learn the functionof each of the 500 buttons and switches in the spaceship.

Ed Harris and the actors playing Mission Control took a flight controller course led by Gerry Griffin, a flight director on the actual Apollo 13 mission, and flight director Jerry Bostick.Apollo 13The Apollo 13 mission and flight director Jerry Bostick. The actors listened to audiotapes; read pages of transcripts from the actual mission; and took a physics course.

"The actors in the movie absorbed the information Jerry Bostick and I gave them," Griffin said in a news release for Apollo 13: The IMAX Experience.Apollo 13: The IMAX Experience. We ran a Mission Control school for them; they kept asking questions, getting to the next level of detail, then the next. That work shows in the film.kept asking questions, getting to the next level of detail, then the next. That work shows up in the film.”

The filmApollo 13opens with people watching TV as Neil Armstrong walks on the moon. As his family and friends watch the event, Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) quietly leaves the backyard.

In aMay 2020 tweet, Ron Howard revealed that Hanks improvised much of that scene:

When we shot the party scene where the Lovell friends and family watch the Apollo 11 moon landing, I saw that without script notes or direction from me, Tom Hanks played a private moment of longing to be on the moon's surface. I set up the B-camera to capture that moment; it showed the Jim Lovell character without any spoken words.Apollo 11For the moon landing, I saw that without any script notes, discussion, or direction from me, [Tom Hanks] played a private moment of longing to be on the moon’s surface. Without speaking, I set up the [B-camera] to capture that moment; it showed much about the [Jim Lovell] character without a word spoken.

The director ended his tweet by complimenting the actor, saying, "That is when I saw how much Tom grew as an artist and a great screen actor."

Ron Howard contacted the commander of the real Apollo 13Apollo 13The mission asked if Jim Lovell wanted the cameo as the ship's admiral. Jim Lovell said he wanted the cameo but not an officer rank.He told the Chicago TribuneChicago Tribune in 2015:

I said, "No, I retired as a captain. I will dig out the uniform of a captain—my own uniform. I will dust it off. I will put on the ribbons the actual skipper had so it is authentic, and then I will proceed."

Robert Legato, visual effects supervisor for the film, said no documentation existed for the ionization phase when the realApollo 13The Apollo 13 spacecraft traveled through Earth's atmosphere. Ron Howard contacted actual astronauts who described the experience as feeling "like you’re in afluorescent tube being lit up"Legato said in a featurette on theApollo 13 DVD. He continued:

We thought, when you’re being hit with friction, it would just glow red and then go on fire, I guess... We used a technique to shoot fire that makes it look liquid by shooting it at four seconds per frame instead of 24 frames per second, which creates a blurry, smeary look, like an ion storm.

For the final splashdown scene, Howard chose a model of the command module with real parachutes and dropped it from a helicopter instead of using CGI.

Howard chose not to use archival footage of the actual 1970Apollo 13Ron Howard decided to usereplicasconstructed the real lunar and command modules.

Howard asked Walter Cronkite to re-record some comments from the news anchor's 1970 CBS coverage of the event instead of using old news footage of the space mission.

Kathleen Quinlan received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for her role as Marilyn Lovell, the wife ofApollo 13Kathleen Quinlan met with Marilyn Lovell to prepare for her role. She went to Houston to meet Marilyn. "I felt a great responsibility to show or portray somebody’s life."Quinlan toldSmashing Interviewsin 2014:

I met Marilyn, and she was very gracious and helpful. Jim and Marilyn flew me to Houston. Jim flew the plane, and Marilyn sat in the back serving coffee. It was really cute.

I met many of the astronauts’ wives. I saw how much a strong, important influence they had on their husbands and where they stood mentally before launch. They needed to be ready, and the support around them mattered. Marilyn helped a lot.

Quinlan said playing a real person was scarier than playing a fictional character:

You must meet the person at the other end of the film. I was not scared to see the film, but I was scared to see Marilyn when she left the theater to check if she felt okay with my work.

DirectorRon Howard consideredFilmmakers used special effects to show astronauts weightless during the space mission. They approached Universal Pictures about filming inside the "Vomit Comet." This windowless, padded jet plane, a KC-135 used by NASA to simulate weightlessness, gets the nickname Vomit Comet because passengers often vomit during the ride.

The plane rises straight up to about 30,000 feet to simulate zero gravity, then plunges toward the ground, repeating the action. Passengers experience true weightlessness during the 23 seconds at the top of the arc.

Howard said.he likely would have tried to simulate zero gravity by hooking the actors to wires without permission to use the KC-135.

For their first trip in the Vomit Comet, actors Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, and Gary Sinise joined director Howard and producer Todd Hallowell for a flight to the Gulf of Mexico. Although they got medication for nausea, each actor carried what NASA calls the "airman's corsage"—two plastic resealable bags—in case they felt sick.

They stayed strapped in for the first few dips. On the fourth dip, Paxton unbuckled his restraints, and the others soon followed, floating weightless for the first time.

"I feel strangely drawn to it," said Paxton, who played astronaut Fred Haise. "Just to float—there is something liberating about it."

Bacon, who played backup pilot Jack Swigert, reacted differently. "I was the wimp," he told AMC.com. "I thought we’d go up in the plane once. We went on 40 zero-g trips."

Hanks, who played astronaut Jim Lovell, admitted he made a mistake by skipping the anti-nausea medication Scop-Dex. "I got very, very ill. I didn’t throw up, but man, did I want to! I was literally just lying on the floor, right next to the set, for the longest time, having these bizarre out-of-body experiences."

The set for the space vehicle was built inside the plane. Quarters were cramped. Actors and crew had only those 23 seconds to film any scene before anything unsecured fell down around them. The cast and crew spent over four hours experiencing zero gravity during production, which isHe needed more time.This time exceeds what most astronauts spend in training before a space mission.

Headsets worn by actors playing Mission Control workers were more than props. They let NASA technical advisers on set give actors information before they spoke their lines.

The cast and crew of the production filmed inside NASA's 'Vomit Comet' worked on the film.This happened during Apollo 13.The cast and crew of Apollo 13 aimed for maximum accuracy regarding the mission. Several former astronauts and other NASA personnel helped make this task easier.Ed Harris reported this., who played NASA flight director Gene Kranz:

Working on the film felt like cramming for a final exam. You hold all this info in your head. You focus hard. You do homework the night before the scene you film the next day.

The cast ofApollo 13Apollo 13 could have looked much different. Brad Pitt was reportedly considered for the Lovell role.

"I talked to my mom the other night. She said, 'I just saw the best movie calledApollo 13"Pitt toldThe Morning Callin 1995. "She said, 'You have to do more movies like this!' I replied, 'Mom, IturnedApollo 13downforSe7en! Wait until you see that movie!'

John Travolta either pushed for the Lovell role and was rejected because Tom Hanks was already cast, or he was offered the part but turned it down.offered but rejectedJohn Cusack was offered the role of Fred Haise—which went to Bill Paxton—but he turned it down. This fit his habit of rejecting big-budget projects for smaller, quirky films likeGrosse Pointe Blank.