Turns out, they were not doing well.
“They looked terrible,” the producer tells EW.
“They looked like amateur rowers.
Bruce Herbelin-Earle as Shorty Hunt, Callum Turner as Joe Rantz, and Jack Mulhern as Don Hume in ‘The Boys in the Boat’.Credit:Laurie Sparham/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures
We were like, ‘Oh s—!
We’re in trouble.'”
Callum Turnerfrom theFantastic Beastsfranchise plays rower Joe Rantz and remembers that day as, “a nightmare.
The titular boys in the boat.Laurie Sparham/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures
“We wanted to impress and we couldn’t,” he recalls.
“We tried but it just didn’t work.
I remember his face.
Director George Clooney and producer Grant Heslov on the set of ‘The Boys in the Boat’.Laurie Sparham/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures
You could see, behind the smile, the worry.”
Asked if Turner is talking about Clooney or Heslov, he replies, “Both of them!”
“By the time we actually started shooting, they looked amazing.”
“He was abandoned when he was pretty young to fend for himself, and he did.
He decided that he wanted to go to college,” Heslov says.
“Rowing was a way to go to school and get a step up.”
“We saw him on tape and we were like, ‘That’s the guy!'”
The film’s cast also includesJoel Edgertonas the crew’s taciturn coach Al Ulbrickson.
Heslov calls Ulbrickson a very stoic” and “very driven guy.”
By the end, Turner recalls, “It did feel like being part of a professional sports team.
We were able to achieve things in the boat that were pretty spectacular.”
Heslov and Clooney, meanwhile, were learning how best to shoot the film’s rowing races.
“They say don’t shoot with animals, don’t shoot on water,” Heslov says.
“It’s really hard because nothing will stay still.
Even if you anchor something, it’s still moving.
The boys are moving in their boats,you’removing in your boats.
For Heslov, these exertions were made worthwhile when he started showing the film to real-life rowers.
“They’re all like, ‘Well, finally!
Somebody has captured rowing the way that it really feels,” the producer recalls.
“So, that’s a nice compliment.”
And, we’re guessing, it doesn’t have too many scenes set on the water.
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