Play explores infamous feud between Jaws actors – and the mechanical shark that didn’t work
Jaws is one of the cinematic greats.
Steven Spielberg’s 1975 shark attack flick received wide critical acclaim upon its release, winning praise for its storytelling, visual effects and the actors’ performances.
And while things looked great on the screen, behind the scenes, the lead actors were trapped in an infamous feud – the subject of a new West End play.
Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss on the set of Jaws in 1975. Pic: Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
For the uninitiated, Jaws is set in the beach town of Amity Island, and kicks off when a young woman heads out for a swim in the ocean.
But chaos ensues when she is brutally attacked and her remains are dumped on the shore.
After lengthy discussions (and another death in plain view of the beach), the blame is placed at the fins of a huge shark, and a bounty is placed on it.
An amateur shark hunt ensues, with fisherman Quint (played by Robert Shaw) offering his services to police chief Brody (Roy Scheider) and oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) who band together to try and kill the blood-thirsty shark.
It was on this boat, The Orca, that the actors, who weren’t exactly the best of friends, were forced into close quarters during a pause in shooting due to the lousy weather out at sea and a mechanical, toothy co-star that refused to play ball.
Like father like son – Robert Shaw is being played by his son, Ian. Pics: Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock & Helen Maybanks
It’s also where play The Shark Is Broken begins.
“It’s kind of gone into legend really, because the difficulties they had with the mechanical shark were extensive,” Ian Shaw told Sky News – the show’s co-writer who also stars as his father, Robert.
“These three actors, with very distinctive personalities and at different stages in their careers, were kind of stuck together.
“We all know what it’s like to be in confined spaces, you know? And with different personalities, there can be quite a clash, and there certainly was between Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw.
“My father was an established actor, had seen it all and was also a distinguished writer – I think that him and Richard just didn’t get on, but Richard does say that on occasion, in private, that they did.
“So then it’s interesting as to whether my father was doing it partly to get a better performance out of Richard.”
The warring on set is almost as famous as the film itself, and added to the production’s woes – it was had gone way over budget and filming took three times longer than scheduled.
Liam Murray Scott (Richard Dreyfuss) and Ian Shaw (Robert Shaw) will play out the actors’ spat on stage. Pic: Helen Maybanks
“I think there was a little bit of edge in real life between Robert and Richard, and that does show on the screen,” Shaw added.
So what is it like having a combination of your father, a block-busting classic film, and a legendary actors’ feud as source material?
“I didn’t want to do it initially,” Shaw admitted.
“When I first mooted the idea, which I thought was possibly a good idea, I thought ‘I’m studiously trying to avoid association with my father in the first place’, and then to write something about my dad, which might not show him in his greatest light was a concern.
“I felt very reluctant to to engage upon it. But I do think it’s a good story.
Shooting was stalled in the film thanks to some problems with a mechanical co-star… Pic: Helen Maybanks
“I think that as we (Shaw, with fellow writer Joseph Nixon) were going through the process, we found that it became a bit more universal. One of the themes is fathers and sons, which they all talk about in in the play, and then it stopped being about me and my dad, and it started to become more of a conversation about fathers and sons in general – so that put me at ease.”
In The Shark Is Broken, The Orca is just as much as part of the story as the feuding thespians, with the challenge to bring the vessel to stage given to Duncan Henderson.
The boat (of “you’re gonna need a bigger boat” fame) features heavily in the latter part of Jaws, but thanks to some creative license, in the play it is the only location – and where the stars began to bare their teeth, fuelled by booze and ambition.
It’s an impressive structure sat on the stage of London’s Ambassadors Theatre, with a small cabin, a table and a collection of seafaring trash that the group would have ended up with on their travels.
The Orca becomes the setting for the London play. Pic: Helen Maybanks
“We wanted the boat, we wanted more than just the cabin and we wanted to get it as rich as possible,” Henderson explained to Sky News.
“We stuff the forward cabin full of detritus from the film… they’re all questioning their self-worth in their various ways, their value to the world and their value to the film industry specifically, so if we are packing them to the gunnels with all this detritus, it’s more likely to increase this sense of claustrophobia.”
It’s important to say The Orca in the stage play, is different to The Orca in the film – which underlines a point the creative team wants to make: this isn’t Jaws on stage.
Henderson says: “Our experience at the Edinburgh Festival (where the play first ran) was that some of the people in the audience are there because they just love the film and they really want to see what we’ve done, but there are also people there that love human beings, and they want to see the nature of that playing out and everything in between.
“Film fans generally love seeing a little bit of behind the scenes of the friction between [the actors], so it caters for everyone, this particular thing and it’s not exact.”
Demetri Goritsas (Roy Scheider) and Ian Shaw (Robert Shaw) in The Shark is Broken. Pic: Helen Maybanks
Shaw adds: “It doesn’t require a watching of Jaws.
