Colin Farrell Says Making “Thirteen Lives” Gave Him “Panic Attacks”

Colin Farrell stars in “Thirteen Lives,” Ron Howard’s film about the real-life story of 12 boys and their soccer coach after they become trapped in a labyrinth of caves in Thailand. In a July 28 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Farrell opened up about the impact the process of making the movie had on his mental health.

“Terrifying in a word. Terrifying,” Farrell said of his experience filming the underwater scenes. “It really was – it was scary. I’m not a great swimmer anyway, not that we were swimming, not that we were treading water, we had to stay on the surface, but they built a really impressive network of caves, it was about four or five different caves that were based on the topography of the caves, the Tham Luang caves in Thailand, and they filled them full of water, and we’d go down and there was no up.”

The intensely realistic filming conditions presented a brand-new, psychologically challenging experience for Farrell. “I mean, there’s a lot to be said for being able to look up in water and see the surface, so when you can’t and there’s actually a ceiling over your head, and there’s no air at all, it just wreaks havoc on my mind,” he added. “It’s a very particular thing, and we replicated it as close as we could.” Filming led him to have “panic attacks underwater,” he said. “That’s a new experience.”

But with the help of a team of trained divers – who said “Thirteen Lives” was the most dangerous underwater film they had ever done – he made it through. Ahead, check out what we know about the film’s cast, release date, and more.