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The
making of Cast Away
Cast Away celebrates the idea that no matter how
many obstacles are thrown in our paths, we will
find ways to accept them. The story is not so
much about the survival of a human being, but
rather the survival of the human spirit and an
illustration of the idea that surviving is easy,
it’s living that’s difficult.”
- Director Robert Zemeckis 
In Cast Away, Academy Award winning filmmaker
Robert Zemeckis and two-time Oscar winner Tom
Hanks reunite to explore the blessings and heartache
of fate and the survival of the human spirit.
Hanks stars as Chuck Noland, a FedEx systems engineer
whose personal and professional life is ruled
by the clock. His fast-paced career takes him,
often at a moment’s notice, to far-flung
locales -- and away from his girlfriend Kelly,
played by Helen Hunt.
Chuck’s manic existence abruptly ends when,
after a plane crash, he becomes isolated on a
remote island -- Cast Away into the most desolate
environment imaginable. Stripped of the conveniences
of everyday life, he first must meet the basic
needs of survival, including water, food and shelter.
Chuck, the consummate problem solver, eventually
figures out how to sustain himself physically.
But then what? Chuck begins his true personal
journey.
After four years, fate gives Chuck a chance to
fight his way back to
ABOUT
THE FILMMAKERS
Director/producer Robert Zemeckis earned the
Best Director Oscar for Forrest Gump, which
also was named Best Picture and earned Tom
Hanks the Best Actor Oscar in 1995. Most recently,
Zemeckis produced and directed the psychological
thriller What Lies Beneath starring Harrison
Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer. Both Cast Away
and What Lies Beneath are the premiere film
projects for Image Movers, the production
company Zemeckis established in 1998 with
partners Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke.
His other films include Contact, starring
Jodie Foster and based on the best-selling
novel by Carl Sagan and the box-office smash
Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which became the
top-grossing film of 1988. In 1985, he directed
and co-wrote Back to the Future, which also
topped the annual box-office chart. Zemeckis
went on to direct the film’s two sequels,
completing one of the most popular trilogies
ever. His other films include Romancing the
Stone, Death Becomes Her, Used Cars and I
Wanna Hold Your Hand.
He executive produced The Frighteners, The
Public Eye and Trespass, which he co-wrote
with Bob Gale. Gale and Zemeckis also wrote
1941, which began their professional relationship
with Steven Spielberg.
Zemeckis has also directed several projects
for the small screen, including the Showtime
feature length documentary, The Pursuit of
Happiness, which looks at the influence and
effect of drugs and alcohol on society in
the 20th century. He also served as executive
producer for the documentary.
Additionally, he directed an episode of Spielberg’s
Amazing Stories and an episode of HBO’s
Tales From the Crypt, as well as executive
produced and directed the pilot episode of
the 1993 CBS series Johnny Bago, a series
he also helped create. |
civilisation,
only to find an unexpected emotional challenge
greater than all the physical ones he’s endured.
His ability to persevere and to hope are a product
of his life-changing experience. Though the conclusion
of Chuck’s story may not be a conventional
Hollywood ending, it is, like life, full of truth,
pain and promise.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Cast Away is an Image
Movers/Playtone production. Steve Starkey, Tom
Hanks, Robert Zemeckis and Jack Rapke are the
producers. William Broyles, Jr. wrote the screenplay
and Joan Bradshaw is the executive producer.
Supporting cast members include Nick Searcy (Tigerland,
TV’s 7 Days), Jenifer Lewis, Geoffrey Blake,
Peter Von Berg, Chris Noth (Sex and the City)
and country singer Lari White.
Hanks, who came up with the original idea for
Cast Away, began developing the film with screenwriter
William Broyles, Jr. about six years ago, when
the two men were working together on Apollo 13.”
In sharp contrast to the common practice of hiring
multiple writers, Broyles was the only writer
employed on Cast Away. Through its many drafts,
his script became a model for the often unappreciated
art of true screen dramatization, where events
and emotion are brought to life with minimal dialogue.
As Hanks and Broyles began to toss around ideas
for the film, key themes, story points and character
points began to fall into place. They agreed that
Hanks’ character should be a FedEx employee.
