‘CODA': How Being Stuck on a Fishing Boat United the Cast as a Real Family (Video)

thewrap.com:

For all the accolades that have been thrown at “CODA” this awards season, writer-director Sian Heder and her cast give full credit to the pre-shoot preparations — including two weeks spent on fishing boats in Gloucester, Massachusetts, learning the ropes with grizzled fishermen. “We literally went to sea together before we started filming,” Heder said during TheWrap’s Awards Screening Series panel on Thursday, where she was joined by by SAG Award-winning cast Emilia Jones, Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant. “The way that Troy, Daniel and Emilia were introduced to each other was working together.

OK, let’s figure out how do we tie this knot and haul in this net, sort this thing,” Heder told TheWrap. “We would all get back to shore and it felt like we had just been through something major.

And it was an intense first bonding experience.”Once cameras started rolling, an armada of small tankers and speed boats would follow their vessel and try and transfer cameras and crew jumping between boats while five-foot waves crashed around them.

It wasn’t easy.“I suspect Sian was smart, because it was a way to bring us together by being stuck out at sea on the boat. We had no place to escape, no escape route,” Kotsur, who is Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor, added. “We grew together in that way, so good one, Sian.”Jones recalls Kotsur cracking jokes or knocking an ice lid into the water that forced the film’s team of speedboats circling to collect it, while Heder remembers Jones giving her onscreen brother “s—” about not being able to tie a knot, just like a sister might.