Alumni Profiles

On a clear, sunny afternoon in the Bahamas, a young couple surfaces from their scuba dive, pulling off masks and gasping in fresh air. The woman turns and says, "Daniel, where's the boat?" With those four words, the sudden debut of Susan Blanchard Ryan '89 into Hollywood stardom begins.

The "boiling frog syndrome": "Open Water" stars Blanchard Ryan '89, right, and Daniel Travis met the press for the film's publicity tour. Below, a close encounter with sharks.

"Open Water," an independent film made on a shoestring budget, is proving to be a sleeper hit. The film, based loosely on real events, portrays a high-powered couple, Susan and Daniel (Ryan and co-star Daniel Travis), who take an island holiday. They sign up for a day-trippers' scuba dive but end up left behind, alone in the vast ocean.

Ryan lives in New York City, makes commercials and normally lives a quiet life, but to make the movie, she spent more than 120 hours in the ocean. "I was really, really afraid," she says. "We were 18 miles offshore, with no land in sight, no help that we knew of."

For the shark scenes, which took two days to shoot, the team threw chunks of raw tuna overboard. "When the sharks came, we jumped in with them—there was no cage," she says. "Then there were the 30 other days in the open water, when sharks could have come at any time." In fact, a barracuda did bite Ryan, who—already a movie pro—asked if they got the incident on film. While the scenes were dangerous to shoot, Ryan also points out that their boat's captain had spent years studying that particular population of sharks; that they wore chain mail under their wetsuits to protect their arms and legs; and that the two producer-directors were experienced divers. The producers did "everything they could to ensure our safety," she says. Ryan thinks her fear "worked for the character," who is overcome with hysteria early in the movie but later gains strength and resolve. In real life, Ryan says she is a big chicken who doesn't like to fly or ski, and will only ride in a car if it's driven by a trusted friend.

Ryan's mother, Brenda Gibbons, a retired French teacher, was upset by the film's nude scene, but her father, Philadelphia Flyers president Ron Ryan, was more concerned with the danger.

Ryan's post-movie life now includes homes in New York and Los Angeles ("I'm borrowing from Peter to pay Paul," she says); scripts and movie offers; and personal assistants and lawyers. She laughingly refers to what she calls "the boiling frog syndrome," where the heat slowly increases and you keep adjusting. "I feel the same," she says. "It's just that everyone reacts very differently to me, especially here in L.A." In the future what she'd like best is a steady T.V. gig, preferably in New York. Making movies, she says, "just kidnaps you out of your life."