WWTW Interview: Aron Ralston, the inspiration behind ‘127 Hours’

Aron Ralston knows nothing can duplicate the sensation of being trapped in a canyon and taking extreme measures to free oneself, as he did seven years ago during a calamitous hiking trip in Utah.

But Ralston says watching “127 Hours,” the new film about his now legendary escape, is more than the next best thing.

“It’s as close as we can get to living it,” Ralston says of director Danny Boyle’s take on his battle against nature.

The film is more than a deeply moving experience for audiences, some of whom have gotten a mite too attached to James Franco’s performance as Ralston. It’s a project that touched Ralston in rather personal ways.

“It’s deepened relationships that were very close to me. They can understand and really feel what it was like to got though it. It‘s a layered blessing,” he says.

He singles out Franco for his performance in a film that strips away supporting characters and settings, leaving just a wedge of space in an intimidating canyon for an actor to explore.

“Franco captured the experience rather than capturing me, although he did do that as well,” he says.

Ralston worked with Franco to help the actor understand his mind frame at the time of the incident, letting him watch videos he shot of himself during his 127-hour struggle in 2003.

“He could see what it really was for me,” he says. “It comes from a human experience. I’m gonna die … what’s my life been about?”

It’s that internal struggle which gives “127 Hours” its beating heart.

But Ralston acknowledges the other side to his story, one where people watch a man putting himself in harm’s way for a few thrills.

“Why would we promote somebody who is reckless and impulsive and who endangered others? I’m a rescue volunteer. I understand it,” he says.

He’s changed quite a bit since his 2003 adventure, and the event helped him become the person he always wanted to be. As a younger man he sought out an escalating series of extreme activities, in part, “to prove I was an adequate person, that I was good enough,” he says. “I was walking the plank toward the inevitable end till I found out where the edge was.”

The change he sought didn’t happen the minute he returned home from his accident. Once he regained his physical strength he started implementing some of the lessons he learned in the canyon.

“It was something I was delaying,” he explains. Then, he met his future wife who told him she didn’t want to spend her life with someone “who was absent all the time.”

That cinched it.

“I wanted to be the guy that had this epiphany – it’s not what you do in life, it’s who you are and who you relate to,” he says.

(Photo: Top, right: Danny Boyle and Aron Ralston on the set of “127 Hours.” Photo Credit: Chuck Zlotnick. Bottom, left: James Franco on the set of “127 Hours.” Photo credit by Chuck Zlotnick)