Trivia and Quotes
Quotes
 . Virgil: When it comes to the safety of these people, there`s me and then there`s God, understand?
Virgil: Goddammit, you bitch! You never backed away from anything in your life! Now fight!
[slaps Lindsey]
Virgil: Fight!
[slaps Lindsey again]
Virgil: Fight! Right now! Do it! Fight goddammit! Fight! Fight! Fiiiiight!
Lindsey Brigman: [about the Navy SEALS] These guys are about as much fun as a tax audit.
Lindsey Brigman: We all see what we want to see. Coffey looks and he sees Russians. He sees hate and fear. You have to look with better eyes than that.
Lt. Coffey: We don`t need them. We can`t trust them. We may have to take steps. We`re gonna have to take steps.
Virgil: [regarding Lindsey Brigman] God, I hate that bitch.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: Probably shouldn`t have married her then, huh?
Lindsey Brigman: Explorer, this is Cab Three, starting our descent along the umbilical.
Some guy: Roger that, Cab 3. Good luck.
Lindsey Brigman: Luck is not a factor.
Virgil: Hippy, you think everything is a conspiracy.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: Everything is.
Lt. Coffey: It went straight for the warhead, and they think it`s cute.
Virgil: [looking at the picture Lindsey took of the alien craft] That`s a great shot, Linds.
Catfish De Vries: You drop your dive light?
Lindsey Brigman: No, come on you guys, come on. Now that`s the small one, that`s the small one here. You can kinda see how it`s zigging around.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: Yeah, whatever it is.
Lindsey Brigman: I`m *telling* you what it is, you`re just not *hearing* me.
Catfish De Vries: Now Lindsey, you...
Lindsey Brigman: There is something down there! Something not us.
Catfish De Vries: You could be more specific.
Virgil: [humorously] Somethin` that "zigs".
Lindsey Brigman: Not *us*. Not *human*, get it? Something non-human, but intelligent... A non-terrestrial intelligence.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: A non-terrestrial intelligence. NTIs. Oh man, that`s better than UFOs. Oh, but that works too, huh? "Underwater Flying Objects".
Virgil: Linds, I want you to stay away from that guy. I mean it.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: The guy is gone. Did you see his hands?
Lindsey Brigman: What? He got the shakes?
Virgil: Look, he`s operating on his own. He`s cut off from his chain of command. He`s showing signs of pressure-induced psychosis, and he`s got a nuclear weapon. So as a personal favor to me, will you try to put your tongue in neutral for a while?
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: [nervous] I got to tell you, I give this whole thing a sphincter-factor of about nine point five.
Lindsey Brigman: So raise your hand if you think that was a Russian water-tentacle.
Lt. Coffey: Everybody just stay calm. The situation is under control.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: These guys are SEALS?
Catfish De Vries: Eh. These guys ain`t so tough. I fought guys plenty tougher`n them.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: Now we get to hear how you "coulda been a contender"?
[Lindsay sees the nuclear warhead]
Lindsey Brigman: You know, you`ve got some huevos bringin` that thing into my rig. With all that`s going on up in the world you bring a nuclear weapon IN HERE?
Lt. Coffey: Mrs. Brigman...
Lindsey Brigman: Does this strike anyone as particularly psychotic, or is it just me?
Lt. Coffey: Mrs. Brigman, you don`t need to know the details of our operation, it`s better if you don`t.
Lindsey Brigman: You`re right, I don`t need to know, what I need to know is that THING is off this rig, do you hear me ROGER RAMJET?
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: What is all this stuff?
Ensign Monk: Fluid breathing system, we just got it. You use it when you go really deep.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: How deep?
Ensign Monk: Deep.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: HOW deep?
Ensign Monk: It`s classified.
Lew Finler: Bud, did you know your hand is blue?
Virgil: Finler, why don`t you just shut up and put your gear on?
Virgil: When you`re hanging on by your fingernails, you can`t go waving your arms around.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: You know, we got Russian subs creepin` around; anythin` goes wrong they can say whatever they want happened! Give their folks medals!
Virgil: Relax, will ya? You`re makin` the women nervous.
