Karl Urban Never Wants to Make a Film Like ‘Out of the Blue’ Again
Sometimes, a Hollywood movie brings awareness to certain issues because change needs to occur. Out of the Blue is one such movie. The 2006 crime drama is based on the true story of a shooting in the peaceful seaside town of Aramoana, New Zealand.
On November 13 and 14, 1990, David Gray shot and killed 13 people. Known as the Aramoana Massacre, it was New Zealand’s deadliest shooting at the time. Needless to say, Out of the Blue, starring Matthew Sunderland and Karl Urban, was a difficult movie to film. It tells the story of those horrific 22 hours in a town of fewer than 100 people.
Karl Urban appeared in ‘Out of the Blue’ in 2006
In an interview with GQ, New Zealand actor Karl Urban said he never wanted to make a movie like Out of the Blue again. According to The Lord of the Rings actor, it was one of the “heaviest” projects he had ever worked on.
Urban played Nick Harvey, one of the constables who arrives on the scene and tries to hunt down Gray. “The people who were there and involved, and the community we were shooting in, we were shooting one bay over from where it happened,” explains The Boys star. “They didn’t want us there. They just wanted to let that story rest.”
Gray, a loner, shot and killed 12 civilians, including four children, as well as a police officer. According to Stuff, the shooting followed an argument with a neighbor over animals in the quiet little town.
The neighbor, Gary Holden, 38, was killed, as was one of his daughters, 11-year-old Jasmine. Another daughter, then-9-year-old Chiquita watched in horror as her family was gunned down. She survived and still has shrapnel in her abdomen. The families of Aramoana have never forgotten that day and still live with the scars, both physically and emotionally.
‘Out of the Blue’ needed to be made
Even though it was a heavy production and a tragic part of New Zealand’s past, Urban said he was “grateful” to be a part of it and called it an “amazing experience.”
Greg Fraser, the director of photography on Out of the Blue, went on to work with Denis Villeneuve on his sprawling Dune epics, showing once again that New Zealand is a huge part of the moviemaking business. The movie scores 84% on Rotten Tomatoes with over 25 critic reviews and 82% for audience reception of more than 2,500 viewers.
The New York Times stated, “[The movie] sketches its people as individuals, often in a few vivid strokes. The result is an inspiring film on a bleak subject, an account of everyday people who struggle to protect their loved ones from horror while processing and judging their own reactions to it.”
A production like Out of the Blue offers a chance to examine the lives of heroes and innocents. Gray, an unemployed gun collector with a mental illness, simply snapped. No one saw it coming, hence the title of the film.
For 22 hours, the cozy seaside town lived in total fear. Even as the decades pass, people who view the movie must wonder how that town will ever get past its past. Maybe it shouldn’t. A marble monument in town shows the names of the victims to make sure no one ever forgets.
