The director and cast of Everest, which opens in IMAX 3D today, continue our discussion about the importance of portraying real-life characters in films, how long it took to get the movie made, and the hunger humans have for the extreme.

John Hawkes: Back to playing a real-life person, it’s an extra weight of responsibility, for sure, to the person you’re portraying and their memory. To do right by them and their family and loved ones is a big deal. And for me, and I think for everyone, as nervous as that makes you going in, I think it gives you a needed kick in the ass to go the extra mile to try to really find as much essence of truth about the person you’re playing. So it’s helpful on some level.

Michael Kelly: (Author) Jon (Krakauer) wrote, in my opinion, my favorite book about what happened. Although I didn’t get to talk to Jon, I learned as much as I could about him. I wanted to portray him and, like Jake (Gyllenhaal) said, bring the spirit of that guy and put that on film. It’s all you can hope to do, is portray him as honestly as you can. But, and I think John Hawkes said this earlier, really we are just serving the story. You try to get your character as well as you can, but all of us are just the little pieces that make up the story. And that’s the main character.

Baltasar Kormáku: For me, it was more about finding the essence of the character than imitate them or make them look exactly the same. I mean, obviously, Michael (Kelly) has a little less hair than Krakauer.

MK: I do look a lot like him though. I look a lot like Jon Krakauer. (laughs) When I put that hat on, I look like Jon.

BK: No, but we could’ve easily put a wig on him, you know?

All: (laugh)

BK: But that’s not what it’s about. It’s the same reason why it didn’t bother me that Jake is a little taller than Scott (Fischer), and Scott was a little blonder. For me, that’s not the interesting part. But trying to find the essence, the energy of the character rather than imitate them.

Baltasar, compared to some of your recent films (Contraband, 2 Guns), Everest doesn’t feel like your typical big studio film, either in its action or in its scope. Was getting this film actually made hard?

BK: When this project was brought to me it was like, “Okay, now I can make actually a big-scale movie in the same kind of way I’ve been making my Icelandic movies.” I think it took more than ten years to get this film on the screen. I wasn’t a part of it until 2011, but the financing fell apart twice in the middle of the prep. So as hard as it was to make the film it was also hard to get it going. Yes, I’m sure people would want a more heroic ending of the film, but that’s not the film. And I was never going to give into that.

For mountain climbers, it takes a certain type of person to be able to leave your friends and family for an extracurricular activity you’re not sure you’re ever going to return from. Have any of you ever felt that hunger for something that extreme?

Josh Brolin: It’s an incredibly selfish thing, man. But I get it. I’ve always had a family. I graduated high school and then I had kids. So I don’t know what life is like without having a family; my whole life has been saturated with it. I’ve made decisions that, I don’t know if I regret, but I started skydiving when I was 21 and within the year I was doing it five to six times a day. So I have that thing, apparently. And it wasn’t until I asked my wife, “What if I jumped with our year-and-a-half old?” that she was like, “You have to stop now.” So I think it’s very selfish. I think people climb or do other things for different reasons. For Beck (Weathers) specifically, he talks about a depression that he was running from. That was the one thing that he could do that was productive. I can step that extra step when most people can’t, therefore I can touch the extraordinary. And if I feel like I’m one of the exclusives that can touch the extraordinary, that propels me to live further. It gives my life more meaning, more whatever. It can run as deep or as cosmetic as you want. But I do think it’s a selfish act; I think our lives are a selfish act on different levels. And then it’s up to you on how you want to live it. I have a very good friend, (BASE jumper) Dean Potter who was one of the reasons why I did this movie, who was a very safe, incredible human being who lost his life a few months ago. [NOTE: Potter died in a wingsuit flying accident in Yosemite National Park in May.] But it happens. So is it bad that he lost his life? I don’t know, he lived a pretty incredible life and that was his choice. Are people sad because of it and suffering because of it? Absolutely. But isn’t that part of life, too?

Read the first part of our interview here.