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What was working on the
film like?
Al Shearer:
Absolutely amazing. Bruckheimer did the
production. I got the call and they were
like Jerry Bruckheimer. I was like
Gerald Bruckheimer or Jerry Bruckheimer?
He was like Jerry. So, I go to sleep,
wake up from my coma in a week. Call
back, are you sure you said Jerry
Bruckheimer?
What did you do
to prepare?
Al Shearer:
Documentaries of people living in the
Civil Rights era. We went through
pictures. And I met my “player” part, 2
weeks into shooting the movie; which is
when Nevil Shed came down. And I’d see
old photographs of him, but nothing
current.
When you went
out for the role, did you actually have
to have athletic skills?
Austin Nichols:
I actually may be one of the worst
basketball players ever. I do have an
athletic background. I was on the U.S.
Junior Olympic Water Ski team. I was 17.
We had a basketball training camp and
these guys where helping to bring me up.
At the auditions, when asked did I play
basketball I was like mmm hmm. But I got
better.
What was it
like working with the legend Jerry
Bruckheimer?
Al Shearer:
Jerry Bruckheimer is a passionate
individual. He’s worked with Nicholas
Cage, Johnny Depp, Will Smith & Martin
Lawrence…the big $20 Million dollar Boys
Club. We had a problem with one of the
scenes and we were like, should we tell
him? Rock/paper/scissors…boom. We all
came together and went and talked to him
and said we kind of see this scene going
this way more like this and we were
waiting for him to have his clone’s
replace us, but he said yeah, I can see
that. That day, about 20-30 minutes
later, he would change the scene.
Austin Nichols:
I don’t really know what happened but
they really took our notes. And not to
blow wind on our sails but, that was
incredibly open-minded from a bunch of
up and coming guys. They thing that
struck me, that was so amazing about
Jerry was, when we has dinner; we sat
down and said this is just a project of
passion. This is a guy whose movies are
all incredible hits. And he really said
I love this movie. I love this story.
And I don’t really care about the
financial gain; I just love this movie.
Jon Voight was
in character on set at all times. How
did you manifest that into your work?
Austin Nichols:
The first time he came to the set and
was Jon Voight, he would kind of show up
and go straight into his trailer. And
once the ears and the nose and the belly
came on, he was Adolph. It was
incredible because he would get out of
his car as Jon. He’d listen to tapes of
Adolph’ voice and they’d be putting his
make up on and he’d be getting into the
voice. And when he came out I didn’t
even want to go talk to him. He was a
scary man.
How grueling
were the basketball boot camp and the
actual time playing on the set?
Austin Nichols:
I don’t know about Al’s feet but my feet
were bleeding everyday. The first day I
got incredible blisters and I had to
come back the next day and practice just
got harder everyday. The thing was, it
was so painful, the first five minutes
of practice, but then once your feet
start to bleed and they get wet
again…then it doesn’t hurt so bad. I
mean, that’s the kind of pain…and it was
incredible, they were yelling at us.
They were brutal. And they picked on me
big time because I’m not much of a
basketball player. Icing the knees and
the ankle everyday. Al broke his ankle…
Al Shearer:
My foot. We would train from sun up to
sun down. And like two days before
shooting they were like take it easy,
don’t do anything crazy. I come down the
court…threw it off the glass, cradle it
up in the air, and land on my foot. I
broke my foot.
Austin Nichols:
He played the rest of the movie with a
broken foot.
How much
research did you do?
Austin Nichols: I spent most
of my preproduction time watching the
game. As many games as we could. It’s
really strange because back then you’d
watch these games and basically I just
wanted to be really specific on how guys
moved in ’66; how they dribbled the ball
because it’s a completely different
game. That was the hardest thing to
master. Because we grew up playing ball
just like we play and it’s like learning
it all over again. Little details are
important. We wore short shorts. Like
bikini Speedos. t was funny because in
the beginning of the movie the wardrobe
people kept coming up to us and pulling
our shorts up because we were always
wanting to pull them down. And by the
end of the movie, we were so comfortable
and we were like no, they wore their
shorts like this. We got so into it that
when the other basketball teams came
around, we started saying like ‘hey man,
you gotta pull your pants up bro.” They
didn’t sag their shorts back then. Come
on.
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