ComingSoon editor-in-chief Tyler Treese spoke with Thrash stars Phoebe Dynevor, Djimon Hounsou, and Whitney Peak about the new shark movie. The trio discussed filming the movie’s intense water sequences and their knowledge of sharks. Thrash is now streaming on Netflix.

“When a Category 5 hurricane decimates a coastal town, the storm surge brings devastation, chaos and something far more frightening: hungry sharks,” reads the official logline for Thrash.

Tyler Treese: Phoebe, there’s a really intense scene early on when you’re trapped in a car, and it’s flooding. What was filming like for that? Because that’s a cramped space and there was a lot of scenes in that car, so how’s that?

Phoebe Dynevor: Yeah, it was definitely a what you see is what you got on the day type situation. I was really trapped in a car. It was cool though, the water itself was quite shallow. We were in a sort of shallow pool, and they would just drop the car slowly into the water so the water wasn’t rising. I was being lowered into it. But yeah, it was about a week of that scene, so I was, I was definitely ready to get out of that car. I think I developed claustrophobia on that.

Whitney Peak: Because it wasn’t just in a car. You also had the trees, the branches, and the belly.

Dynevor: Yeah, it was intense.

Whitney, you’ve got quite a few scenes in the water. What was most challenging about just filming in the water and having these windy conditions? It’s very unique filming that you’re doing.

Peak: Yeah, it was a lot. Part of it was just kind of excitement, like shooting a movie of that scale where we were in a giant pool of water and everything felt sort of real. Then part of it was also just I really need to get my stamina up because I was swimming, and I was just wheezing by the end of it. I was just not able to hold it for that long.

Dynevor: Beg to differ on that. You crushed.

Peak: Because I felt like I had to, you know what I mean? It was kind of like, “Hey, do it or don’t,” you know what I mean? I was just like, I’m gonna swim and then just hide the fact that I’m totally out of breath right now.

Dynevor: That’s intense. You have a lot of intense stuff.

Peak: Yeah. It’s just, yeah, it was good. It was fun.

Djimon, you’re a shark expert in this film. There’s this great scene where you’re talking about this experience with a hippo in the Zambezi River. I was curious what it meant for you to have a really meaningful scene that explained your character’s relationship with sharks and nature.

Djimon Hounsou: Well, I have very little understanding of sharks, to be honest, right? Other than the general knowledge that we all have about sharks. But I did have some understanding about global warming, climate change, and the effects of our doing of mistreatment of nature. I guess later, looking at the film, I think I was really drawn by the relationship with them, these two ladies trying to survive. One is obviously begging for help and the other one who is basically quite hesitant about coming in to aid.

We all have some just vague understanding and even the scientists, they have such vague understanding of the migration of sharks. A story went back, in the beginning of my career when I did Amistad, and it’s interesting that the migration of sharks from the time of slavery, it was mainly due to slavery. Migration of sharks up until today. That was quite a shocking understanding of how sharks migrate from coast to coast, and that was due because of enslavement of black people in Africa.

Whitney Peak: I have so many questions about that.

Phoebe Dynevor: Me too.

Peak: We’ll talk about that after. That’s fascinating.

Thanks to Phoebe Dynevor, Djimon Hounsou, and Whitney Peak for taking the time to talk about Thrash.