Lindsey Brigman: Cute, Virgil.
Virgil: Keep your pantyhose on.
Ensign Monk: Bud, give me a reading from your liquid oxygen gauge.
Virgil: [typing] 5 minuts worth
Lindsey Brigman: [whispers, shocked] What?
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: [panicked] It took him *thirty* minutes just to get down there!
Lindsey Brigman: Bud! Do you hear me? You drop your weights and start back now, Bud. The gauge could be wrong! Do you hear me? Just drop your weights and start back now! Your gauge could be wrong!
[crying]
Lindsey Brigman: Your gauge could be wrong, you drop your weights and start back now!
Virgil: [typing] Going to stay awhile
Lindsey Brigman: No, you won`t stay there, do you hear me, you drop your weights! You can breathe *shallow*, do you hear me? Bud, please listen to me, *please*, goddammit, you dragged me back from the bottomless pit, you can`t leave me here *alone* now, please...
[sobs]
Lindsey Brigman: Oh god, Virgil, *please*... please...
Virgil: [typing] Dont cry baby. Knew this was one way ticket, but you know I had to come. Love you wife.
Lindsey Brigman: I need you to believe me right now. Please?
Virgil: You know, I can`t believe you were dumb enough to come down here. Now you`re stuck here for the storm. That was dumb, hot rod. Real dumb.
Lindsey Brigman: I didn`t come down here to fight with you.
Virgil: Yeah? Well, why did you come down then?
Lindsey Brigman: You need me. Nobody knows the systems on this rig better than I do. Once you`re disconnected from the Explorer you are on your own for however long this storm lasts. I mean, what if something was to happen after the surface deport clears off? What would you have done?
Virgil: Yeah, right. Us poor, dumb old boys would`ve had to think for ourselves. Coulda been a disaster!
Lindsey Brigman: It`s not easy being a cast-iron bitch. It takes discipline, and years of training... A lot of people don`t appreciate that.
Bendix: Oh no, look who`s with them. Queen Bitch of the Universe.
Lisa "One Night" Standing: This tell us how much radiation we`re getting?
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I`m not going near no radiation. No way.
Catfish De Vries: Aw Hippy, you pussy.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: Yeah, what good is the money, six months later your dick drops off?
[Ensign Monk is demonstrating the breathing fluid on Hippy`s rat]
Catfish De Vries: Huh. Damn rat`s breathing that shit. That is no bullshit, hands down. The Goddamnedest thing I ever saw.
[the Deep Core crew are locked in the kitchen; Coffey is about to nuke the aliens]
Lindsey Brigman: Schoenick, your Lieutenant`s about to make a real bad career move!
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: The guy`s crazier than a shit-house rat!
Virgil: Schoenick!
Lindsey Brigman: They`re trying to make contact! Schoenick, *please*, listen to us!
Ensign Monk: Can`t you see he`s lost it?
Schoenick, SEAL Team Member: Shut up.
Ensign Monk: The shock wave will kill us.
Schoenick, SEAL Team Member: Quiet!
Ensign Monk: [relentlessly] It`ll crush this rig like a beer can.
Schoenick, SEAL Team Member: Shut up man, what`re you talkin` about?
Ensign Monk: We`ve gotta stop him!
Schoenick, SEAL Team Member: Shut up!
Ensign Monk: This is not our mission! We can`t detonate without orders!
[the cab is flooding]
Virgil: All right, all right, here.
[takes off his dive suit collar]
Virgil: You put this on.
Lindsey Brigman: No, no! What are you doing?
Virgil: Don`t argue with me, goddammit, just put it on!
Lindsey Brigman: Look, this is not an option, so just forget about it, all right?
Virgil: Lindsey, shut up! Shut up, and put this thing on!
Lindsey Brigman: If you`ll be logical for one second...
Virgil: FUCK LOGIC!
Lindsey Brigman: Please, listen! Just listen to me for one second. Now you`ve got the suit on, and you`re a much better swimmer than I am, right?
Virgil: [reluctantly] Yeah, maybe...
Lindsey Brigman: Right? Yes! So I`ve got a plan.
Virgil: What`s the plan?
