‘Eden’ Toronto FIlm Festival Premiere: Ron Howard, Jude Law

Jude Law doesn’t want to take all the credit.

He delivers one of the many go-for-broke performances in Ron Howard‘s star-studded “Eden,” a stranger-than-fiction survival thriller about European settlers who seek new life on a previously uninhabited island in the Galápagos. As the official logline explains, “They believe they’ve found paradise — only to discover that hell is other people.” And yes, it’s actually based on true events.

Though his character of Friedrich Ritter, a doctor living in total isolation with his wife (Vanessa Kirby) before all these other people show up, goes completely nude in one scene of the film, Law insisted he wasn’t the only actor on set to take a creative leap of faith.

“We all had to be audacious,” Law said at the Toronto Film Festival premiere of “Eden” during a post-screening Q&A after moderator Cameron Bailey suggested that playing Ritter “probably required a little more audacity” than the others.

“You mean walking around naked?” Law responded with a laugh. “For me, the challenge was trying to find movement in his rigidity. He didn’t want to be moved or bent. That was the challenge for me — and the nudity.”

Law believes the camaraderie with his co-stars of Ana de Armas, Kirby, Sydney Sweeney and Daniel Brühl made it easier to act uninhibited on screen. After all, he’s far from the only cast member forced to do something outrageous. Sweeney’s character, German housewife Margret Wittmer who relocates to the unwelcoming enclave with her husband, has a wild birth scene in which she has to fend off feral animals as her water breaks. De Armas, portraying the self-proclaimed heiress known as the Baroness, has a threesome in the ocean with her devoted workers.

“There was something enticing about being in an ensemble,” Law said. “In the beginning, we’re all asking ‘How far are we going to go?’ It’s a lovely and fluid game of trust and chance.”

De Armas plays an agent of chaos — one of many in a power struggle for control of the island — who hopes to build a luxurious resort despite the area’s hostile conditions. She admitted she was scared to take on such a diabolical part but ended up falling in love with the role. “I was on the phone with Ron and was like, ‘This might be the end of my career. But it looks fun. So, I’m going to go for it.”

During a climactic scene with her character, audience members at the Roy Thomson Hall started to cheer. De Armas took notice. “By the way,” she joked to the crowd, “I heard you celebrating… it felt personal.”

Howard chimed in: “I’ll just say, Ana is a great character actress because she’s nothing like the Baroness.”

A medical emergency briefly halted Saturday night’s premiere after a festival-goer was carried out on a stretcher. As Howard took the stage for the post-screening Q&A, the director immediately asked about that person’s wellbeing. Toronto Film Festival’s Bailey confirmed the audience member “will be OK,” prompting the rest of the room to applaud.

Howard, the Oscar-winning director of “A Beautiful Mind,” “Parenthood,” “The Da Vinci Code” and “Frost/Nixon” called this film “beyond anything I’ve ever done” in terms of tone and style. Still, he feels that “Eden” jibes with the rest of his filmography.

“I’m fascinated by stories based on real events,” Howard said. “As dark and bizarre as the story is, we prove that survival of the fittest is connected to love and family. It’s a family story! ‘Parenthood’ to ‘Eden’… don’t you see it?!”

Plus, he teased, “It could have been even crazier. There were twists and turns we didn’t go down.”