Exclusive! Submarine drama “Phantom” star Ed Harris talked about shooting in an actual submarine.

By: Izumi Hasegawa   March 1, 2013

Ed Harris played the captain of a Russian submarine during the Cold War in Phantom. This film feels very claustrophobic because they filmed in real submarine. Was his acting affected by the location?

Well, yeah, it was very different just in the sense of – well, first of all we had to shoot, we would shoot locations in a bit. In other words, there’s a lot of stuff where I’m on a com where I’m talking to the crew. And throughout the film, if I recall, we shot a lot of that at the same time – a little different angles, but at the same area. So you had to kind of jump, realize where you were, what had happened before, what’s going to happen, what’s happening right now. But, shooting in the sub was great because that’s where the story was taking place. And it’s a lot different than being on a soundstage somewhere with like fake submarine equipment and wooden or plastic or Styrofoam knobs and tools and stuff. This stuff was metal. It was hard. You had to know what you were doing. You had to know where you were. You had to be careful when you’re walking through it. So it just added to the reality of it. It was actually really a great benefit to be shooting in an actual submarine.