People often take comfort in believing that they can accurately judge their peers’ lives just by nonchalantly observing one aspect of their existences. But in order to truly comprehend and empathize with their fellow citizens, they must instead delve into the emotional components that drive their multi-faceted social and political situations. World-renowned track and field athlete, Jesse Owens, powerfully garnered appreciation during an internationally hostile social and political time when he captivated audiences during the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Recognized as one of the world’s first superstar athletes, Owens defied racial tensions and expectations and became a four-time gold medalist. How the runner’s high-stakes environment, including the impassioned racial debates that directly impacted him, is emphasized in the first feature film based on his life, ‘Race.’ The biographical sports drama, which Focus Features is set to release in nationwide theaters on Friday, was grippingly directed and produced by Stephen Hopkins.
‘Race’ follows the journey of James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens (Stephan James), the legendary athletic who’s determined to become the greatest track and field athlete in history. As a student and athlete in Depression-era America, Jesse bears the weight of family expectations, racial tension at his college, Ohio State University, and his own high standards for competition. While attending college, Jesse makes an unfaltering friend in his understanding coach, Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis). Also encouraged by the love and support of his girlfriend, Ruth Solomon (Shanice Banton), with whom he has a young daughter, Jesse’s winning ways in intercollegiate competitions earn him a place on the 1936 U.S. Olympics team
However, there’s uncertainty over whether or not the American Olympic committee will allow its athletes to attend the Games, which are set to be held in Berlin, or boycott in protest against Adolf Hitler and his vision of Aryan supremacy. Committee president Jeremiah Mahoney (William Hurt) and millionaire industrialist Avery Brundage (Jeremy Irons) debate the issue, the latter of whom ultimately prevails and secures U.S. participation in the Games. As a result, Jesse enters a new racial and political minefield after he arrives in Berlin with his fellow athletes.
Once Jesse and the other athletes arrive in Germany, the celebrated American runner reaffirms his determination to compete with excellence and honor. With the world watching, he overcomes his own country’s history of racism, as well as the Hitler regime’s oppressiveness. Forever defining what an athlete can accomplish, Jesse races into history as an inspiration to millions.
Hopkins generously took the time recently to talk about directing ‘Race’ during an exclusive interview over the phone. Among other things, the helmer discussed how he became interested in telling Owens’ story after he was approached with the idea by one of his frequent producing collaborators. After doing further research on the Olympic gold medalist, he decided to focus on the runner’s time in the Berlin Olympic Games. He particularly wanted to emphasize that the athlete was driven more by the desire to do right by his family than garner worldwide acclaim. The filmmaker also noted that he cast James in the lead role because he was dedicated to showcasing Owens’ determination to overcome the challenges he faced while competing in the Games. The director also felt that the actor naturally had the same grace and maturity that the biopic’s protagonist possessed during his life.
ShockYa (SY): You directed the upcoming biographical drama, ‘Race,’ which follows Jesse Owens, whose quest to become the greatest track and field athlete in history thrusts him onto the world stage of the 1936 Olympics. What interested you in helming a sports film about the award-winning track star, and how did you become involved in the movie?
Stephen Hopkins (SH): Well, the idea for the project was brought to me by a producer who I have worked with before. But I wasn’t interested in making a movie about Jesse’s whole life. I’m not a fan of films that follow a person’s entire life, because they’re impossible.
So I just researched his life and narrowed it down to these three years, which I thought were so important. It’s the time when he’s 19 to 22, and he goes from being a boy to becoming a man. He meets Larry Snyder during that time, and he forms this partnership with this guy who’s only 15 years older than him. They get stuck in this firestorm of politics, and they wind up going to Nazi Germany. They end up ruining the Nazi’s plan to make it this big Olympics for Germany.
I look around, and don’t see too many heroes in the world right now. I think Jesse Owens was a reluctant hero; he avoided the spotlight, and wasn’t interested in fame. He just wanted to run and feel free, and do the best for himself and his family. But he got caught up in all of this madness.
I also found out all these details about how America almost didn’t go to the Olympics. So the story almost felt like a thriller, in a way.
SY: Like you just mentioned, the drama focuses on the most eventful years of the legendary runner’s life, beginning at the age of 19 when he first arrived at Ohio State University, and ending with his triumphant runs two years later on the world stage. Why do you feel it was beneficial to forgo the traditional cradle-to-grave story, and instead focus on this particularly significant stretch in Jesse’s life?
