Thanks to Widow’s Bay, Matthew Rhys was able to draw from a substantial and personal reservoir: his love for the sea became indispensable during the filming of the first season of Widow’s Bay, a TV series streaming on Apple TV set on an apparently cursed island. Anyone born on that island cannot leave it, which is why the sea sequences were deeply dramatic and demanding to shoot. Fortunately, Rhys could rely on his years of experience at sea to bring to life some of the most cathartic scenes of the first season. Here’s how it went.
Widow’s Bay, how the love of the sea helped Matthew Rhys shoot one of the most intense scenes
Rhys had hoped with all his heart to shoot at least one water-based scene in Widow’s Bay, but he wasn’t exactly granted that wish, and the mayor he portrays in the scene was far from happy about what happened.
The TV series, distributed on Apple TV, tells of a small New England island bound by a powerful curse that afflicts all the residents. While the mayor Tom Loftis tries to revive the island’s fortunes by pushing for greater tourist presence, he is forced to slow down when something seems to awaken, phenomena that he cannot explain and that would put everyone in danger. At a certain point, Tom himself is forced to board a boat to dispose of the island’s founder, whose coffin had been exhumed only to discover that he had never died all these years, but was waiting underground. “With every step I asked myself, ‘Yes, but when will Tom get on a boat?’ When we finally shot an episode on the boat, the production told us: ‘Yes, it’s too difficult to shoot at sea, so we’ll put a boat in a studio.’” Tom, unlike the actor, does not tolerate open sea well and the actor would have had to portray him in a rather awkward way. Yet his nautical experience proved useful, even without real sea: “I think the only thing that helped me was not getting seasick. It felt like being on a boat all day for 12 hours, because it was in constant movement. So that was the only positive note,” he revealed to People.
He developed a passion for the sea as a teenager, following in the footsteps of his uncle, a sea captain and an instructor at a summer camp for naval cadets he attended during his youth. Since then he has deepened his interest in navigation, and it remains a constant in his life today because “the calming qualities of water convey a sense of vastness,” especially when considering the hustle and bustle of New York, the city he calls home: “In New York, it’s as if wild nature is right around the corner from home. You see nature as it should be, in its wild state, and for a moment you become part of that ecosystem. That’s why I find it so relaxing. Everyone runs along, above or below waterways, trains pass overhead. But no one ever goes above them. No one has a relationship with the water, and I don’t think access is easy.”
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