George Clooney’s latest directorial feat comes in the form of an inspirational tale surrounding the sport of rowing, or crew, as most competitors in the States call it.
‘The Boys in the Boat‘ was first penned by Daniel James Brown in 2013, and it followed the true story of the University of Washington’s rowing team and their quest for gold at the 1936 Olympics. Clooney, who is known for a better part of his directorial projects to adapt books or plays into features (like ‘The Ides of March’ and ‘The Tender Bar’), was intrigued by the plot.
“[We’re] just always looking for good stories,” explains Clooney at a global press conference for the film. “The fun part was these young men, out of necessity, out of hunger, and having nothing else—they got together and were sort of like The Beatles. You put together a group of men who could actually be good enough to win the Olympics—just like if your third-best songwriter is George Harrison—it’s a magical group. It’s sort of what happened with these guys. They ended up having these incredible men who worked as an incredible team.”
That group consisted of 9 athletes: Donald Hume, Joe Rantz, George Hunt, Jim McMillin, Johnny White, Gordon Adam, Charles Day, Roger Morris and Bobby Moch. The incredible details of the story come from the characters, or more so, what they were up against. The term underdog is always used to describe the 1936 crew at the Berlin Olympics, and that’s because they had to get there from virtually nothing, like Joe Rantz, who was left to fend for himself at age 13 after his family abandoned him.
“I loved him from that moment,” says Callum Turner (who plays Rantz) when recalling the time he read that exact detail on his character. “I think it was remarkable what he was able to achieve in his life.”
For the film, Turner, along with the other 8 actors (Thomas Elms, Jack Mulhern and Wil Coban to name a few of his co-stars) had to row together like an actual crew. That meant finding the skill and technique that goes into the sport, and also, the ability to row in unison which is imperative to winning. From the stroke seat, down all the pairs to the bow, each seat needs to be perfectly timed at every beat while the coxswain steers, guides and motivates them to victory.
“None of us had any [experience] really. We turn up on the river and it’s February and it’s snowing. We’re all in the tight shorts and freezing cold and we have no skill to be in the boat,” recalls Turner. “After about three weeks, George came down to have a good look and….We weren’t in a good place. I could see the pain behind the smile on George’s face. We were worried, too.”
Turner continued: “We had to learn how to do a new skill, but then also be in unison. I think that’s the hardest part about rowing. You all have to be in complete unison, there’s no hiding and if one person is out by a millimeter, the boat suffers.”
For five months, the cast rowed together practically every day and was able to get to where they needed to be to realistically portray the Olympic crew in their last two weeks of filming, which happened to be when most of the racing sequences were filmed. Clooney notes they were even able to get their SPM (strokes per minute) to where the actual Olympic crew had there’s in 1936—just for a few moments, but still “impressive,” Clooney noted.
‘The Boys in the Boat’ group is also guided under Coach Al Ulbrickson, played by Joel Edgerton. Ulbrickson won 28 national championships during his three decades as Washington’s rowing coach, but the 1936 crew was undoubtedly his crowning achievement. For the role, Edgerton was able to delve a little deeper into the mind of the successful coach.
“I just loved when I first talked to George about the script and when I read the script, it was described as one of those coaches we are all familiar with—[the one] who seems to derive zero pleasure from his job,” says Edgerton. “I always look at those coaches and think, why are you even doing this? And I started to really realize that behind those sort of angry, blustery red faces and grimaces, are often just guys who care too much. It reminds me of the relationships between fathers and sons.”
We get to see the story — which focuses more so on the rowing aspects versus the book’s coverage of Rantz’s life — unfold through the eyes of the crew, and peek into more of some of their lives, like Rantz’s love story with his wife, Joyce (Hadley Robinson.) But more so, we get to see the story of a covenant or bond so strong that it led to the real-life counterparts of the film to row once every year together for 50 years.
“The book is so rich and the story is so true,” finishes Turner. “It’s a real underdog story.”
Catch ‘The Boys in the Boat’ in theaters on Christmas Day.
