Callum Turner, one of the stars of The Boys in the Boat, said George Clooney served as both a great leader and fantastic director on the set of the sports drama.
Turner plays Joe Rantz, part of the University of Washington rowing team that won gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, who amidst a life of hardships joins the Huskies squad in an effort to pay tuition.
The story of Rantz and his team are the focus of the Clooney-directed underdog sports tale with a screenplay from Mark L. Smith thats based on the Daniel James Brown book of the same name.
We all built a shorthand pretty quickly, thats testament to him, Turner said of Clooney, pointing to the directors knowledge of old Hollywood.
For me it was Gary Cooper in High Noon and Mr. Deeds, watching movies like that. Spencer Tracy and tapping into Woody Guthrie. He knew because hes a cinephile, hed just be able to communicate through movies and moments. Hes just a wonderful human being.
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Turner and Hadley Robinson, who plays Rantzs love interest Joyce Simdars in the film, spoke with HuffPost about rowing, their time on set and their on-screen chemistry in the upcoming historical rowing film.
Callum, you did two months of training for this role, correct?
Callum Turner: Five months in total, but we did two months of training pre-shoot.
Now in addition to the physical impact that had on you in preparing for this role, what were the results of that time together, especially as a group the boys in the boat?
Turner: You know whats crazy, without sounding too sentimental its impossible not to I created a bond with these guys thats going to live with me forever. We were together every day. We rowed together, we ate together, we went out together, we watched movies together. We were bonded at the hip and we were a professional sports outfit. And we were all pulling in the same direction to try to achieve something that was seemingly out of reach.
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We set the target of reaching 46 strokes per minute, which is what the guys did in the last race to win the gold. We all moved at different paces, the process was up and down two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, one step back. And it did feel like it wasnt going to happen. And then on, I think it was the second last day, we did it and won the races. We got to 46 and we were shocked. There was disbelief in the boat, but also this euphoric feeling that wed set out five months ago to achieve something when it was snowing in February on the River Thames. And at some point in June, or whenever it was, wed done it. And yeah, we were all so proud of ourselves.
What were some of the behind-the-scenes things you mentioned, you talked about group bonding experiences. Did that help play into this underdog kind of performance thats on display in the film?
Turner: We were a team and so what we did was we learned as we went. The difficult thing is there was eight of us learning a new skill and individually that wouldve been hard enough, but we had to do it in sync. The beauty of rowing is that you are in unison completely. Theres no room for error. If your hands are a millimeter higher than the man in front of you or the woman in front of you, then the boat is jeopardized. It goes slower. If your pressure on the foot press is weaker or even stronger than the person in front of you, the boat is jeopardized. So you really have to be in unison. And to achieve that, it takes a lot of work and concentration. So there were two things at play that were really difficult and Im just so proud of those guys. Im proud to be friends with them. And then the usual thing of being in a movie with someone like Hadley, you get to work with Hadley, and we built a bond, too. It was a very happy set, I have to say.
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