Peter Horton [Click for close-up]

Mountain Zone editor Peter Potterfield flew to Santa Monica, CA to talk with Peter Horton a few days before the movie Into Thin Air: Death on Everest was to air on ABC.

When actor Peter Horton learned that a television project was to depict the May 1996 Mount Everest tragedy, he was skeptical such a complex story of heroism and death could be told well in a TV drama. But the veteran actor and director knew he wanted to be a part of the historic effort, one of the few mainstream films to portray real-life climbers. So Horton actively sought the role of American mountain guide Scott Fischer in ABC's 1997 movie Into Thin Air: Death on Everest, which is now available on video.

"The filming exposed the actors to blizzards, snowstorms and temperatures of 20°-below...."

"The story has so many gripping elements that I was immediately drawn to it," Horton told The Mountain Zone in an exclusive interview. An avid hiker and surfer, Horton also had done some climbing. "Rarely does an opportunity to depict that world come along. And even though there are obvious limitations in what you can do on television in 90 minutes, I think it came off pretty well."

From the deck of his Pico Creek Productions offices in Santa Monica, California, Horton was surprisingly candid as he recalled the arduous work put into the making the film. He and the rest of the cast spent almost two months last spring above 8,000 feet in Austria filming the drama. The movie is based on Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer's best-selling memoir of the tragic climb. Krakauer himself was on location for two days of shooting to offer advice, even if all his input wasn't necessarily adopted by the filmmakers.

Horton and Potterfield

"Krakauer was vital to the making of the film," Horton said. "Not only was he insightful, helping us understand who these people were, but he helped us with the physicality of high-altitude climbing. I was shocked at how slow people climb on Everest — and for the sake of the film we had to speed that up."

The filming required more than seven weeks, and exposed the actors to blizzards, snowstorms and temperatures of 20°-below. "The filming location in the Alps had the right features — ice falls, glaciers, ridges, but it didn't have the scale of Mount Everest," Horton said. The footage was supplemented by segments from the IMAX movie Everest, shot in 1996 by climber/cinematographer David Breashears.

The complicated chain of events that lead to the Everest tragedy challenged the filmmakers as much as the mountainous terrain. "Once you start digging into the details of the story," said Horton, "it's like opening one of those Chinese boxes. The more you learn, the more intricate, the more interesting, the more convoluted, the more dramatic that story became."

Perhaps most difficult for Horton in this role was preparing himself to play one of America's best known climbers.

"By the time it was over, the actual experience was terrifying. The cold and storm was so real, the pain of it was very upsetting to me..."

"I tried to learn as much as I could about Scott as a person," Horton said, "because I was not playing a fictitious character, I was playing a man who not only was real, but who was alive just a year before. So it was more than a matter of finding this character within myself. And since I was to recreate the events of his death, you begin to understand that how you portray this person is going to contribute to a real man's legacy. So you feel a real sense of responsibility."

More even than responsibility, Horton said he felt "echoes" of the real people who died in that terrible tragedy. "As you do a scene, you kind of feel his presence. I don't mean to sound mystical, because I'm not inherently mystical or new age, it's just that there's a real sense of these people's presence."

As he prepared for this challenging role, Peter Horton thought about contacting Scott Fischer's family. In the end, he decided against it. "I wanted to get it right. If someone I loved was going to be depicted in a film, I would want the actor to get it right. Ultimately I decided that it would be callous and inappropriate to talk to Scott's wife."

Horton said one of the most difficult scenes for him was the one in which Scott Fischer died. Beyond the emotional elements Horton had to deal with as an actor, he also found himself in a full-on mountain storm, which complicated the shooting.

"Playing that scene," recalled Peter Horton, "was unique for me — not only was I preparing a scene in which my character dies, I was preparing a scene where a real person died a year ago, and doing that in real blizzard conditions. So it became much more real, much more visceral, and less like acting than anything I had done before. I was lying in the snow with my parka off and my gloves off, as Scott was found, and I was literally freezing to death."

"By the time it was over, the actual experience was terrifying. The cold and storm was so real, the pain of it was very upsetting to me. It made me not want to go further into the world of Scott Fischer — that is, the terrible world of his death," Horton said.

After the filming was complete, Horton followed up by climbing the Kautz route on Mount Rainier in the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest. "It was the hardest physical thing I had ever done," Horton recalled. "I really enjoyed the experience, but it was serious. On top, I was nauseous and uncomfortable, but when I got down I felt a real sense of satisfaction, a real tangible piece of self knowledge. So maybe I get a little of what climbing is truly all about. But the pain of the experience doesn't make me want to run right out and do it again."

For Horton, the Everest tragedy is clearly a powerful story, one that he feels deserves more in-depth treatment than what can be done in a television movie.

"The issues in this story are extraordinary, like a Greek tragedy," he said. "I think it's worthy of a longer feature film. I'd like to explore the complex interrelations between people, why one person's will to live is stronger than another's, what it means to measure yourself against something tangible, like a mountain, and why people do that."

Surprisingly, Horton is as concerned about how Fischer's family reacts to the film as he is to its success.

"My primary concern is that Scott's kids and family feel good about what we did. I can only hope they feel that it wasn't too intrusive, and that it is something that contributes to their dealing with grief as opposed to contributing to their grief."

— Peter Potterfield, Mountain Zone Staff