Uncharted Waters

Celebrated documentary filmmaker Chai Vasarhelyi is making waves with her feature film debut, Nyad

- Adrienne Gaffney

Looking down into a massive water tank meant to mimic the depths of the Straits of Florida, director Chai Vasarhelyi watched Annette Bening swim across its length and back again. Bening spent a year training to swim at a world-class level in order to play the long-distance champion Diana Nyad. The believability of the biopic hinged on her stroke being effortless—and on her ability to spend up to six hours filming in unheated water. Until that first swim, all Vasarhelyi could do was hope it would come together. “When she first got in the water, I felt a sense of relief, a sense of awe,” she remembers. “It was one of those wondrous things.”

Codirecting Nyad, with her husband Jimmy Chin, required Vasarhelyi to plunge herself into a new world. The couple is known for high-octane films, like their Academy Award–winning 2018 documentary, Free Solo. Filming a biopic gave them a different set of skills: Rehearsals with actors, visual effects, and stunts were all things they’d never dealt with before.