“As a FedEx worker, the character would be
dedicated to connecting people all over the world,
just as his life would be run by time and his
connections,” Broyles explains. “And
then we wondered, what would happen to him if
you took this man, who’s so connected, and
disconnect him from everything.”
This led to other questions: What happens to him
on the island? How does he survive? To find the
answers, Broyles decided to get some first-hand
experience. Two experts in primitive technology
took Broyles to an island near the Sea of Cortez,
where the writer, like his fictional creation,
was Cast Away from the world he knew. “The
first thing that came to mind was ‘Oh, my
God, I’ve got to survive,” Broyles recalls.
“I had to figure out where to get water,
how to make a knife out of stone, what to eat.
Some of these experiences became a kind of rudimentary
basis for what happens to Chuck.”
Broyles and Hanks also discussed themes from classic
stories of unparalleled adventure. “Cast
Away is really about finding your way home whether
that means physically or emotionally -- casting
away all of the layers that complicate who we
are in this world and rediscovering the things
in life that really matter,” Broyles comments.
Adventure stories enriched by a character’s
personal journey are fertile ground for director
Robert Zemeckis, who together with Hanks, took
the world on an incredible journey with a character
named Forrest Gump. The Oscar-winning director
is often praised as a filmmaker whose box-office
blockbusters, like the trilogy of Back to the
Future films, Contact and What Lies Beneath, both
entertain and enlighten audiences. Building on
Broyles’ screenplay, Zemeckis gave Cast Away
its dramatic and visual heart.
Zemeckis and Hanks shared a common vision for
the film. “Cast Away offers high adventure,”
Hanks notes. “But at the same time it presents
a simple Zen-like understanding of what things
in this world are truly important.”
Chuck’s relationship with girlfriend Kelly
is certainly important to them both, despite their
all-too-frequent periods spent apart due to his
job responsibilities. “These two people are
not young or naive at this point in the game,
and it’s not a relationship based on flowers
and romance,” Hanks comments. “But they’re
grateful to have found each other. They’re
completely at ease and feel total acceptance with
one another. Their relationship is so filled with
security that it’s possible for them to live
these lives of total distraction caused by his
job.”
Helen Hunt appreciated the complexity of the relationship
between Chuck and Kelly. She also recalls the
humorous set of circumstances that brought her
to the project. She and Zemeckis were having breakfast
to discuss another possible film project and as
they were wrapping up the meeting, Zemeckis mentioned
he was going off to make a film with Tom Hanks
on an island.
“I said, ‘I want to be in that movie’,”
laughs Hunt. “Not long after, Bob called
and said, ‘Okay, we’ve got something
for you.’ I was totally surprised and thrilled.
I really think this is such a bold and unique
film.”
Zemeckis was pleased that Hunt took him up on
his offer. “Helen’s presence runs throughout
the movie, because the memory of Kelly is the
one thing that keeps Chuck alive when he’s
on that island,” he points out.
While that memory is essential to Chuck’s
survival on the island, a critical part of his
transformation there begins with his unusual friendship
with Wilson, a volleyball that has washed ashore
inside a FedEx package from the doomed flight.
“Wilson initially is used as a device to
let the audience know what Chuck is of the movie,
because something important is going on every
second,” notes Hanks. “I think that
we have gotten used to a voice-over that explains
everything, or characters that wisecrack their
way through their adventures. But Chuck doesn’t
say anything unless there’s a reason to.
He does everything for a specific purpose. The
absence of music and sparse dialogue were essential.”
Chuck makes a daring escape from the island, four
years after he had been washed ashore on its beaches.
He returns to civilisation a profoundly changed
human being. But Zemeckis and Hanks resisted making
his transformation a conventional one that would
tie everything neatly together for the character
- -and for the audience.
“Chuck thinks that he wasn’t supposed
to have survived,” Hanks explains. “So
when he returns to society, it’s not a ‘Rip
Van Winkle’ type reaction - ‘Hey, what
did I miss?’ Instead, he understands that
the things that were important to him before the
plane crash don’t even exist anymore, because
he’s gone through this ‘wall’.
There’s a lot of self-realization, but no
self-pity. “Chuck realizes that the best
thing that ever happened to him was almost getting
killed in a plane crash and living by himself
for four years on an island,” the actor says.
“If Chuck hadn’t gone through that experience
-- and lost everything he would never have come
to understand what’s truly important.”
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