?We Almost Lost Javier?: ?The Little Mermaid? Director Opens Up on Terrifying Moment While Filming Swimming Scene

Nearly 200 years ago, Danish author Hans Christian Andersen wrote a fairy tale about a mermaid who is willing to sacrifice her life in order to get a human soul. After numerous adaptations and spanning generations, the story of The Little Mermaid is still immensely popular and relevant in today’s youth. Director Rob Marshall’s recent adaptation starring Halle Bailey in the lead has hit the theatres recently. In context to that, he recently shared an interesting-yet-frightening moment while filming a scene that involved Oscar-winner Javier Bardem.

Bardem plays the role of King Triton in the latest adaptation of the story. The movie involves a lot of scenes underwater, which were filmed by suspending the actors in the air and using CGI, later on, to fill in the rest. One such scene with Javier Bardem in the air almost turned out to be too risky for the Spanish actor.

Things almost went awry for Javier Bardem

The Little Mermaid was released on 26th May 2023 and the entire team has been busy doing promotions all around the globe for the past couple of weeks. As per Insider, director Rob Marshall spoke with Entertainment Weekly, where he said, “We almost lost Javier … it was in his throne room and he was up there maybe at least 40 feet in the air, and he dropped in one moment like 15 feet”.

Since the adaptation is CGI-heavy, actors were suspended with a harness in the air, with their movements matched to that of any movement underwater. This is the way all the underwater swimming scenes were filmed for the film. When Bardem, who plays the underwater sea god, was up by 40 feet in the air, he suddenly fell by 15 feet. This scared the team and halted production temporarily. Bardem was, however, cool as a cucumber, and showed no signs of fear or anguish.

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Marshall recounted Bardem’s words to EW by saying, “Javier, who is the coolest man on the planet earth and the nicest man ever said ‘OK. I’m okay. I’m good, I’m good, I’m good'”. But things weren’t very good. It was unprecedented and had the fall been for much longer, it could’ve severely hurt the No Country For Old Men actor. While representatives of the actor and the film haven’t made any further revelations on the matter, safe to assume, the remainder of the filming went smoothly.

The film was released this Friday and has met with global commercial success. While reviews from various websites and critics have been somewhat mixed, it is still faring well among moviegoers. Even tennis legend Serena Williams sent her love to the lead star Halle Bailey, who is a massive fan of Williams. The film also stars Melissa McCarthy as Ursula and Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric among other actors.

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