When a soccer team became trapped in northern Thailand’s Tham Luang Cave during an unexpected rainstorm in 2018, a group of the world’s most skilled and experienced divers descended on the Chiang Rai province to help. The Royal Thai Navy and more than 10,000 volunteers pooled their resources and attempted a harrowing rescue of the twelve boys and their coach, watched on by the entire world. Thirteen Lives, filmed largely in northern Queensland due to Covid restrictions, is the story of how the impossible was achieved.

Directed by Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13) – who is no stranger to adapting dramatic true stories for the big screen – the two-and-a-half-hour tense biographical film hauls us through the narrow tunnels of the flooded caves on the daring mission.

Before you embark on the hopeful but hazardous journey, meet the real heroes of the Thai cave rescue and the cast who portray them in Thirteen Lives.

John Volanthen (played by Colin Farrell)

This world record-holding British cave diver forms one half of the two-man team that first reached and helped rescue the Wild Boars soccer team.

Colin Farrell told Entertainment Tonight that filming underwater scenes was terrifying, and even admitted to experiencing panic attacks underwater. Having experts and real-life rescuers Richard Stanton and Jason Mallinson to assist the actors on their diving was helpful, but not totally anxiety-relieving.  

Richard ‘Rick’ Stanton (played by Viggo Mortensen)

When Rick Stanton realised the boys, aged 11 to 16, would not have a chance of leaving the cave with no diving experience, it was his idea to carry them out unconscious. With a call to Australian colleague Dr Harry Harris, his outrageous idea became the only realistic solution.

Stanton’s deserved global recognition – heightened after being portrayed by Crimes of the Future star Viggo Mortensen – hasn’t gone to his head. He humbly says, “I don’t think of myself as a hero. I still live alone in Coventry.”

Dr Richard ‘Harry’ Harris (played by Joel Edgerton)

Dr Harry Harris isn’t just a cave diver – he’s an anaesthetist. Harris and Dr Craig Challen (who is absent from Thirteen Lives) carried out the logistically, physically and ethically challenging job of anaesthetising and extracting the children. As Australia’s leading technical divers, they were jointly awarded 2019 Australian of the Year.

Chris Jewell (played by Tom Bateman)

Tom Bateman admits he suffered from claustrophobia while in his role as computer software consultant and expert cave diver, Chris Jewell. Discussing his underwater scenes, which were filmed on set in Queensland, Bateman said, “Every single day was a challenge for me. I didn’t quite realise how it made you feel…”

The British actor used meditation to overcome his fear, which especially came in handy when he found himself stuck between rocks for approximately seven minutes.

Jason Mallinson (played by Paul Gleeson)

While Jason Mallinson had more than 25 years of cave diving experience, he wasn’t sure he could pull off the miraculous live-saving mission. “I never doubted what we were capable of and what our experiences would let us do,” he said, “but what we were never sure of was whether the boys would come out alive.” 

Popular Australian television dramatic actor Jason Mallinson (Home and Away, Wanted) slides into the flippers of the fifth member of the five-man rescue team.

Ekkaphon Chanthawong (played by Teeradon Supapunpinyo)

The 25-year-old assistant coach (played by Thai actor, singer and model ‘James’) performed a crucial role in keeping the 12 boys calm and alive. The former monk taught the group to meditate as a way of staving off panic and hunger.

Saman Kunan (played by Sukollawat Kanarot)

The 38-year-old Thai Navy SEAL was one of two victims of the rescue mission (another died a year later after contracting a blood infection during the rescue). Saman Kunan died from a lack of oxygen on the way back to base camp after delivering supplies to the trapped soccer team.

Thanet Natisri (played by Nophand Boonyai)

Nophand Boonyai (who stars in the Owen Wilson-led action thriller No Escape), co-stars as one of the lesser-known heroes of the rescue effort. Thanet Natisri is a creative water engineer who spearheaded the effort to divert rainwater from inside the mountain and tunnels, which, if not stopped, would drown the boys in the cave.

Thirteen Lives follows 2019’s The Cave and 2021’s BAFTA-nominated documentary The Rescue. Howard says his biographical survival film aims to show how the rescue mission is “a tremendous tribute to cooperation, international effort, and forward momentum”. Despite its focus on the international heroes, it is not another white saviour film; rather, the Oscar-winning director shares, Thirteen Lives celebrates how Thai people “did everything they could, as a culture, as a government, physically, emotionally, spiritually to make this rescue happen.”

Thirteen Lives is streaming on Prime Video from August 5, 2022