If you’re a fan of escargot and you’ve seen Hulu’s new erotic thriller Deep Water starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas, you might be wondering whether a casual remark that Affleck’s character, Vic, makes about un-starved snails being poisonous is really true.
Directed by Adrian Lyne and based on the book by Patricia Highsmith, Deep Water tells the story of a deeply flawed couple entwined with a spate of local murders. One half of that couple, Vic (Ben Affleck), is obsessed with snails and keeps a sizable collection of them in a special, very moist snail room in his backyard. The other half, Melinda (Ana de Armas) is more interested in eating snails than in keeping them as pets.
In one scene, Melinda and her boyfriend-of-the-week, Tony Cameron (Finn Wittrock), ask Vic if they can have a few of his snails to make a nice escargot appetizer for their dinner. Besides the fact that Vic obviously has an emotional attachment to these snails, he tells them that snails are actually poisonous to eat unless they have first been starved, thus purging toxic material.
According to Max Anton, the official snail wrangler who worked on the set of Deep Water, Affleck’s character was not joking.
“Yes, it is essential to purge snails before eating them. If the escargots are not purged, the dirt, fecal matter, and potentially toxic plants in their digestive tract can pose a severe health risk to humans,” Anton told Entertainment Weekly. “Purging is accomplished by starving the snails for 7 to 10 days, then immersing them in cold saltwater mixed with a little vinegar.”
This reporter is now reevaluating her taste for escargot.
Ben Affleck in Deep Water, courtesy of Hulu
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Turns out, the way Affleck and de Armas’ characters felt about snails is pretty close to real life. No, Affleck isn’t actually obsessed with them — but he was very attentive about handling them with care while on set.
“Ben was fantastic to work with. He’s a great listener. And you can tell that when he does his scenes, he will take instructions. He understands them, and usually, he can nail it the first time. He was exceptionally good with my animals. We didn’t lose a single one,” Anton said.
As for de Armas, let’s just say she’s not a snail fan.
“She did not have to fake her look of revulsion. I don’t know if she hated the snails, but she did not want to touch them,” Anton said. “Despite being not okay with the snails, she did a great job too.”
Overall, though, Anton just hopes that Deep Water inspires viewers to appreciate snails a little more.
“What I wanted out of my role in this production was just to let people see some beauty in these things that so often get overlooked. When I’m out looking for bugs, sometimes if you just squat down and you focus on just a little one square inch, there is a world of beauty,” he said. “And after reading the script and reading through the book a few times, I came to the conclusion that the snails were arguably the least slimy characters in the story.”
The full Entertainment Weekly story has even more snail details, if you want to follow the trail over there.
Deep Water is now streaming on Hulu.
Main Image: Ben Affleck holding snails in Deep Water. Photo credit: Hulu.
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