Page "The Abyss" Paragraph 37

Some of the actors did not like the slow pace of filming.

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio remembered, " We never started and finished any one scene in any one day ".

At one point, she became so frustrated with Cameron's style of directing that she walked off the set, yelling, " We are not animals ," when Cameron told the actors to relieve themselves in their wetsuits to save time between takes.

Michael Biehn was also frustrated by the waiting.

He claimed that he was in South Carolina for five months and only acted for three to four weeks.

He remembered one day being ten meters underwater and " suddenly the lights went out.

It was so black I couldn't see my hand.

I couldn't surface.

I realized I might not get out of there.

" Harris said that the daily mental and physical strain was very intense and remembered, " One day we were all in our dressing rooms and people began throwing couches out the windows and smashing the walls.

We just had to get our frustrations out.

" There were reports from South Carolina that the actor was so upset by the physical demands of the film and Cameron's dictatorial directing style that he said he would refuse to help promote the motion picture.

Harris later denied this rumor and helped promote the film.

Cameron responded to these complaints, saying, " For every hour they spent trying to figure out what magazine to read, we spent an hour at the bottom of the tank breathing compressed air.

" After 140 days and going $ 4 million over budget, filming finally wrapped on December 8, 1988.