SH: I’ve made biopics before, and I realized that unless you have a really strong reason or theme to document a person’s entire life, it doesn’t work.
I directed a biopic about (English comedy actor) Peter Sellers (called ‘The Life and Death of Peter Sellers’) for HBO (in 2004). Since the movie was about Peter Sellers, you could look at him through all of the characters he played. But in the end, it was just a superficial look at something.
(In ‘Race,’) I would have loved to have shown more of Jesse’s childhood. The first thought I had for this movie was, how did this young African American guy walk into this arena to face 120,000 saluting Nazi and keep his cool? How did he do what he had to do while keeping himself in check?
I discovered that he was brought up in such a tough way. On the outside, he seemed quite graceful and sweet, but on the inside, there was a lot of anger from how he was brought up during a particularly racist America at the time. So as much as he was scared of losing to the Nazis, as well as helping their propaganda, when he went to Germany, for him, it wasn’t as scary as it was for other people.
SY: The biopic was written by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse. What was your collaboration with Joe and Anna while you were shooting? Besides reading the script, what type of research did you do to help you better understand the track star’s emotions and motivations?
SH: Well, I have worked with Joe and Anna on a couple of other projects before, so I was keen to bring them in on this film. I thought they would understand the story and politics clearly. I made it clear that this was the time to go for.
I wanted to see why the Nazis thought the Games were so important. So I wanted to use Leni Riefenstahl (a German filmmaker, photographer and propagandist for the Nazis) as an insight into why the Nazis thought the Olympics were so critical. They spent a huge amount of money on the Games.
They saw how social media was taking off then, including on worldwide radio and cameras. They also invented closed circuit TV. They built the stadium in order to fit in their big screens. They also invented the modern form of the Olympics, including lighting the flame in Greece and running it all the way, as well as releasing the doves and having the opening ceremony. So really the opening ceremony is based on the Nazi’s version of how they saw the Olympics.
There was a lot of story to tell, and it was written quite quickly, so I wanted to work with people I knew quite well. Jesse and Larry’s relationship was really the focus of the story, but there are also a lot of other stories that are going on in the movie.
SY: ‘Race’ goes beyond the boundaries of a typical sports film, onto a broader social and political canvas. Why do you feel it was important to also give the audience background and history on society during the Berlin Games, so that they could appreciate the enormity of Jesse’s accomplishments?
SH: I think you have to know what he went through to get there. Without including all of the other stories, it’s just a story about a guy who won a lot of races. It’s only when you realize what he had to go through in order to get there that you can fully appreciate his wins.
Some of his own colleagues didn’t want him to go, as they felt it was wrong. Yet his athletic friends told him that he had to go. So it was confusing at that time why he was running, and what he was running for. Was he running for America, where he was a second class citizen? Was he running for his family or his own honor? Jesse really ran to feel free, so it was a complicated sense of reasoning.
Behind the scenes, there were also all of these politics going on, including the corruption in the Olympic committee. The committee and Avery Brundage obviously knew what the Nazis were doing, but they just chose to help cover it up, in order to make sure the Olympics moved forward. So I think there were high stakes. Unless you understand how high the stakes are, it’s hard to really understand the choices he had to make.
SY: Since the drama was made with the cooperation of the Jesse Owens Foundation and the Owens family, what was your experience like fo collaborating with his relatives, notably his daughters, Marlene Owens Rankin, Beverly Owens Prather and Gloria Owens Hemphill?
SH: They were very involved. All three of them are very funny ladies. Obviously, they have been asked about Jesse for most of their lives. His youngest daughter, Beverly, and her husband run the Jesse Owens Foundation, which is set up at Ohio State University.
Jesse’s such an important American hero. He was really the world’s first superstar athlete, and that came about accidentally. The Nazis broadcast the Games all over the world, so he garnered worldwide fame. No one had ever really seen an athlete on film before, but they filmed everything during the races. It was the first time a champion was seen all over the world, and he happened to be black. He was clearly an icon, but he wasn’t treated well when he got back to America.
So there’s a lot of documentation about him. But Jesse’s daughters enabled us to cut through all of the wrong information that was written about him, and get to the heart of who he really was.
SY: ‘Race’ features a diverse cast, including Stephan James, who plays Jesse; and Jason Sudeikis, who portrays Jesse’s coach at Ohio State University, Larry Snyder. What was the casting process like for the film, particularly those two characters?
