Fugue Magazine
Fall 2005

Swimming with the sharks: Blanchard Ryan opens up about Open Water… and her battle with an angry barracuda

Once in a while, a film is able to tap into our most primal fears. Anyone watching a scene from Blanchard Ryan's latest movie, Open Water, will inevitably grimace and recoil at the sight of two scuba divers left stranded in shark-infested waters. Now imagine being Ryan herself, afloat with only co-star Daniel Travis, a two-person crew, and four-dozen sharks. "It was the most horrifying thing you could imagine!" she exclaims, now safely in her car heading to San Diego. The team spent two days swimming with sharks with only a tiny boat to carry them to back to safety. "There was 40 or 50 sharks in the water and we just jumped in…Every Darwinian instinct was telling me 'do not step off the side of the boat right now.'"

Before garnering huge amounts of attention from Open Water, the actress has been making a steady living in the entertainment industry for several years. The daughter of Ron Ryan, Philadelphia Flyers President, Ryan moved around several suburban towns throughout her childhood. She began modeling in college, an enviable position that allowed her to work infrequently for $5,000 a pop-"it was easier than working 20 hours a week at the mall," she admits. After college, she headed to New York, where she quickly landed an agent and started doing commercials. With over 50 commercial under her belt, Ryan may be a familiar face from her stints with Gallo wine, AT&T, and her favorite, Bikini Zone (for red itchy bumps.) "The more embarrassing the commercial is, the better….what's the point if you can't have a commercial come on and have your friends scream and howl with laughter?"

An appearance on Sex and the City, independent films, and sketches on Late Night with Conan led to increased exposure, but Ryan continued to depend on her commercial gigs to pay the bills. When opportunities for indie films arose, she was always apprehensive about the time they took from doing commercials. "I'm a very practical, business-oriented person," she says. "I'll do [a film], but I won't bend over backwards for it.'" However, the story of Open Water captured her imagination to the point that she found herself unable to stop thinking about it, and she was thrilled to be cast as the lead.

The film's director/producers Chris Kentis and his wife Laura Lau conceived the idea several years ago. As avid divers, the couple was horrified and fascinated by the true story of a couple left behind on a scuba diving tour. After writing and directing the film Grind, featuring Billy Crudup and Amanda Peet, the two realized that working with a large film crew hindered the creative process. They decided to try shooting with only a DV camera and a minimal cast, and the concept of Open Water felt right for that style.

"It was really satisfying," explains Ryan. "There was nothing to worry about except for nature and the work. No hair, no makeup, no wardrobe." The only details they had to worry about were swimming with toothy fish under the punishing Bahamian sun. Fortunately, the shark population they worked with has had heavy exposure to humans, and the actors wore protective mesh metal under their wet suits. That didn't stop a barracuda from attacking Ryan on the first day of shooting ("the poor thing…it just got sick of me and took a lunge"), leaving three puncture wounds that refused to heal under the salt water conditions. She and Daniel also suffered from sunburns and sheer exhaustion, and "there was also full nudity, which is kinda freaky." Ryan estimates that the four of them spent 190 hours in the water, with 120 hours of footage to prove it.

Now living in L.A. with her boyfriend Steve Lemme (of Super Troopers fame), Ryan is caught in an unexpected media whirlwind. "It's unbelievable. Every day we look at each other laughing and wonder, 'how did this happen'?" She sometimes considers going back to New York where she can return to doing commercials, but it seems the success of Open Water may lead to a bigger career than she imagined. "I really love this movie and I'm so proud…I'm grateful that everyone is responding to it. I guess people love their sharks!"