Eddie the eagle
Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman take to the slopes.
If you mention the 1988 Winter Olympics to any Briton old enough to remember, their reaction will inevitably begin with three words: ‘Eddie The Eagle’. Held in Calgary, 57 nations competed and the former Soviet Union topped the medals table with 29 golds. But it was Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards that stole all the headlines. The sole representative for Great Britain at ski jumping, he finished last in both the 70m and 90m events. And became a national hero.
Almost three decades on, this loveable loser – once nicknamed ‘Mr. Magoo’ in the press for his bespectacled appearance – is about to launch into cinemas. Directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Dexter Fletcher, Eddie The Eagle has all the hallmarks of a British feelgood flick. “Crowd-pleaser,” states Hugh Jackman, who swaps claws for ski-sticks in his role as Edwards’ (fictionalised) “washed-up” coach. “Like The
Full Monty – very English.” It’s a fair observation: Brits love an underdog story – whether it’s the steelworkers-turned-strippers of The Full Monty, the coal miners of Brassed Off or the factory girls of Made In Dagenham. But, argues Fletcher, Edwards’ story is more than that. “It’s the determination of one man to get there in the face of all these adversities – literally there’s a massive hill to climb,” he says. “He keeps going. It’s insanely brave! But it works and you can’t help but admire that.”
Even before he became ‘Eddie The Eagle’, his was a plucky against-the-odds tale. Born in Cheltenham, the son of a plasterer, Edwards (whose real first name is Michael) began his sporting life as a downhill skier. Narrowly missing out on qualifying for the 1984 Olympics in the former Yugoslavia, his decision to switch to ski jumping simply came out of necessity. With rapidly diminishing funds, he needed to find a sport that was cheaper.
Taking himself to Lake Placid in America, he began to practice: the 15m jump, then the 40m one, where he suffered the first of many crash landings. Undeterred, he carried on against the odds. With no proper equipment, he borrowed some oversized ski boots, wearing six pairs of socks to make them fit, and tied his helmet on with string. Also 10 kilos heavier than your average ski jumper, his long-sighted vision meant he had to wear thick glasses while jumping – with lenses prone to misting up.
Driving around Europe in his mum’s car to various ski resorts in the hope of qualifying for Calgary, Edwards had no backing and was doing
odd jobs – babysitting, cutting grass, hotel work – to finance his trip. Money was so tight he sought accommodation in a Finnish psychiatric institute for £1 per night. When he broke his jaw, he had no money for medical treatment; instead, he tied up his face with a pillowcase. It makes his eventual arrival at the 1988 Winter Olympics, frankly, remarkable.
“He got there and jumped, which is really what’s being celebrated,” remarks Fletcher. “He never stood up and said, ‘I’m going to be the greatest ski jumper ever. I’m going to win gold.’ He just wanted to get to the Olympics. And that’s why he is the way he is. When you see him celebrating, jumping up and down, super enthusiastic, people are like, ‘He’s last! Why’s he so fucking happy?’ Because he’s at the Olympics! And who of us wouldn’t like to be able to say, ‘Yeah, I was an Olympian!’”
A film based around Eddie The Eagle has been in the works for close to a decade, since
Father Ted director Declan Lowney hooked up with Steve Coogan. Fletcher, who read the script, calls it “an out-and-out comedy”, but notes that Edwards was aggrieved that it “made him out to be a complete buffoon”, doubtless regretting the day he sold his life rights away. “I think he felt that it was a disservice to what he’d achieved, and rightly so… there was a lot of sacrifice involved in doing what he did.”
Eventually, Coogan dropped out to be replaced by Rupert Grint, and it was set to be the Harry Potter star’s first major film since completing the franchise. “It’s always been quite a big story in my family,” an enthusiastic Grint told Total Film at the time. “My Dad’s always told me about the legend of Eddie The Eagle.” But, unlike Eddie, the script never got off the ground. “It got to a point where the studios in America didn’t quite get it,” remarks Jackman. “I think Aussies and the English really get that folk hero thing.”
The script eventually found its way to Fletcher, via the film’s producer Matthew Vaughn. Nominated for a Bafta for his 2011 directorial debut Wild Bill, Fletcher had already crafted a reputation for heartfelt British stories, after making his 2013 follow-up, the Proclaimersscored Sunshine On Leith. Initially unsure, he began to see a way forward. “I said, ‘If you’re going to do it, you need to do it honestly and play it for real – an inspirational story about a guy who actually achieves getting to the Olympics.’”