“It’s a comedy, first and foremost… I think it’s on occasion moving, but predominantly it is a comedy – so I think audiences will hopefully laugh and be entertained and stimulated.”
The Shark Is Broken runs until January at the Ambassadors Theatre in London, with tickets available now.
Entertainment
Sir Rod Stewart ‘devastated’ after cancelling more US concerts as he recovers from flu
Sir Rod Stewart says he is devastated to have to cancel a series of US concerts, blaming lingering flu for the decision.
It affects four shows in Nevada, along with a further two in California, which he plans to reschedule.
They were due to take place over the next eight days.
“So sorry my friends. I’m devastated and sincerely apologise for any inconvenience to my fans. I’ll be back on stage and will see you soon,” he wrote in a message on Instagram.
Sir Rod, 80, has been struggling to recover from flu and this week had already cancelled two concerts at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.
On Wednesday, he disclosed that his doctor had “ordered” him to take “a bit more rest”.
The star is in the midst of his epic One Last Time Tour.
Sir Rod, who was recently put on vocal rest, is due to play the legends slot at Glastonbury later this month.
In May, he was presented with a lifetime achievement award at the American Music Awards (AMAs).
Sir Rod performing at the 2025 American Music Awards in Las Vegas. Pic: Reuters
In a sign of how seriously the singer takes his health, last month he was also spotted in Italy attempting to avoid conversations to preserve his voice.
He wore a message attached to a lanyard which read: “Sorry. Cannot talk. Having vocal rest.”
In 2024, he promised he would not retire but confirmed his 2025 European and North American shows would bring an end to his “large-scale world tours”.
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The performer, best known for songs including Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?, Every Beat Of My Heart, and Maggie May, said he plans to focus on more intimate venues instead.
Sir Rod has faced other health challenges in the past.
In May 2000, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had surgery. In 2017, he underwent successful treatment for prostate cancer.
More often than not, the inclusion of women in an action film is shaped by the male gaze, the tropes, the stereotypical backstory and/or the unnecessary physique-revealing scenes connected to it.
“That’s a pet peeve of mine,” director Len Wiseman tells Sky News in an interview for his new John Wick spin-off starring Ana de Armas.
“I think a lot of times you see it’s overly sexualized or there’s not a realism to it, and it is important to me that [this was] approached from a female [perspective] that can be labelled: ‘A woman is strong to begin with’. I think there can be some kind of pandering in certain ways that I think is too far.”
Wiseman started his career with the female-led action film franchise Underworld starring his former partner Kate Beckinsale before directing Die Hard 4.0, Total Recall and Sleepy Hollow.
From The World Of John Wick: Ballerina serves as a spin-off to the John Wick films and is set between the events of the third and fourth movies.
It follows a young trainee assassin who looks to be the next world-renowned assassin in the film universe.
“We never wanted to go as far as Eve looking like we were doing a female John Wick. Eve is Eve and is a woman… and it’s a woman in a man’s world,” says de Armas.
“That phrase ‘fight like a girl’, we wanted that to come across as something really empowering and really pull from there. That is a motivation for her. That has been said before in a derogatory way or as something diminishing.”
De Armas insists she didn’t want to be a ‘female John Wick’. Pic: Murray Close/Lionsgate
Wiseman and de Armas both say that while they wanted Eve to be strong, they also wanted her to feel every moment of the battle. If there are choreographed fight scenes or flashy action moves, she feels them.
“I wanted her to struggle,” explains de Armas, detailing how she consistently asked for her to look more dishevelled as the film progresses.
“It didn’t come from a place of I need to prove myself, I don’t need to prove myself to anybody, but I wanted to do that from the moment we started talking about the script, we even brought on board a female writer, because it was important for me to have that.”
De Armas, similar to her soon-to-be co-star Tom Cruise, relished in undertaking the more difficult stunts and wore the bruises and marks from them like badges of honour.
Playing Eve involved stunts and even some bruises. Pic: Larry D Horricks/Lionsgate
The actress would even send photos of the markings the following day to Wiseman proudly as she jokes: “I just wanted to keep him posted, you know, on how my body was at the end of the day.”
The film was shot practically, with the explosions and countless action surprises for film fans happening on set repeatedly.
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When asked about her toughest stunt to execute, without hesitation, she mentions a scene which included prop grenades.
“All the debris and everything that was flying with those grenades were real, so most of the dust and the little things flying were getting in my eyes, and I just could not open my eyes during the scene. So in between takes, the medics were like just rinsing my eyes with some water.”
With a film set around changing the meaning of ‘fight like a girl’, de Armas says she has a clear definition of it now: “Be yourself and make people gravitate around you and your rules. You make your own rules.”
From The World Of John Wick: Ballerina is in cinemas now.
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