In Justin Lin’s Last Days, John Allen Chau (Sky Yang) travels across the world to attempt to introduce Christianity to the uncontacted Sentinelese people, determined to fulfill the mission he believes he has been sent on while skirting international laws as a local police officer, Meera (Radhika Apte), tries to find and stop him before it’s too late.
Awards Buzz spoke with Yang, Ken Leung, who plays Chau’s father, and Apte, about how little they knew about the real Chau and what was important for them to learn as they prepared for the film.
Yang spoke of what he discovered:
“It’s there. It’s embedded in him. I would hear stories or find accounts in research of just what a beautiful human being this person was, how much time he gave to kids, to helping people, to charity, to organizations across the world. That was the first point to realize where the intention lay. And then the next part of that was understanding the nature of it, the nature of faith. That was done by coming into contact with people. I went out to Tulsa and really just operated off the kindness of this community, people, whoever it might be, hitchhiking to pastors to people who offered up beds and homes to me. I’ve got to hold my hands up – I came with a level of expectations and I was just floored by the amount of generosity.”
Leung explained his approach of not wanting to really meet or get to know Yang before playing his character’s father, who struggled to connect with his son:
“Sometimes when actors meet, there’s a whole social dance that is necessary to people-meeting, but can also be – distracting is not the right word, but it can throw you off-center and confuse what, if you don’t touch it, can remain potent, and that that potency is useful for your creative exchange.”
Apte, whose character is entirely fictional, gravitated towards Meera as a guide for the film:
“I really relate to Meera. I relate to her a lot. I’m a lot like her. And I think Meera also carries Justin, as a filmmaker, his viewpoint. You see the film through Meera’s eyes. I didn’t want to do any research on what I could base her on. The reason why Justin wanted to tell the story, it really moved me when he told me, and Meera was the key to telling the story that way. He was very clear about who Meera was and why she was there.”
Watch the videos above to hear more about how these actors approached a true story with many unknowns with reverence and respect.
Last Days opens in theaters on Friday, October 24th.