Despite some of the more remarkable elements of Edwards’ real-life story – not least setting the British record of 73.5m during those Olympics – it lacked the drive needed for a script. And so in came Jackman’s character, Bronson Peary – a one-time downhill ski jumper who, reluctantly, becomes Eddie’s coach. “We needed a narrative,” says Fletcher. “We wanted to create that friendship, that buddy thing, that
48 Hours, Trading Places relationship that harks back to those great ’80s films.”
An early task was casting Edwards. Vaughn was “pushing” for Taron Egerton, his young star from Kingsman, but Fletcher wasn’t convinced. “I said, ‘Matt, he’s way too good looking! We need someone who doesn’t look like a chiseled movie star!’” Even Egerton – who was born in 1989, the year after Edwards competed – was unsure. “When Matthew first spoke to me, my first question was: ‘Am I definitely the right person to play this guy?’ There wasn’t a massively striking resemblance.” With Fletcher even considering casting his
Wild Bill star Will Poulter, Egerton then went on Jonathan Ross’ chat show to promote
Kingsman. Given a pair of comedy glasses by Ross, who’d heard Egerton was close to being cast, the young Welsh star put them on and stuck his jaw out. Somehow appropriating Edwards’ default look, what Egerton calls a cross between “an under-bite and a slightly perplexed expression”, it blew Fletcher away. “It was uncanny,” he says. “It was like a lightbulb moment.”
With the other cast coming together – including Christopher Walken as Peary’s own mentor, and Keith Allen and Jo Hartley as Edwards’ parents – Egerton donned a wig and a ’tache and flew to New York to screentest with Jackman. “It was immediately apparent that he had all the heart and all the charm and the required amount of innocence,” says Fletcher. “It’s not sending Eddie up. It’s not taking the piss out of him. He’s playing it absolutely straight.”
Egerton, who was only dimly aware of Edwards’ Olympic legacy – “I got him confused with Evil Knievel, as a daredevil stuntman” – met his real-life counterpart at Pinewood Studios over a couple of mugs of tea. “He’s a very gentle, soft-spoken, kind, warm chap,” he recalls, “but with this incredible determination and singlemindedness and love for this sport. So it was great to sit with him and try and imbibe some of that.”
After playing Eggsy in Egerton admits Eddie The Eagle was the perfect chance to do something vastly different. “Eggsy is a very smooth-talking, cocksure type of person, whereas Eddie – maybe not so much in real life, he’s quite a charming chap – but our version is a bit socially awkward and not necessarily interested in girls… not quite as witty. So it was great to have the chance to play someone like that.”
Two weeks before the shoot, Egerton took a crash course in skiing. “I’m not going to be doing
Kingsman,
it as a career myself, but I think I’m OK!” he grins. Meanwhile, production based itself at Garmisch in Germany’s Bavarian Alps, where Edwards had been on his European tour before arriving in Calgary. With three ski jumps, a stadium and even a nearby bar, it was perfect to shoot the majority of the exteriors (with other places, including nearby Oberstdorf and Seefeld in Austria, also used).
The biggest challenge, from a technical standpoint, was replicating the ski jumps. Fletcher and Vaughn wisely brought in stunt legend Vic Armstrong – a veteran of the James Bond and Indiana Jones movies. With 13 jumps, Fletcher wanted each to feel like it was “serving a purpose”. Fired up by this, Armstrong began inventing rigs for the cameras and body mounts for his stunt team to create a variety of in-camera shots. “He came back with 90 hours of footage of ski jumping, which is a hell of a lot,” says Fletcher.
Naturally, these had to be spliced with studio wire work with the actors – namely Egerton, Jackman, whose boozy coach still has it in him to make the 90m jump, and Edvin Endre, who plays Eddie’s real-life competitor Matti Nykänen, the ‘Flying Finn’, who won three golds at Calgary. Jackman was particularly keen on doing it for real. “He said, ‘I really want to do a ski jump!’” recalls Fletcher. “I was like, ‘Hugh, man, that’s lovely, but you’re worth a bit too much dough!’”
When Jackman arrived, he was bowled over by what Egerton was doing. “Taron is phenomenal,” he says. “It was really clear from the moment I got on set that he’s pulling something amazing. The fact that I’d just seen him in Kingsman… I don’t know anyone out there right now that could do these two roles back to back.” Adds Fletcher: “The beauty of it is that Hugh and Taron became great friends during the course of the making of the film – it’s an absolutely genuine relationship.”
With the film in post, Fletcher screened it to both Edwards and Egerton at the same time. “I was very, very relieved to see that, by the end of the movie, Eddie was crying – and not out of horror!” laughs Egerton. “At the time he was both celebrated and ridiculed, and neither he nor myself wanted a movie to be made that ridiculed or made a mockery of him. I wanted it to be a life-affirming, celebratory championing of an underdog. And I personally – and I think Eddie does too – feel that we’ve achieved that.”
Launched, aptly enough, in snowy Sundance this year, the film has the full support of Edwards, who even took to his skis for a charity jump to raise money for Ski 4 Cancer – the first time he’d launched himself off an Olympic-sized jump in more than 20 years. “His drive is still the same,” says Fletcher. “His passion and desire has not diminished. In fact, he says, ‘I’m better and leaner and lighter than I was then’ – so he’s still game for it now.” As they say with relish in the film, the Eagle has landed.
Eddie The Eagle opens on 1 April.