Boys In The Boat George Clooney and Joel Edgerton Interview
Boys In The Boat Director George Clooney and star actor Joel Edgerton discuss the idea of sports films and what it means to overcome adversity in their interview. Check it out.
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00:00 Well, I think all sports films are pretty fun and pretty inspiring and I like the idea
00:05 that these kids literally had to do it not because they had any understanding of rowing,
00:10 they didn't know anything about rowing.
00:12 They needed to eat, they needed to have a roof over their heads and they just happened
00:18 to ultimately be the Rolling Stones, you know, along the way and they happened to be truly
00:23 great at what they did.
00:25 Look, you know, I think there's an underdog that lives inside of all of us, you know,
00:30 I think that's why it's something that we always respond to in these stories.
00:36 It's actually funny, I wonder if anyone's ever made a movie that's the opposite of an
00:40 underdog story.
00:41 Right, just the overdog.
00:42 The overdog, the privileged boys, and they lose.
00:45 From the other point of view, we should do that next.
00:48 Yeah, we'll do that.
00:49 But I just love watching people overcome obstacles, I think, because I always feel like that's
00:54 the same in my head that I doubt myself all the time.
00:56 And I just, you know, even in the news, when I see people band together in adversity, it
01:03 breaks my heart, particularly as a male.
01:07 I find that when I see men allow themselves to be vulnerable, you know, in whatever context,
01:15 and we see that in this film, I find it very moving.
01:19 There were a lot of challenges in adapting the book, because it's a book, and it's thick,
01:27 and he's got a lot of storylines in it, so we had to pick the greatest hits, you know.
01:33 The reality is you could do "Boys in the Boat," a six-part series, and then you'd be able
01:37 to sort of go through all of the backstory of Joe, which is a heartbreaking story.
01:42 So the main part was that you wanted to be cinematic, you know that you have to deal
01:47 with the races, and you have to make them sort of special.
01:50 You know that you have to talk about some version of where they came from, and you have
01:54 a beautiful love story.
01:56 And so those were the main focuses.
01:58 And the rest of the stuff that's the, when you read the book, it's so beautiful.
02:02 It's beautiful prose, it's beautifully written.
02:05 You have to pick and choose your battles on those.
02:09 Coach Albrechtson is like daddy to all the boys.
02:13 And I say that, you know, a little facetiously, but the idea that I always feel like coaches
02:19 are parental figures.
02:20 They're there to sort of guide, which is what parents should be doing, you know, and get
02:27 frustrated along the way.
02:28 And the best coaches to me always look deeply frustrated, and it's because they care, you
02:33 know.
02:34 So to me, he's this guy that we meet who sees the kind of building of a new team, a
02:42 junior varsity team, as sort of a set of numbers and statistics and heights of boys and where
02:49 they fit in a boat, like it's a statistics game.
02:53 And then evolves towards the end of that season, like he must with all the different teams
02:59 to get to see the brains and personalities and individuality of all of those boys.
03:04 And I like that evolution in him as a little arc.
03:09 Well, he was the character that Dan met.
03:15 You know, he met the daughter who lived next to him and said, you know, my father's got
03:21 a great story and went over and kind of started talking with him and found out, oh my God,
03:25 he rode with the Olympics.
03:27 And, you know, Dan said, I want to write a book about you.
03:30 And Joe, very old at this point, said, I won't do that, but you can write a book about all
03:36 of the boys in the boat.
03:38 And that character, that belief was exactly the kind of story that Dan wrote, and it felt
03:48 like that's the exact right way to follow it.
03:50 And you know, his story was particularly compelling since he was deserted by his parents when
03:56 he was 13 years old, you know, to run his own life.
04:00 I think he's putting his instinct that the JV boat has got the better shot at a victory
04:10 despite the pressure from the people that fund the rowing program, and makes sort of
04:18 a bold decision that if all that was at stake was victory, he's making the right decision.
04:25 But, as we all experience in life, sometimes decisions are more multi-dimensional and more
04:31 complicated than that.
04:32 So he sort of, you know, makes a tough choice under tough circumstances, but it's the right
04:37 choice and it pays off.
04:40 Callum Turner is the right height.
04:45 That's all we can really say about what he's got.
04:47 Now listen, Callum's a wonderful actor.
04:48 I mean, I only met him doing an American accent, and only in the last like five days when we
04:53 were doing press have I heard him speaking, you know, as a Brit.
04:57 And I don't even know him.
04:58 I don't recognize him.
05:00 He's a vulnerable actor.
05:03 He's physically imposing, which is what Joe Rantz was.
05:07 He's tall and good looking.
05:09 He's athletic.
05:10 But also, you know, he's really sweet.
05:12 The love story between Ian and Hadley is just magical.
05:18 And they're really innocent together in an old-fashioned movie way.
05:22 So he brings all the stuff.
05:23 He did it.
05:24 There was nobody else that could have done it.
05:27 There's no big wealth of information about Albrickson that exists.
05:33 There's no, you know, it's a few decades too long gone for us to have a lot of audio or,
05:40 you know, newsreel footage of him.
05:42 There's pictures and, you know, but it's really, I mean, the beautiful book that Daniel's written
05:48 is really everything.
05:49 And then, you know, then at some point the script becomes the foundation of everything
05:54 you need to build.
05:57 And you have to put all your faith in that the words have been put in the right order
06:01 for the right reason with all the right characters interacting the right way.
06:06 The risks are enormous.
06:09 And in real life, Al Albrickson took a gigantic risk because, you know, they didn't want him
06:15 to do that.
06:16 The seniors were actually a pretty good rowing team.
06:19 But he felt like if they were going to get to Germany, the only team that could actually
06:25 win in Germany was the JV, the younger team, the inexperienced team.
06:31 That's a big risk.
06:32 If he's wrong, he's fired.
06:34 And being fired during the Depression is really bad and really dangerous.
06:39 And so they put it all on the line.
06:42 And, you know, the boys had to put it all on the line.
06:44 The coach had to put it all on the line.
06:45 And that was what was sort of spectacular about the story is there was so much to lose
06:51 and very little prospect of gaining it, meaning very little prospect of winning in Germany.