What kind of sharks did you actually film with?

Kentis: They were gray reef sharks.

They looked big.

Kentis: They average seven to 11 feet. And there were bull sharks now and then. We worked with real experts. It was low budget, but the money that we had went toward paying for the safety aspects of it. There are top shark people in the Bahamas, which is why we shot there. We shot for two days with the sharks, and they wore anti-shark chain mail suits underneath their wet suits. I did not, because I was working the water camera. Laura was working the boat camera.

Ryan: The chain mail cut into you, too. After a while, I only wore it on my legs.

Travis: And it's hard to stay buoyant when you have that extra weight on.

Ryan: Plus, that mesh stuff will protect you from a cut, but it doesn't help against pressure. It'll protect you from a shark's teeth, but the shark could still crush your leg with its jaws. It didn't make me feel totally safe.

Why in the world did you sign on to something like this?

Travis: We knew from the beginning there was going to be some nudity and there was going to be some diving with sharks. I was more afraid of doing the nude stuff than I was of the sharks.

Ryan: Daniel was much less afraid of the sharks, but I was terrified. But I trusted them. The day we shot, Chris jumps in the water, Daniel jumps in the water, they're swimming around, the sharks are eating the tuna, they're not bothering them. I'm thinking, "I'm being a Nancy. I need to get in the water!" But it's just terrifying.

So you have to throw tuna in to get the sharks to come close?

Ryan: Yeah, and then when they wanted the sharks to swim really near us, they would throw the chunks of tuna right next to us. I'd shout, "A little close on that one! That's a little close!"

Lau: You know, I never told you this before, but I would wait until you weren't looking and then I'd throw it nearby.

Kentis: Laura and one of our wranglers were in cahoots.

Lau: When she looked away, I would hurl the chum in that direction, because [to Ryan] whenever it got close and you saw it, you would freak out.

Ryan: Yeah, I wonder why!

Yeah, you're such a high-maintenance actress, whining about chum being chucked at your head in shark-infested waters.

Ryan: No kidding! But they're beautiful, powerful, amazing animals. I kept trying to talk myself into it by saying to myself, "Look at how lucky you are! You're swimming in the middle of the Caribbean on a gorgeous day with these exotic animals! You could be sitting in some office building at a job you hate!" But then 10 seconds later I'd say, "No, I'm miserable! I want to get out of here!"

Lau: These are known shark populations, and the people we work with go out there every day. The sharks know, almost like pigeons, that they're going to get fed. It's true that the actors couldn't splash around too much because they could get bitten by accident. Anytime you're in the water with animals with large teeth, there is a danger. But I certainly never felt that anybody is in danger. I'd be standing on this platform in water that was filled with blood and chum

Kentis: What happens is, we throw the chum in the water to get the sharks to move. But once too many pieces are in the water, they get really worked up, and then the actors would have to hurry and get up out of the water. But Laura would still be on that platform and they'd be going mental. And in the water with the camera, you'd be getting bumped constantly. There were times I'd look down, there would just be gray, no blue.

How many sharks are around at one time?

Travis: Probably 45 or 50 at a time.

Kentis: I'd be shooting, and the camera would get jerked, and without even thinking about it, I'd yank it back, and I'd be pulling it out of a shark's mouth. When we'd come up, you could see the teeth marks on the housing.

Why would they bite that and not you?

Lau: Because it was yellow.

Kentis: The divers and the shark people call it "yum yum yellow." So all the shark stuff was done in the first two days, and all of the emotional stuff, and the screaming and lashing around, that was done after that, because they couldn't be in the water screaming and splashing around, or they would get bit. But forget the sharks, the first day we went diving, Blanchard got bit by a barracuda.

Lau: Show them your scar.

Ryan: There's the scar -- it's healed a lot, but it was bleeding like crazy. I was like, "Did you get it?" Because if I'm gonna get bit, at least let it be usable footage.

Kentis: We missed the shot. But that was an important dive, it was a dive where I knew we'd see barracuda and nurse sharks and a big eel.

When I saw the eel, I thought it must be footage from some show on the Discovery Channel, but then there you are touching them.

Ryan: It was important for us to be in the shots with the animals so that people didn't think it was fake.

Kentis: That was key to the movie to me. Everything today is done in CG [animation], and personally, I don't get the same sense of danger that I do with movies from the '70s and '80s, when you saw stuntmen doing things, and you'd say, "Oh my god, someone was in that car when it wrecked!" So, it was important to work with real sharks, the way their tails flop around like big rats in the water

Ryan: Yeah, we've all seen sharks cruising by on "Shark Week" but you don't realize how erratic and jerky they can be in the water.

Travis: In movies, there's one shark in the water, that's the one that's going to attack you, as opposed to a group that just hangs out and circles in and waits.

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