'Deepwater Horizon' shows human side of infamous BP oil spill

For many, the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon disaster brings to mind the environmental devastation of the spill: Crude oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 straight days, 4.2 million barrels in all.

Overlooked are the humans who worked — and the 11 of them who died — on the oil rig, which exploded April 20, 2010. Director Peter Berg sought to highlight the tragedy and heroism these workers exhibited in his movie Deepwater Horizon (in theaters Friday).

"People don’t think about what it must have been like for the 150 people on that rig in the middle of the night, trying to stop this," says Berg. "People might even think those 11 men have had something to do with that spill. They had absolutely nothing to do with it. They died staying at their stations, trying to prevent this."

Berg thought big when he came onboard the film with Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. Seeking to avoid CGI-heavy effects, the filmmakers set out to shoot on an existing oil rig, but found that to be a sticky situation in the oil-dominated Louisiana coast. Potential deals fell through without explanation.

"That didn't surprise us that oil has a lot of muscle there," says Berg. "So we came up with a pretty bold idea, to build our own rig."

It took 85 welders and 3.2 million pounds of steel to construct the sprawling Deepwater Horizon set in the parking lot of the Six Flags New Orleans amusement park, derelict since Hurricane Katrina. The sprawling behemoth was built 85% to scale of the actual rig, featuring a functional helicopter pad. It also played a significant role in the film's sizable budget, reported at $156 million.

Veteran actor Kurt Russell, who plays offshore installation manager Jimmy Harrell, says the big rig was "gutsy" but needed.

"These days, unless there's (sequel) potential for a two, three, four or five, they don't spend that kind of money," says Russell. "But this was a decision to tell this story with the emotion and the grandeur that it takes to do it properly."

To tap into the emotion, Berg relied on the story detailed in the seminal New York Times article “Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours." Chief electronics technician and survivor Mike Williams came onboard as a hands-on consultant "to make sure we never got off the tracks of authenticity," says Berg.

Mark Wahlberg, star of Berg's Lone Survivor and upcoming Boston Marathon bombing story Patriots Day, plays Williams. Berg says the casting was key.

"You believe Mark in these roles, he's connected to them culturally," says Berg. "We worked on the biggest set any of us had ever worked on, but if you don't care what's going on the big ship, it doesn't work. We had to do our job."

An emotional premiere Sept. 19 in New Orleans featured survivors and victims' families. Kate Hudson, who portrays Williams' wife Felicia, received a tight embrace from her real-life counterpart afterward.

"You could feel this sense of appreciation, that there is this focus on a different perspective of this story, one they didn't have closure on," says Hudson. "You could feel how emotional everyone was. But there was also something joyous about honoring the lost lives."