Jaume Collet-Serra on Swimming with Blake Lively in The Shallows

The Orphan and Non-Stop director talks his new spin on the shark thriller with Blake Lively in The Shallows.

(His next movieThe Commuteris also with Neeson.)

What made you want to direct this one?

Jaume Collet-Serra:A few, I guess.

Ive heard of a couple.

Whats going to challenge me?

This movie had a lot of the elements that were interesting.

It was a movie that was bright, had a lot of exterior.

I had never done a movie that had visual FX to this level.

Even though this is the cheapest movie Ive ever done, its the most ambitious movie.

The studio has obviously kept their promise and here we are.

Im already shooting the next one.

Its not like Im a workaholic.

Its rare to have a movie that is started and finished in one year.

Im doing storyboards, Im doing shot lists, Im already casting for it, so thats my life.

I dont know what to do if I dont do that.

For me, its important to make movies.

Thats what I do.

You shoot a lot underwater as well.

I wish that people could see what we went through.

You hear stories obviously about movies in water going over schedule, over budget.

Well, lucky for them that they had that possibility of going over schedule or over budget.

I didnt, because this movie had to be delivered at a certain time to be released this weekend.

We knew this release date, and we barely made it.

This movie was completed last week.

It doesnt look like it.

We had to have it.

Like the buoy was destroyed several times, the rock was destroyed several times.

Because you built stuff on the location.

Yes, the rock is not there.

The rock was not supposed to be there.

The rock has a big platform that goes down many feet underneath.

Its also a soft material so Blake doesnt get hurt.

Its not a real rock, so its even more fragile.

Same with the buoy.

So the things that are friendly for filming are not friendly for nature.

Its more difficult than it looks.

Was Blake already attached when you came on board?

No, but it was our hope that she would do it.

She really elevated the movie.

The shark, whatever we could afford, but she had to obviously really carry the movie.

When I couldnt afford something, Id cut to her face.

Thats what it is.

Its the oldest trick in the book, but you need it and you have to use it correctly.

If you overuse it, it loses its effectiveness.

So is there somewhere an hour of close-ups of Blakes face doing all these expressions?

Oh, yes, there is.

Thats all we had.

We had no shark, we had nothing.

Its a pretty impressive CG shark.

Its huge, its scary.

Did you have anything on set practically besides the tennis ball?

No, there was a fin that is not camera-ready.

Its just for water displacement.

The thing that makes it real is that the water is actually real.

CG water, when you mix it with real water, doesnt look that great.

But that took time and half the time we couldnt use it because it was too long to prep.

No, we did R&D.

We prepped this movie in a month, it was very fast.

I flew to Australia in mid-September, I was shooting mid-October, we finished shooting by Christmas.

I had my directors cut at the end of January.

I was editing during Christmas.

I delivered shots to VFX January 5th, so they could start working on sharks.

Some shots took months, months.

I didnt see the shark finished for months.

Thats whats scary really.

Because you have to have an edit before they can do FX.

Exactly, so thats whats scary because you have a movie but theres no shark.

Was the seagull CG, too?

No, that was real.

What was involved with that?

Did you find someone who could train seagulls?

It was just luck.

It was like a gift… like literally we were thinking how to do it.

Would it be a CG seagull or animatronics and I was like, Well its just a seagull.

We had three of them, but one of them was this guy Sully who was a genius actor.

This guy would literally look at Blake and do everything, so its like the Marlon Brando of seagulls.

Dont let the shark get the seagull!

It was like having a dog in a movie getting killed.

You dont want to see that seagull die.

It really won the audience over.

We never considered killing the seagull, just so you know.

Its better to place it in the audiences mind then to actually see something.

Was doing this movie PG-13 something considered very early on?

Yeah, we are.

It is obviously a summer movie for young people.

I think young boys like sharks.

Why would you do that?

So yes, its a very conscious decision to be PG-13.

I think evenJawswas PG-13.

There was no PG-13 back then so it was just PG.

Youve already started your next movie which is also with Liam Neeson.

Whats the relationship between the two of you?

We hate each other.

You hate each other so much that you keep working together hoping that youll like each other eventually.

I keep trying to kill him.

I actually killed him on my last movie, and it was really fun.

No, we like working together.

The movies Ive done with him are mostly mysteries.

Is he usually calling you with a script or are you calling him?

It just goes back and forth.

Its a very good relationship, and I hope I can work with him forever.

The Shallowsopens in theaters on Friday, June 24.