‘Bad Sisters’ Cast on Shooting That Cliffhanger Boat Scene: ‘I Was Lying There like a Starfish, Floating Away, Going “Help, Help!”‘

K.J. Yossman

4 December 2024 at 7:00 pm·6-min read

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers from Season 2, Episode 5 of “Bad Sisters,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

It took only two episodes for “Bad Sisters” showrunner Sharon Horgan to kill off a major character, so given we’re now halfway through the season, is it any surprise that the bodies are piling up?

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In Episode 5, which dropped today, three of the remaining bad sisters take a boat ride with the sinister Angelica, played by iconic Fiona Shaw (“Killing Eve,” “Harry Potter”). Four women head out to sea but only three return after an unexpected encounter with a boom. The absence of Angelica would certainly solve many of their problems.

Shot over four days in the choppy English channel in the middle of winter, the climax of the episode sees Ursula (Eva Birthistle), Bibi (Sarah Greene) and Becka (Eve Hewson) blackmailed by Angelica. She promises not to press charges against Becka (who’s been arrested for trespassing in Angelica’s home) on condition that the sisters let her spread Grace’s ashes in the Irish sea. But unbeknown to Angelica, they decide to use decoy ashes. Borrowing a friend’s boat, they head out to sea where a tragic accident sees Angelica fall into the dark waters. Despite Becka’s best efforts — including jumping in after her — the trio can’t locate her and eventually admit defeat and return home.

Ahead of the episode premiering, Horgan, lead director Dearbhla Walsh and castmembers Eva Birthistle, Sarah Greene and Eve Hewson talked to Variety about how they battled seasickness and near-drowning to film the scene.

Sarah Green in ‘Bad Sisters’ (Courtesy of Apple TV+)

Apparently some of the cast got very seasick shooting on the sailboat — how bad was it?

Eva Birthistle: All I can remember is feeling sick. It rained a lot. It was the swell [of the water] — because the boat was still for the most part — so it was just that constant swell. I remember at one point it was raining so hard that everybody went down below deck to stay dry, apart from me, because below deck makes you feel even more sick. So they wrapped me up like a turkey, I was in foil, and I just stayed on deck getting rained on, wretched. It was most unglamorous.

Sarah Greene: I had a great time. I didn’t have any seasickness. I got away lightly. I had to learn how to sail, so I spent a couple of days in Dublin learning. Now, the boat that they had me learn on was half the size of the boat that we actually shot on, so that was pretty daunting, but I loved that week. It was one of my favorite weeks to shoot.

Sharon Horgan: I was on the floor of the toilet for two days. I was just like a shivering wreck. We had terrible seasickness, terrible.

Birthistle: I don’t have as much sympathy for Sharon. She wasn’t on camera. She was sick, but she was off camera in another boat. I was on camera, green. Thankfully, it was one day of having awful seasickness, and then I got acupuncture.

Eve Hewson: I don’t get sea sickness at all. All I was doing on that boat was sleeping and eating, and everyone was upstairs vomiting with needles in their ears trying to stop themselves from puking. It was the choppiest water, and I literally was asleep the entire time.

Fiona Shaw in ‘Bad Sisters’ (Courtesy of Apple TV+)

When Fiona gets hit by the boom, does she really go over the side of the boat or is it camera trickery?

Horgan: Fiona Shaw, my God, she was gung ho. She was like, “I want to go in the water!” We’re like, “We don’t think we need you in the water?” [and she said] “No, I want to!”

Birthistle: She did all her own stunts. It cracked me up every time. I was trying to keep a straight face when she gets [hit], it’s just so funny.

Greene: She went over, yeah. I don’t remember how many takes we did, but it was shocking every time. And I haven’t watched the show yet, I’ve seen an ADR [additional dialogue recording screening] and I still scream every time it happens.

Eve also ended up in the water. What was that like to film?

Hewson: Jumping in the sea was so cold I can’t even tell you. And I also had to rehearse it, and the waves were so choppy that the rescue divers couldn’t get to me. My life jacket was like — it inflates when you jump in — and so it kind of inflated around my neck, and I started to really panic. And I was in freezing cold water, which makes your breath go sharp anyway. They just could not get me out of the water: The boat couldn’t get to me, the marine divers couldn’t get to me. So I was shitting my pants, basically. And then they eventually got me out, they pulled me onto a boat. But I was so annoyed when I saw the edit, because I was so proud of myself — we have this amazing footage of me jumping into the water and swimming through these crazy, crazy deep waves — and they cut it out of the show! I was like, “Guys!” It doesn’t look that scary, which is a bummer because I really committed, and I wish that it was properly on there.

Greene: She was in the water for quite a while. The clothes are so heavy, there’s a lot of health and safety around it, obviously. So they have divers in the water. But when her thing inflated it was quite shocking and she felt very disoriented in the water. They’re always really scary moments to shoot. Maybe not so much when you’re in it yourself. But watching it, we were pretty worried.

Was it filmed in a pool or in the actual sea?

Walsh: All at sea, we did everything for real.

Hewson: It was in the deep English Channel.

Did you manage to hit all your marks before you were rescued?

Hewson: Basically the directive was like, jump and then swim 10 strokes, and once you’re done lie back and let the life jacket hold you and then the marine divers will come get you. And so I did that. So I was just lying there like a starfish floating away going “Help, help!”

These interviews have been edited and condensed.

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