Lindsey Brigman: I drown, and you tow me back to the rig.
Virgil: No. No!
Lindsey Brigman: Yes! This water...
Virgil: NO!
Lindsey Brigman: ...is only a couple degrees above freezing! I g-go into deep hypothermia, my blood`ll go like ice water, right? My body systems will slow down, they won`t stop...
Virgil: Linds...
Lindsey Brigman: You tow me back and I can, I can be revived after, maybe ten or fifteen minutes. Ten-fifteen minutes!
Virgil: [pushing the suit collar at her] Linds, you put this on, you put it on!
Lindsey Brigman: [pushing the collar back at him] No, it`s the only way! Just put this on! Put this on, you know I`m right. Please, it`s the only way, you`ve got all the s-stuff on the rig to do this! Put this on, Bud, *please*...
Virgil: [putting the collar back on] This is insane.
Lindsey Brigman: Oh my God, I know. But it`s the only way.
Lindsey Brigman: I know how alone you feel... alone in all that cold blackness... but I`m there in the dark with you. Oh Bud you`re not alone... Oh, God. You remember that time - you were pretty drunk, you probably don`t remember - but the power went out in that little apartment we had on Orange Street? We were staring at that one little candle, and I, I said something really dumb like, that candle was me, and like every one of us is out there alone in the dark in this life... and you just, you just lit up another candle and you put it beside mine and said "No! See, that`s me. That`s me"... and we stared at the two candles, and then... well, if you remember any of this, I`m sure you remember the next part. But there *are* two candles in the dark. I`m with you. I`ll always be with you Bud, I promise that.
Lindsey Brigman: Virgil, you wiener.
[to the aliens floating behind the water-curtain]
Virgil: Howdy. Uh... How are you guys doin`?
Lt. Hiram Coffey: Sniff something? Did ya, rat boy?
[after Cab 3 has landed in the water]
Lindsey Brigman: Hang on, gentleman. Touchdown. Crowd goes wild.
[about the rig]
Lindsey Brigman: I got over four years invested in this project.
Virgil: Yeah, you only had three years invested in me.
Lindsey Brigman: Well you have to have priorities.
[after hearing they get three times diver`s pay to check out the nuclear sub]
Catfish De Vries: Hell, for triple time, I`d eat Beany!
Jammer Willis: Set me on fire and put me out with horse piss.
[showing the nuclear warhead to Bud on video]
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere`s M.I.R.V.!
[passing over the wreck of the Montana]
Lindsey Brigman: Coffey, these are the missile hatches, is that right?
Lt. Hiram Coffey: That`s right. It looks like a couple of hatches have sprung. Radiation`s nominal. Warheads must still be intact.
Lindsey Brigman: How many are there?
Lt. Hiram Coffey: Twenty-four Trident missiles, eight M.I.R.V.s per missile.
Lindsey Brigman: [after a pause] That`s a hundred and ninety-two warheads, Coffey. How powerful are they?
Lt. Hiram Coffey: The M.I.R.V. is a tactical nuke. Uh, fifty kilotons, nominal yield, say... five times Hiroshima.
[One Night, listening, mouths "fuck!"]
Lindsey Brigman: Jesus Christ. It`s World War Three in a can.
[Bud is being put into the fluid-breathing suit]
Virgil: So, I can hear you, but I can`t talk, right?
Ensign Monk: The fluid prevents the larynx from making sound. Excuse me. It`ll feel a little strange.
Virgil: Yeah, no shit.
[first lines]
USS Montana Captain: Sixty knots? No way, Barnes. The Reds don`t have anything that fast.
[last lines]
Lindsey Brigman: Hi, Brigman.
Virgil: Hi, Mrs. Brigman.
Ensign Monk: Bud, give me a reading from your liquid oxygen gauge.
Virgil: [typing] 5 minuts worth
Lindsey Brigman: [shocked] What?
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: It took him *thirty* minutes just to get down there!
Lindsey Brigman: Bud! Do you hear me? You drop your weights and start back now, Bud. The gauge could be wrong. Do you hear me? Just drop your weights and start back now. The gauge could be wrong! The gauge could be wrong, you drop your weights and start back now!
