Her remarkable around-the-world journey was destined for the movies, but it’s been more powerful than the 29-year-old expected...
Jessica Watson is expert at brushing off any kind of gushing in her direction. Tell her it’s incredible she sailed around the world at 16 and she deflects.
It’s heartwarming, in the best kind of way, not too cheesy as these types of biopics can be, and a great reminder of the worldwide interest – and impact – there was in her journey. Croft, who is sitting next to Watson, jumps in: “We were all crying,” she says. “It’s an emotionally charged film.” “I keep getting this nostalgia for the thing that I didn’t do,” says Croft, laughing. “Like, I watch the boat and I go, ‘Oh, me and my boat.’ But it’s not me and it’s not my boat. And it’s so clear that it’s not me, or my boat, when Jess is sitting next to me in the theatre.”It was Croft’s connection with the boat, Ella’s Pink Lady that Watson really appreciated, as Croft understood that Ella’s Pink Lady wasn’t just a boat, but a home.
Cliff Curtis as Ben Bryant and Croft as Jessica Watson in True Spirit. Bryant was Watson’s fictional mentor in the film.is directed by Sarah Spillane, who also wrote the script while isolated in a shack in the US, so she could better understand the loneliness Watson must have felt on her journey.
“I was mainly throwing myself from side to side,” says Croft, laughing. “I did a lot of sailing training and quite a bit of stunt training. Those sequences were choreographed – left, right, hold and grab – so it was OK. To re-create the Sydney Harbour homecoming – in which more than 75,000 people and a flotilla of ships, plus then prime minister Kevin Rudd, gathered to greet Watson – a yacht club sailed out to meet Croft.
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