New Tom Hanks movie auditions actors at Massachusetts Maritime Academy

By Colin A. Young, Globe Correspondent

Francis McDonald is not an actor. He knows the seven seas better than the silver screen. Still, he was hoping today that he might get a role in an upcoming Tom Hanks film.

Brian J. Murphy looked the part of a weatherbeaten mariner. (Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff)

“It would be an honor to be cast in the film,” he said. “The chance, like anything in this business, is a long shot. It was very enjoyable nonetheless.”

McDonald, vice president for operations at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Bourne, was one of more than 40 people to audition for four parts in Columbia Pictures’ planned film about the 2009 hijacking of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama, starring Tom Hanks as captured Captain Richard Phillips. Phillips was a 1979 graduate of the Maritime Academy.

“To have a name as big as Tom Hanks playing the role of someone we all know is truly spectacular for us,” Richard G. Gurnon, the academy president, said.

The film is based on Phillips’s memoir, “A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea.” Phillips was captured by pirates when the cargo ship Maersk Alabama was hijacked off the coast of Somalia in April 2009. Phillips was held at gunpoint in a lifeboat until being rescued four days later by Navy SEAL snipers in a nighttime mission.

A casting company came today to the academy to find four people to play the roles of crewmembers aboard the ship. At the auditions, candidates were asked to read a few lines from the script and share a bit about their experiences at sea.

“The first scene was one when they were initially seeing a pirate ship, and trying to hail the ship on the radio,” Pete DiSanto, 34, who graduated from the academy in 1999 and returned to teach commercial nuclear power, said. “The second scene was after the [pirates’] first attempt sitting with Captain Phillips -- talking about what would happen if they boarded.”

Gurnon said he was pleased that the casting company was making an effort to select knowledgeable and experienced seamen for the roles.

“They are looking for authenticity, looking for people who have been to sea, who know port from starboard, and who have some experience,” he said. “We’re really pleased they held the casting call here and number of graduates tried out and movie is about an incident that caused our graduates to shine.”

Gurnon said he believes the film, produced by the same team that produced 2010’s “The Social Network” and directed by Paul Greengrass, will begin shooting this year.