WHAT LIES BENEATH

Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan dug deep to portray real-life treasure hunters uncovering Sutton Hoo in The Dig. They tell Total Film how the right hat, emotional connection and being buried alive made a period drama a personal matter...

- JANE CROWTHER

Watching a 5th-century Anglo-Saxon ship emerge from the Suffolk earth in Netflix’s new awards contender instills a sense of wonder – and the same is true of the actors recreating the moment in 1939 when self-taught archeologist Basil Brown excavated Sutton Hoo from under a mound that landowner, Edith Pretty, believed held historical secrets. Adapting John Preston’s 2007 factual novel, The Dig’s director, Simon Stone, was keen that effects should be practical and so production designer Maria Djurkovic built a to-scale replica (100ft if you’re asking) of the vessel in a field in Godalming, Surrey for Ralph Fiennes (Brown) and Carey Mulligan (Pretty) to ‘discover’.

Working in reverse, Stone and his cast filmed scenes of the boat completely revealed first and gradually filled it in throughout the shoot. “We took weeks and weeks to design the ship and then in a few days it was gone, but it’ll always be there in the film,” says Djurkovic.

The ship wasn’t the only real situation that aided the cast, as Fiennes and Mulligan told us in a pre Christmas zoom chat taking in authentic archeological discoveries, race-against-time rescues, deep research and a mutual admiration of each other’s work that mirrored their characters’ relationship. While Fiennes had been connected to the project from the beginning, Mulligan joined just before shooting – replacing Nicole Kidman when scheduling conflicts forced her to leave. But the connection the two actors forged is what’s at the heart of this tale of two disparate people with a shared vision.

It must be quite strange to be thinking about this film when it seems like you made it in another era entirely before COVID happened...