Found in translation
Woody Harrelson revels in uplifting ‘Champions’ story
Woody Harrelson knows what mates a good movie and once he saw the 2018 Spanish blockbuster “Campeones,” he immediately knew he wanted to make “Champions,” the American version.
“Champions” is a hearttugging comedy about a down and out basketball coach in Des Moines, Iowa, who finds himself staying out of jail by coaching a Special Olympics team known as the Friends.
“I watched the original Spanish movie and was blown away. I think it’s an extraordinarily beautiful uplifting story,” Harrelson, 61, recalled of diving right in.
“Jeremy, my manager, was, ‘Don’t you want to read the script?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’ll read the script. But I’m in.’ It’s a story with so much heart and so funny — I mean, how do you pass that up?”
Harrelson was instrumental in making “Champions” Bobby Farrelly’s solo directing debut. With his brother Peter, the siblings had teamed on a string of hit comedies including “Kingpin” (’96) with Harrelson.
“I called Bobby because I don’t know who else could have pulled it off. It was a massive workload every day. Unbelievable,” Harrelson said of filming in Winnipeg. “He’d be shooting five scenes in a day and if he didn’t have all of that experience and the ability to say, ‘Okay, one camera goes here, this camera goes there. All right, we got this. What’s the next thing?’” ‘Champions’ would never have finished.
“He just had an ability to tackle all that work where, I don’t know, some people would have been really daunted to be able to accomplish it — and also to make it so funny! And real.”
Working with a team of actors with intellectual disabilities was a first for Harrelson. What kind of responsibility did that bring?
“I tried to help as much as I could, where if someone was having trouble with the lines or had trouble with the blocking. Whatever it was, I always just tried to help in any way I could. But I gotta say, you’d be surprised how professional and on top of it these actors were. It really was very impressive.
“The other thing is that many of them played pretty damn good. I was surprised at how I thought the basketball acumen was much higher than I expected. But also they were just fun. Every day was more fun, like going to work at a playground.”
This Academy Awards week, Harrelson stars in the Best Picture nominee “Triangle of Sadness.” Although he’s had three Oscar nominations, he won’t be at the Dolby Theater Sunday.
“I’ll be biking around Vietnam,” he explained. “Just for fun.”
“Champions” opens Friday.