Apple Shares Behind-the-Scenes Look at 'Tenzing' [Video]

Apple has released a new making-of featurette for 'Tenzing,' taking viewers behind its Nepal and New Zealand shoots for the Mount Everest drama.

The 10-minute, 23-second featurette follows a production built around real outdoor locations. Cast and crew discuss filming in the elements rather than relying on blue- or green-screen settings, and the challenges of bringing a large expedition to the screen. One outdoor sequence involved 400 extras, 70 animals, and 40 principal cast members.

The move from Nepal to New Zealand brought the production onto snow and ice, where mountain locations required smaller crews. The team describes the risks of working on glaciers, including crevasses, frostbite, and hypothermia, along with the need to leave quickly when cloud cover threatened to strand the team overnight.

Weather also disrupted the schedule. Crew members recount unexpectedly spending nights in a mountain hut and facing wind gusts above 100 km/h. Short daylight hours added pressure, with scenes sometimes still being filmed as helicopters began taking people off the mountain.

Alongside those practical challenges, the featurette explores the importance of telling the story from Tenzing Norgay's perspective. Norgay's family discusses its trust in director Jennifer Peedom and Genden Phuntsok's portrayal, while the cast and filmmakers reflect on Sherpa culture and the climber's spiritual connection to the mountains.

Based on the first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953, 'Tenzing' stars Phuntsok as Norgay and Tom Hiddleston as Edmund Hillary. Willem Dafoe, Thinley Lhamo, and Caitríona Balfe also star. The film began streaming on Apple TV on October 16, 2026.