SH: Well, we made the film in Montreal and Berlin, so we set out a wide net. At one point, John Boyega was attached, but then had to leave to finish ‘Star Wars (The Force Awakens).’ So he was never set in stone. So then I started looking at other actors.
Stephan, who’s from Toronto, was one of the first people I saw. But when you meet with someone early on (in the casting process), you assume they’re not the person (who will ultimately be in the film). But he had this outward grace and maturity, even though he was only 20-21 at the time we shot the film. He reminded me of who Jesse was in real life. They had a lot going on in the inside, but on the outside, there’s a sweetness.
Stephan was very committed to the role in every way. It’s hard to find someone that age who’s famous and can help finance the film. So we knew we had to go to someone who wasn’t well-known at the point when we started filming.
When Stephan was cast as Jesse, he was also about to film ‘Selma.’ So I had to remind him that our story wasn’t set during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Our film is set in a long time before that period, when civil rights were even thought of as a possibility. There was never going to be an end to racism during the time of our film.
So Stephan did his research into the era that our film took place. When he was down in Atlanta filming ‘Selma,’ he also trained with the coaches at one of the universities there, and really got into shape. He’s really into sports, and I think that really helped him take on the role. He also really understands sports and the psychology behind them, which was really helpful for this film.
Jason is also really into sports, and they’re both interested in what’s behind sport. So the two had a great relationship. I really wanted Jason for the role of Larry, because the coach was only 15 years older than Jesse. So they didn’t have a father-son relationship, and a lot of other actors felt older in the role of Larry. Jason’s also unique because he has a very dark and edgy person in his style of comedy.
Larry was a very tough guy, and was driven by his own demons. He didn’t see color, because all he cared about was winning. He hurt himself before going to the 1924 Olympics, and never really recovered from that. He felt like he made a mistake and let himself down. So when Jesse came along and they got together, their relationship became a really firm partnership in sports, and they also became great friends for the rest of their lives.
SY: Like you mentioned, ‘Race’ was partially shot at the Berlin Olympic Stadium, which is where Jesse won four gold medals during the 1936 Games, while the U.S. scenes were shot in and around Montreal. What was the experience of filming the sports drama on location, particularly where Jesse won his Olympic medals?
SH: It was actually difficult, because the elements that existed in Berlin in the 1930s were either destroyed in the Second World War, or right after it by the Russians. So there’s only small sections of the city that were useful to us. Of course, one of the main sections we filmed at was the Olympic Stadium, which was one of the main reasons why we went there. The world looked very different then, so we had the special effects team make the locations look authentic.
One of the reasons why we also shot in Montreal was that the university we filmed at there was built the same year as Ohio State, so the two schools look very similar. So we shot a big portion of the film there.
Period films are like a science-fiction film, in a way, because you’re doing something different from your own experiences in life. It’s one thing to recreate a different period, but I think it’s more important to recreate how the time felt.
It makes you remember the weight of what you’re doing. I felt like I shouldered a lot of responsibility for his family and their story. So I wanted to try to make it as authentic as possible.
SY: You have collaborated with ‘Race’s Director of Photography, Peter Levy, for over three decades. What was the process of shooting the past in the sports drama with a contemporary fluidity, and showing the differences between the scenes set in the U.S. and Germany?
SH: Well, Peter and I have made 12 films, and many TV series, commercials and rock videos together. So we really know each other, and also have a shorthand, which is really useful.
I wanted to make a film in which people will realize the story is real when they watch it. There’s almost a fairy-tale element to this film, and it almost feels impossible. But everything in the film is authentic. But for a kid to come out of nowhere, and go to the Olympics in Nazi Germany, and do everything he did, almost seems fake in a way.
There’s something about the period of the ’30s that looks quite cute. The clothes were fanciful, and the cars were pretty. We both wanted the film to look pretty and real, while also feeling like a big, epic movie in a lot of ways.
SY: Besides directing the biographical drama, you also served as one of the producers. Why did you also decide to help produce the film? How did your duties as the director and producer influence each other?
SH: I actually produce everything I make now, because as a director, you need to know every aspect of the film, so that you can put all of your money and effort into it. You need to know where all the money is going, in order to do your job properly. So it’s been a long time since I didn’t produce something that I have directed.
Information is important, so I was very hands-on with this film, from the beginning to the end. We didn’t have a huge budget, but also producing the film allowed me to make the film on as big of a scope as I could, and make everything as realistic as I could.
Written by: Karen Benardello