For world champion marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, her lifelong dream was to swim from Cuba to Florida. She tried and failed when she was 28 years old. She retired shortly after that. Then when she turned 60, she decided to try again. Her story is told in the new Netflix movie, Nyad, starring Annette Bening as the athlete and Jodie Foster as her best friend and coach, Bonnie Stoll. Nyad’s script is based on the swimmer’s autobiography, Find a Way.
Chai Vasarhelyi directed the film with her husband Jimmy Chin. They won an Oscar for Free Solo.
Vasarhelyi tells KCRW that she and Chin have always been drawn to stories about individuals who push their limits. Then she felt it was time to see what that was like for a woman.
So when Vasarhelyi and Chin got the script for this film, it felt like a come-to-Jesus moment: “We were like, ‘Wow, Diana Nyad is not afraid to pursue her dreams, she's not afraid to want something desperately. And she's not afraid to work for it.’”
Nyad features footage of the real Diana Nyad, including clips from her first swim attempt in 1978. In it, Nyad says, “I'm sort of torn in this difficult endeavor that is marathon swimming, between not wanting to feel all that discomfort anymore, feel that boredom, and feel the vomiting and feel the cold and feel the hours. I’m torn between that and the loathing, the self-respect I might lose if I don't do it. I suppose the word is pride. I feel that I failed, mentally.”
Vasarhelyi says challenges were stacked against Nyad at the time. Nyad was living from sponsor to sponsor. After her retirement, she picked up commentating jobs with ABC News and NPR.
So what fueled Nyad’s return to long-distance swimming at age 60? Vasarhelyi says she had an awakening over her age and what she was still able to do.
“The world may [have been] done with her, but she's not done with it. And she had more to give,” Vasarhelyi says. “I think that's what fueled her. And in some way it's like the absurdity of it all. … What she did — it absolutely defies what anyone expects from a woman in her 60s, but she was just not done and didn’t want to just fade away.”
The journey between Havana and Florida is about 110 miles, and prior to Nyad’s final attempt, was estimated to take 60 hours to complete. The swim corridor is inside the Gulf Stream, which Vasarhelyi describes as one of the fastest-moving currents in the world that’s shark-infested.
“Just think about it for a moment: being in the middle, 50 miles in, and it's just the big blue and you. She hallucinates after 24 hours. On her first attempt in 1978, she lost something like 23 pounds. Just think about the toll it takes on your body. Your eyes swell. You're chafing from where your bathing suit is rubbing against your body. I think it's really, really grueling.”
Annette Bening (right) plays Diana Nyad and Jodie Foster (left) plays her best friend and coach Bonnie Stoll. Credit: Kimberley French/Netflix.
Throughout her journey, what remained constant was her friendship with Bonnie Stoll, which Vasarhelyi says is the “beating heart of the story.” Stoll told the directors, “I will hate myself if I'm not there and she succeeds. And I'll blame myself if I'm not there if she fails.”
In the film, A-list actresses look like real women in their 60s — wrinkles and all. Vasarhelyi says of the casting, “We were looking for someone who was age-appropriate, and who was really at the height of their craft, but unafraid to be unlikable.”
She explains that Annette Bening trained — with coaching by a former Olympian — for more than a year to meet the physical demands of the role. She spent lots of time with the real Nyad as well.
“When [Bening] swam, it was just a moment of wonder. … She put in the work to make it effortless, and you could believe her as a marathon swimmer. … She refused to let anyone do the stunts for her.”
She adds, “Both her and Jodie were like, ‘You can't touch our bodies. We don't want a touch-up.’ … That's the whole point of the film … the intention around it always was like: We are women, hear us roar, and may it trigger you, that's okay.”
Annette Bening portrays swimmer Diana Nyad in Nyad. “When [Bening] swam, it was just a moment of wonder. … She put in the work to make it effortless, and you could believe her as a marathon swimmer,” says the film’s director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. Credit: Kimberley French/Netflix.
Today, controversy remains over the legitimacy of Nyad’s swim. The World Open Water Swimming Association has not ratified it, and the Guinness Book of World Records removed it after the association complained.
Vasarhelyi points out that Nyad is a controversial character in the swimming world, and the film is about her complexity, not her records.
“Her achievement has nothing to do with the rules. Her achievement is that she woke up at 60 and decided that she really wanted to do that. And she lived through four failures, and still had some emotional growth, and evolved, and was able to let go of certain things, and embrace other things in her life to achieve it.”