Gertrude Ederle was a trailblazing athlete, but her story has become a footnote in sporting history.
100 years after she won an Olympic Gold Medal, biopic The Young Woman And The Sea – charting the record-breaking feat that followed, when she became the first woman to swim the 21-mile English Channel – aims to change that. And the first person who needed to be educated about Ederle’s trailblazing achievements was director Joachim Rønning himself, who had never heard of her prior to being approached to make the film.
He told Zavvi: “When I was first told about it, I was baffled that I didn’t know the story at all. It was a seismic event which changed women’s sports forever, and it’s insane that the cultural impact of her achievements has largely been forgotten.
“I was suddenly overcome with an urgency to share her story, not just to put her back on the map, but because this is an inspiring story I felt a modern audience needed to know, and one that my daughters especially needed to know.
“I’ve always felt it’s important to know our history, and the struggles of those who came before us. Things are much better today than they were 100 years ago, but we’re still not quite where we should be – there’s still inequality and unfairness we need to keep fighting to change.
“Fighting for what we believe in is, I feel, an important theme of this film”.
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In short, it’s a classic underdog sports story, but with a greater historical weight than most. Daisy Ridley stars here as Ederle, and the once-and-future Star Wars actress committed to a punishing training regime to do justice to her character’s real-life achievements.
“We were so lucky to get Daisy Ridley to do this”, Rønning continued. “She has a strength to her which she radiates effortlessly, that same powerful aura that Gertrude had 100 years ago.
“This was always going to be a very physical role, and I needed someone who would be able to go the extra mile on a daily basis. I don’t think any other actor could get back into the water, day-in-day-out, lips turning blue from the 15-degree water, and having the strength and stamina to keep going.
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“And to be able to deliver a performance like she does whilst facing the elements like that was something that blew me away on a daily basis. There wasn’t a day during shooting where I wasn’t thanking her!”
Naturally, overseeing Ridley as she took on a huge physical challenge everyday made Rønning feel as much like a coach as he did a director.
“You always feel a little bit like that when shooting though! You and your actors are a team, who you are coaching to be the best that they can out there – the best experiences as a filmmaker are the ones where you feel like you’re part of a team, if you can excuse all the sports analogies.
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“Ultimately, it was very important for us to be out there on the ocean and doing this as realistically as we could. That was the best way to honour her story.”
Rønning sat down for a quick chat with us on a break from the editing suite where he’s knee-deep in editing his highly anticipated next film, Tron: Ares, which is currently set for an October 2025 release. Set to star Jared Leto, Evan Peters and Past Lives breakout star Greta Lee, the film is the inverse of the prior two, with Leto starring as the AI program swapping the digital world for the real one as part of a dangerous mission.
Specific details beyond that vague plot outline will be kept under wraps for a little bit longer, with Rønning revealing only that it was a “dream come true” to make that three-quel.
“I’m excited to get out of The Grid for a short while to come and talk to you, after weeks being stuck inside it! I just feel grateful that I’m able to tell such vastly different stories – as a director, to be trusted to make such different movies is something I count my blessings for daily.
“To go from the ocean to the digital world is a privilege. But I’m about to head back for another year in the dark editing suite to finish that soon…”
Young Woman And The Sea is streaming on Disney+ from Friday, 19th July.
