‘Last Breath’ Director Says Producers Told Him He Would Never Adapt His Own Doc Into a Narrative Feature

With “Last Breath,” Alex Parkinson — already an acclaimed documentarian behind such features as the Emmy-nominated “Lucy, the Human Chimp” (2021), “Living With Leopards” (2024) and, yes, “Last Breath” (2018) — makes his narrative feature film debut working with stars Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu and Finn Cole.

But the road to adapting his own documentary into the Focus Features release, which hit theaters Friday, was a bit bumpier than one might think.

“When the documentary came out, the U.K. producers, they showed it to the father and son team of Paul and David Brooks, and they loved the documentary, and they wanted to turn into a feature,” Parkinson recalled to TheWrap. “And obviously when that came up, I thought, ‘Well, it’d be great if I could direct that.’ And I was told, ‘There’s absolutely no way on earth you can do that because you’re a documentarian.’ It’s a very rare thing to do.”

So Parkinson signed onto the adaptation as an executive producer and watched as, two years later with a script now written, the intended director had to bow out of the project. He again threw his hat into the ring.

Now, the film, which charts the treacherous true story of a deep sea diving crew risking it all to rescue one of their own while trapped hundreds of feet below the surface, showcases Parkinson as the “frustrated fiction director” he’s always been — and has him already eyeing his next narrative project.

The U.K. filmmaker spoke with TheWrap about bringing the film to light, the overlapping skillsets he brought to the table while changing genres and why he is consistently drawn to the “idea of ordinary people in extraordinary situations.”

What was the seed of this opportunity to reexamine one of your documentary works for a narrative film?
That comes from when the documentary came out, the U.K. producers, they showed it to the father and son team of Paul and David Brooks, and they loved the documentary, and they wanted to turn into a feature. And obviously when that came up, I thought, “Well, it’d be great if I could direct that.” And I was told, “There’s absolutely no way on earth you can do that because you’re a documentarian.” It’s a very rare thing to do. So I sort of signed on as an exec producer at that point, and then about two years later, a script was written, and the original director, he stepped off it because he had another film to go and make. And Paul Brooks was speaking to people in L.A. about looking for a new director. And somebody said to him, why don’t you actually speak to the person who did the documentary? Because the documentary is so cinematic and how it feels and how it looks. So I got this call from my U.K. producers going, “Would you like to pitch to direct the feature?”

In the documentary, you have a standard set of tools of talking heads and dramatic reconstruction and archive to tell the story. And because this was such a complicated story because it’s a whole world that not many people really know at all, part of the whole process of having my pass of the fictional script was about how do you get that information across in an organic way. I wanted to make the audience feel smart. I wanted them to feel part of this world and understand it, so they felt they were positioned within it. So when people were talking slightly jargonistically, if it’s set up correctly, people will feel part of that world.

Did you find yourself using the documentary as a blueprint for those informational and emotional beats? Did it all follow the same narrative trajectory, or were there negotiations made while adapting?
By the nature of the story itself, it has to follow a certain path. But within that, there were certain elements I couldn’t use in the documentary, which I wanted to use in the feature, because, just by the nature of the story, in documentary sense, there were certain things I couldn’t go towards, but I wanted to put them into the feature instead, because they heightened the emotional impact of what was going on. The documentary is very factually based, and moving it into the fiction space, I wanted to explore the emotional side to it a lot more, and the sort of experiential side behind what was going on. So it’s a constant interplay between getting the information right, but in a fiction sense, I really wanted to amp up and ramp up the whole emotion and experiential sense behind the film.

What was that casting process like, and what was the learning curve of relying on actors interpreting a script like, rather than talking heads or archival footage? It must be a whole different skill set.
Well, yes and no. When you’re getting talking head interviews, you are creating a performance of sorts. You’re trying to get people to go back to a place, and you’re trying to get them to access emotions and memories, to talk about things. And I found there’s quite a lot of similarity between that and working with actors. And when you’re working with such amazing actors such as Woody and Simu and Finn then, you know, there’s a shorthand you can get into quite quickly about what you’re trying to get across and what you’re trying to get into each scene. So that dialog I found quite similar in some ways, and I didn’t find it as much as the jump as I expected. 

When I went onto the set, that was literally the first time I’d ever been on a feature set, to direct Woody, Simu and Finn on the first day. And I expected it to be quite an intimidating experience. Obviously, it’s 150 people, these huge sets being built and all this stuff coming together for one frame. And I expected to find it quite nerve-wracking. But it was surprising how quickly it became very normal and very at home, basically because so much of it was very similar to documentary in many ways, in the storytelling techniques and what I was trying to get out of the story 

You say that you were told you would never be allowed to adapt your own documentary. What was that red tape and why do you think that reluctance to cross over exists?
I think the red tape or the red line is that it’s just that traditional mindset of doing documentary is a very separate thing to feature. And as I experienced myself, there is actually a lot of commonality, but I just don’t think a lot of people realize that, because not many people have actually been through that process. So I can completely understand that reluctance of I’ve never done a drama before. I mean, why would they take a chance for me when there’s lots of people who are more than capable? 

But it was down to Paul Brooks and David Brooks having that moment of inspiration and actually getting to meet me and hearing my take on the story. It all started to snowball from there. I think that the starting point of the documentary was a great one, because I was a frustrated fiction director, and so I used the documentary to make it as cinematic and as filmic as possible within the confines of a documentary, basically. And then the film I did after that, “Lucy, the Human Chimp,” I pushed it even further by having sort of semi-scripted scenes and bits where the dramatic reconstruction became more cinematic. So I was always pushing further and further into that fiction world but was in the confines of documentary. So it was all about being able to have the platform, to be able to convince people that I could actually do what I was saying I could do. And that takes a lot of time, a lot of trust. 

You describe yourself as a frustrated dramatic filmmaker. Is narrative film a realm that you plan to continue working in?
I am definitely looking to do more of this, without a doubt. And yeah, I’m working on three scripts at the moment, so I’m definitely branching out into that direction. The interesting thing is that I’m naturally drawn to based-on-true-stories. The idea of ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and about what that brings out in people, and all these story beats that are just so unwritable so much of the time is what I’m drawn to.

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