Virgil: [typing] Going to stay awhile
Lindsey Brigman: No, you won`t stay there, do you hear me, you drop your weights! You can breathe *shallow*, do you hear me? Bud, please listen to me, *please*, goddammit, you dragged me back from the bottomless pit, you can`t leave me here *alone* now, please...
[sobs]
Lindsey Brigman: Oh God, Virgil, please... please...
Virgil: [typing] Don`t cry baby. Knew this was one way ticket, but you know I had to come. Love you wife.
Virgil: [over the phone] Brigman here. Yeah, Kirkhill, what`s going on? Yeah, I`m calm. I`m a calm person. Is there some reason I shouldn`t be calm?
[long pause, then... ]
Virgil: [furious] WHAT?
[One Night is trying to disconnect the umbilical]
Virgil: How`s it going, One Night?
Lisa "One Night" Standing: All hell must be breakin` loose up there. This cable`s pissin` me off. I can`t get a grip on it!
Virgil: Well, keep tryin` baby, just keep tryin`.
Bendix: [back on the Benthic] Shit! We`ve got a problem! We`re losing number two thruster! Bearing`s going... It`s not holding! We`re swinging out of position here!
Benthic Explorer Captain: God damn it!
[the cable slams into One Night`s cab]
Lisa "One Night" Standing: Shit!
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: The rig is movin`!
Virgil: Yeah, I can see that!
[to the radio]
Virgil: Topside! Topside, pay out some slack, we`re gettin` dragged!
Benthic Explorer Captain: [to the crane operator over radio] Down on number one winch!
Virgil: We`re gettin` dragged!
Benthic Explorer Captain: [shouts] Down on one!
[he gestures frantically through the window at the crane operator; the crane operator signals that he can`t hear; the crane breaks off the ship and falls into the water]
Benthic Explorer Captain: Shit! Get him on the UQC!
[into the radio]
Benthic Explorer Captain: Bud! We lost the crane!
Virgil: Say again, what?
Benthic Explorer Captain: The crane! We`ve lost the crane! It`s on its way down to you!
Virgil: All right, all right everybody brace for impact! Close all the exterior hatches, let`s go go go go!
Lt. Coffey: [to SEALs] You two help secure the rig! Let`s go!
Virgil: One Night! One Night, can you hear me? Get the hell outta there, the crane`s comin` down!
[part of the cable hits One Night`s cab, but she manages to get away]
Lisa "One Night" Standing: I`m okay, I`m clear, Bud!
[the crew braces for impact; Hippy puts Beany in a plastic bag]
Lindsey Brigman: [as the Pseudopod approaches] Bud! Bud! Get up!
[Bud sits up, stares at the pseudopod]
Virgil: [throwing a pillow at Cat] Hey, Cat. Cat!
Catfish De Vries: [half-awake] Hey, lemme alone.
[sees the pseudopod, jerks awake and grabs a flowerpot as if to throw it]
Lindsey Brigman: The bad news is we got eight hours in this can blowin` down... And the worse news is, it`s gonna take us three weeks to decompress later.
Catfish De Vries: It`s a bottomless pit, baby. Two-and-a-half miles straight down.
Virgil: [about Lindsey] She didn`t leave me. She just left me behind.
Lindsey Brigman: I saw these things. I touched one of them. And... It wasn`t some clunky steel can... like we would build. It glided. It was the most beautiful thing I`ve ever seen. Oh, God, I wish you`d been there. It was a machine. It was a machine, but it was alive. It was like a... like a dance of light. Please. You have to trust me. Now, I don`t think they mean us any harm. I don`t know how I know that. It`s just... a feeling.
Lt. Coffey: Let`s get something straight. You people are under my authority.
Catfish De Vries: Look, partner, we don`t work for you. We don`t take orders from you. And we don`t much like you.
Virgil: Hey, Cat. Cat.
Catfish De Vries: Yeah?
Virgil: Why don`t you take the first watch on sonar? Okay?
Lindsey Brigman: [to Hippy] I know, but we could get lucky, right? So we should go for it.
Lindsey Brigman: [the pseudopod mimics Lindsey] It`s trying to communicate.
