Ali film was an eye-opener for Plummer
Canadian actor profoundly moved by his role as top judge in boxer’s court battle
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. “Clay vs. United States . 403 U.S. 698” were just names and numbers on a ledger to most people at the time, even to Christopher Plummer.
After playing U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan II in the upcoming HBO film Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, though, Plummer understood. And what he learned left him profoundly moved.
“Clay vs. United States” was the champion boxer’s famous 1971 appeal of his conviction for refusing to report for induction into the U.S. army during the Vietnam War.
Ali, born Cassius Clay, Jr., cited his adopted religion Islam in declaring himself a conscientious objector.
Though stripped of his boxing titles and barred from boxing for three years by the various boards and associations, Ali’s court fight is believed to have been one of the triggers behind massive public demonstrations that would hasten the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Justice Harlan wrote the majority opinion.
Ali’s stance is said to have inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. to voice his own opposition to the war after being silent for several years, for fear of alienating the Lyndon Johnson administration and its support of Dr. King’s civil rights campaign.
The HBO film, written by screenwriter and social activist Shawn Slovo and directed by Dangerous Liaisons and The Queen filmmaker Stephen Frears, takes a behind-closeddoors look at one of the most contentious Supreme Court arguments in U.S. history.
“I knew nothing at all,” Plummer admitted at the summer meeting of the Television Critics Association. “I was living in England at the time. I knew that Muhammad Ali had been threatened as a conscientious objector, but that’s about all I knew.
“The case itself disappeared off the face of the earth. There wasn’t a lot about John Harlan to research, apart from what was in Shawn Slovo’s lovely script which gave him so much warmth and humanity at the end.
“I thought, how wonderful that we are not just looking at an ultraconservative member of the Supreme Court. We are seeing the human side. We are talking about the end of this man’s life, and what influenced him to change his vote in favour of Ali.”
The film opened Plummer’s eyes to how even politically entrenched minds can be changed, if the argument is persuasive enough. Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight does not depict political conservatives in a stereotypical way. If it did, Plummer said, he would have had no part of it.
“I think they were absolutely true, professional men,” Plummer said. “I particularly admire my character, the way Shawn has written it, because he’s given the chance to be more human, perhaps, than some of the others.
“This is not about depicting conservative stereotypes; that was the furthest thing from our minds. ”
Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight premières on HBO Canada in October.