Messner appears several times in the film talking about eight-thousanders and what Purja was trying to do; Purja met Messner after suffering a bad fall on Nanga Parbat but Messner gave him encouragement to keep going, with Purja recounting: "He looked into my eyes and said, 'You can do it'. He told me to my face, and he hadn't even seen my climb. When he did the 8000-ers, the whole mountaineering community was against him, but he proved the concept.