[the pseudopod changes to Bud`s face]
Lisa "One Night" Standing: It`s Bud!
Lindsey Brigman: [laughing delightedly] It`s wonderful!
Virgil: [grinning] It`s me!
Lt. Coffey: We have no way of warning the surface. And you know what that means? It means, whatever happens, is up to us.
Virgil: [to the Alien] How do you know they`re really gonna do it? Where do you get off passing judgment on us? You can`t be sure. How do you know?
[the aliens show him gruesome footage of war and conflict; Bud bows his head]
Catfish De Vries: Well, hell, son. You better get a line down to us. We`re in moderately poor shape down here. We`ve lost seven people, including Bud. And we`re about out of O2, so whatever you`re gonna do, you better do it fast.
Lindsey Brigman: It says... It says, uh... "Virgil Brigman back on the air".
Lindsey Brigman: We should be dead. We didn`t decompress.
Alan "Hippy" Carnes: They musta done something to us.
Lindsey Brigman: [smiling] Yeah. Yeah, I think you could say that.
Virgil: [after the aliens call off the tidal wave that would have wiped out humanity] You could`ve done it. Why didn`t you?
Aliens: [via the water screen, in Bud`s typing] Knew this was one way ticket, but you know I had to come. Love you wife.
Lindsey Brigman: [relaying what Bud types] Have some new friends down here. Guess they`ve been here awhile. They`ve left us alone, but it bothers them to see us hurting each other. Getting out of hand. They sent a message. Hope you got it.
Catfish De Vries: I`d say that`s a big ten-four, Jack.
Lindsey Brigman: They want us to grow up a bit, and put away childish things. Of course, it`s just a suggestion.
[laughter]
Trivia
/.//.,
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Director James Cameron contacted Orson Scott Card before filming began with the possibility of producing a book based on the film. Card initially told his agent that he doesn`t do "novelizations", but when she told him that the director was James Cameron, he agreed to consider it. The script arrived, and Card signed on after receiving assurances from Cameron that he would be free to develop his "novel" the way he wanted to. After a meeting with Cameron, Card immediately wrote the first three chapters, which dealt with events concerning Bud and Lindsay Brigman that occurred before the events in the film. Cameron gave these chapters to Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, who used it to develop their characters.
Cast members had to become certified divers before filming began.
The masks were specially designed to show the actors` faces, and had microphones fitted so that dialogue spoken at the time by the actors could be used in the film. The noises made by the regulators in the helmets were erased during sound post-production.
Most of the underwater filming took place in a half-completed nuclear reactor facility in Gaffney, South Carolina, including the largest underwater set in the world at 7 million gallons.
The crew frequently spent enough time underwater to force them to undergo decompression before surfacing. James Cameron would often watch dailies through a glass window, while decompressing and hanging upside down to relieve the stress on his shoulders from the weight of the helmet.
#
# The tank was filled to a depth of 40 feet, but there was still too much light from the surface, so a giant tarpaulin and billions of tiny black plastic beads were floated on the surface to block the light. During a violent storm the tarpaulin was destroyed, thus shifting production to night time.
Fluid breathing is a reality. Five rats were used for five different takes, all of whom survived and were given shots by a vet. The rat that actually appeared in the film died of natural causes a few weeks before the film opened. According to James Cameron, the scene with the rat had to be edited out of the UK movie version because "the Royal Veterinarian felt that it was painful for the rat". James Cameron repeatedly assures that the rats used for this take didn`t suffer any harm.
#
# Michael Biehn`s character gets bitten on the arm by another character. This happens to him in every James Cameron movie he`s in - see The Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986).
#
# Director Trademark: [James Cameron] [title fade] at the beginning of the movie, the blue "Y" from the opening credits extends and then fades to the underwater scenery with the submarine.
Director Trademark: [James Cameron] [feet] when the soldiers arrive at the supply ship and jump out of the helicopters. See also Aliens (1986).
James Cameron`s brother, Mike Cameron, plays a dead crewman inside the sunken submarine. To accomplish this he had to hold his breath under 15 feet of water while also allowing a crab to crawl out of his mouth.
