“Everything Went Right When Everything Should Have Gone Wrong” William Nicholson Talks ‘Thirteen Lives’

It was the rescue mission that captured the hearts of the world. It all began when an unseasonal rainstorm trapped the “Wild Boars,” a Thai boys’ soccer team and their coach Ekkaphon Chanthawong (James Teeradon Sahajak) in the Tham Luang caves in Thailand. It was a rescue mission where failure wasn’t an option. It wasn’t even a possibility.

Penned by the remarkable William (Bill) Nicholson (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Gladiator) and helmed by the equally remarkable Ron Howard (We Feed People, Hillbilly Elegy), it tells the story of a mission that overcame its near zero chance of success as people solved a problem under extreme pressure. Bill spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about his writing journey.

William Nicholson

The global media coverage set the bar incredibly high for Thirteen Lives. Everyone had an opinion of what the story might look like before Nicholson had a chance to type Fade In. The screenwriter was acutely aware of balancing the expectations of an authentic story with a sensationalized rescue mission. “There are real people involved in Thirteen Lives, one of whom died. The sensitivity to the survivors acted as a restraint to the construction of the story.” The tone was subtle, muted and considered to reflect this. To offset the high-octane lack of thrills and spills, Nicholson knew there was a simple plot that he described as “intense and dramatic” to drive the narrative.

The events already happened so the writer knew the story was going to work. “The challenge was how much to introduce the characters, at what point, and to what degree,” he continued. He decided early on in the development stage that he would have tell multiple stories from various points of view to flesh it out. “We had to weave in five or six additional character plot lines. This made the story more complex.”

Then there was the elephant in the room – the white savior problem, despite two white diver guys pulling off the rescue with a lot of help – ten thousand from around the world.

How do I not make this a story of two white guys saving the world?

Writer Don McPherson wrote the first screenplay of the story, which wasn’t ultimately used. This garnered him a “story by” credit in Thirteen Lives. The same producers also previously hired McPherson to write one a three episodes of a pre-existing television project on the subject which didn’t make it over the finish line.

Some time later, the producers sent Bill Nicholson a package of research materials of the rescue mission and asked him to write his take on the story. Almost thirty drafts later, Nicholson took the draft to Los Angeles and captured the attention of Ron Howard. “He looked at the screenplay with a fresh eye.”

Thirteen Lives is told as a “dramatized documentary.” “So much of what I’ve written is taking the mess of real life and find the emotional drama running through it.” Nicholson remained true to the actual events and gave himself little room for artistic liberties. “Everything happened. What you do as a writer is a process of massive selection of the events and structuring them.” This is done by telling the character stories.

Ron Howard on set. Photo by Credit: Vince Valitutti/ Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

The Writing Process

Since Thirteen Lives was based on actual events, Bill Nicholson first laid out the plot and then laid out the character arcs. After filtering out the events to an outline, the writer examines the pacing of the story. “There were a large number of dives – far more than we put in the film. We decided which dives mattered and what order should they go in.” Bill Nicholson balanced a sense of honesty and truth with building the story tension. He wanted to capture the “yearning and frustration of the divers.”

Clearly the dive that killed the Thai Navy Seal Saman Kunan (Weir Sukollawat Kanaros) was going to remain a key scene. “We moved it to a different position in Thirteen Lives so it would come at a later point where it would trigger a difficult decision to use anaesthetics to rescue the children when Dr. Richard Harris (Joel Edgerton) arrived.” This added more pressure to the rescue team who acknowledged the high risk of this venture. Another issue with having so many dives in the actual rescue mission is the fear of repetition in the film. “You need to give a different color and quality to each dive.”

Each dive is a vertebra in the story’s spine. “Then you overlay each character’s journey.” Nicholson was particularly interested in the journeys of the two main divers, Rick Stanton (Viggo Mortensen) and John Volanthen (Colin Farrell). “They’re required to do something dangerous and shut down all emotional responses in order to be safe.” They’re put in an impossible situation where a reasonable person would generate a massive emotional response. “Kids have been drugged, they may not survive the rescue, parents and the town folk are anxiously waiting outside.” The divers don’t see themselves as saviors. They’re just doing their job. They gradually shifted from autopilot into human mode. This formed the basis for their character arcs.

Bill Nicholson confessed that he only agrees to take on projects with characters that he loves. “I loved those two divers. I feel that this is a love story between them.” He added that he used “freedom of invention” to write the Thai characters based on his imagination.

The tone of Thirteen Lives is sombre, matter-of-fact and muted. “I wasn’t consciously working against a high drama, high hero movie,” he responded. He noted that he’s never written a thriller to base this film of off. “Many people were surprised that the film hung back from pushing the buttons you might expect from a high-stakes rescue film.”

The film relies on an “emotional anxiety and dread” to make it to the end. “We decided that the children were going to get stuck inside a cave and we won’t see them again until they’re found by the divers.” The second key emotional pivot is the joy experienced by the village when the divers return with video footage of the children in the caves, despite knowing deep-down that these kids could never come out alive. “They realized they created hope when there was no hope.” This was difficult emotional terrain to cover. This shift changed the timbre of the story to one of blame.

We created a clench of hope and dread

In a need to move both himself and the audience, Nicholson was mindful of not leaning too much into heart-warming sentimentality. “It was an opportunity to channel this sentimentality into a stoic exterior of the divers.”

Thirteen Lives is a game of chance. As it progresses, an increasing number of characters realize that the odds are against them and not improving. Even after the rescue mission was complete, they realized lightning only strikes once in the same place. After the miraculous success, everybody thought, “We got lucky.” But William Nicholson didn’t see that ending as dramatically satisfying.

People of Doi Nang Non. Photo by Vince Valitutti/ Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

“Random luck is not interesting. It has no moral weight to it,” he said. “What you want audience to feel is that their luck was earned rather than stitched on.” Unless of course, they have bad luck where a character’s mettle is tested.

It’s an examination of  “physical and emotional peril.”

The people of the Northern Thai village believed there was more going on than the rescuers’ difficult work. Perhaps even some divine intervention. The caves were situated beneath Doi Nang Non (Mountain of the Sleeping Lady), the locals brought “offerings” to the “reclining goddess” of the cave called Jao Mae Nang Non.

Ultimately, Thirteen Lives brings out the best of humanity. They all came together for a common cause. “People want most of all to be loved, respected, and feel worthwhile. There was a huge upsurge of giving. Ten thousand people from all over the world volunteered their time and skills. It’s hugely life-enhancing.” The thirteen lives rescued belonged to the nation, the world.

by Staff Writer

From our in-house editorial team.