For Weir, research involved trips to Greenwich Naval Museum, HMS Victory, the USS Constitution and two cruises on the Endeavor replica off the Australian coast. Then there was an ever-expanding library of books to be read – valuable first-hand accounts – and most importantly, the paintings of naval actions at sea. "Studying the paintings made me determined to find faces that looked of the period," says Weir. This led him to cast in Poland, "to get us as far away as possible from people raised on a Western diet, with Kodak-ready smiles or expressions of world-weary cynicism."
The casting of the crew, some 130 men, received as much attention as did that of the principals. Searching for "18th century faces" was left to Judy Bouley, and, incredibly, she saw more than 7,000 hopefuls. "As a guide, we had reproductions of paintings and sketches of the period and most importantly, a rare set of photographs, taken in the mid-1840s of English fishermen, shot by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson," says Weir.
"We went to the ends of the earth to find these people," says producer Duncan Henderson. "We have background from Poland, Senegal, Australia and Sudan – people who came from all over the world to work with us on this film."
Some background artists were seasoned tall ship sailors. Their gravity-defying feats of scrambling up and down the ships’ rigging lent yet another touch of authenticity to the film.
Another key "casting" challenge was finding the ideal vessel to portray the HMS Surprise, Captain Aubrey’s 28-gun warship. Early in pre-production, during a trip to Europe, Weir walked the deck of the restored HMS Victory, the vessel commanded by Lord Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar. In addition, the director attended several tall ship festivals and spoke with scores of people from the worldwide tall ship community.
In 2000 Weir joined Captain Chris Blake (who would become one of the film’s many prominent technical advisors) for a cruise on the Endeavor, a museum-quality replica of Captain Cook’s famous vessel. A year later, Weir embarked on a second voyage aboard the Endeavor, this time bringing along producer Duncan Henderson, executive producer Alan Curtiss and cinematographer Russell Boyd. "I wanted to be sure they too would have the experience stored in their bones when it came time for our ‘voyage’," says the director.
Weir’s search ultimately led him to the American tall ship Rose, home port Rhode Island. The three-masted wooden frigate, formerly the country’s largest sailing school vessel, is a twentieth century replica of a 1800s-era British Royal Navy ship.
Twentieth Century Fox purchased the Rose. (Upon completion of principal photography, Fox donated the ship back to a non-profit naval history organization.) The Rose traveled through the Panama Canal en route from Rhode Island to the West Coast, enduring a hurricane and a broken mast before arriving at a San Diego dry dock to prepare for her transformation into HMS Surprise.
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