The first movie released under the THX Laserdisc Program.
Very few scenes involved stunt people. When Bud drags Lindsey back to the rig, that`s really Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio holding her breath. When the rig is being flooded and characters are running from water, drowning behind closed doors, and dodging exploding parts of the rig, those are all actors, not stunt people.
The scene with the water tentacle coming up through the moon pool was written so that it could be removed without interfering with the story, because no one knew how the effect would come out. The actors were interacting with a length of heater hose being held up by the crewmen. When the effects were completed, though, they exceeded everyone`s expectations and wildest hopes.
During the TV news report of the US and Russian ships colliding, the accompanying pictures are actually those taken of ships from the British Task Force hit during the Falkland Islands campaign.
During the rigorous and problematic shoot, the cast and crew began calling the film by various derogatory names such as "Son Of Abyss", "The Abuse" and "Life`s Abyss And Then You Dive". Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio reportedly suffered a physical and emotional breakdown because she was pushed so hard on the set, and Ed Harris had to pull over his car at one time while driving home, because he burst into spontaneous crying.
The original theatrical version was forced to cut the pre-credits quote "...when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you" by Friedrich Nietzsche because Criminal Law (1988) used it, and they didn`t want to seem like imitators. The quote was restored in the director`s cut.
The company mentioned in the film is named Benthic Petroleum. In oceanographic terms, the word "benthic" means on or in the ocean bottom.
For financial reasons, the "Deepcore" set was never dismantled. It stands in the abandoned (and drained) South Carolina nuclear power plant, where the film was shot. 20th Century Fox has posted signs around the set informing potential photographers that Fox still owns the set (and the designs) and that any photographs or video shooting of the set is prohibited by copyright law. Their official copyright information is on the Deepcore rig itself.
In the end shot where the alien ship surfaces, it`s supposed to be spring or summer. However, the film was being shot towards the beginning of winter, so the actors put ice cubes in their mouths so they wouldn`t breathe out mist.
#
# Actor Joe Farago, who plays the news anchorman reporting on the escalating world events, also played a similar role in a previous James Cameron film, The Terminator (1984).
The studio pushed hard for an Academy Award nomination for Michael Biehn as best supporting actor.
There are no opening credits save the title of the film.
#
# Since the "Benthic Explorer" model ship was so large and filmed on open seas, the production company was required to register it with the Coast Guard.
The fictional company "Benthic Petroleum" also owns the gas station shown in James Cameron`s Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and the flying oil tanker in Jan de Bont`s Twister (1996).
To heat the water in the unfinished nuclear power plant, James Cameron brought in several tanker trucks of natural gas, and attached them directly to burners.
The American Humane Association rated this film "unacceptable" because of the rat that was submerged in oxygenated liquid in one scene. It wasn`t an effect. The rat really was "subjected to the anxiety of being submerged in this liquid, where it panics and struggles and is then pulled out by its tail as it expels the liquid from its lungs."
The role of Commodore DeMarco was originally meant for Lance Henriksen, but he couldn`t appear due to a scheduling conflict.
The sequence in which Catfish fires a submachine gun into the moon pool at a departing Lt. Coffey was filmed using live ammunition. The underwater camera was locked down and unmanned, and extreme safety precautions were in effect.
The sub called "Flatbed" in the movie was built around a real submarine called "Deep Rover" which was designed by the Canadian company Nuytco Research.
The mini-subs in the wide shots were actually models suspended on wires in a smoky environment and filmed in slow motion.
The water in the two tanks was chlorinated heavily, to prevent microbes growing in it. This caused many of the actor`s hair to become green and even white.
A scene at the beginning showing the crew rounding up at the moon pool had to be re-shot, because the Flatbed submersible was parked in the pool. Flatbed was supposed to be out in the water pulling the rig during that particular scene.
The first feature film to have used an early version of Adobe Photoshop.
In the original storyline, when Lindsey is talking to Bud during his descent, she explains why she is always so hard on people. Lindsey grew up in a family with five older brothers, and she had to fight for everything, even to be noticed.
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Ed Harris
(as Virgil 'Bud' Brigman)
with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
(as Lindsey Brigman)
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