The Fighter is now playing in UK cinemas, and boy what a movie it is (read my review here). Over the past few days, we have been posting interviews with the cast (read the interviews with Amy Adams here, and Christian Bale and Melissa Leo here), and today we have interview with the film’s lead Mark Wahlberg, and the director David O’Russell.
Both talk about the making of the movie, and the experiences on set.
The Fighter is out now.
Mark Wahlberg (Micky)
Mark Wahlberg (Micky)Q: Why did you want to make a movie based on this particular family?
MW: I just thought it would make for an amazing movie, full of emotion, humour and inspiration. I was selfishly wanting to play this part for a very long time and was friends with Micky for years and promised him I was going to get it done, so I couldn’t find any reasons not to do it.
What was it that attracted you to this role?
Putting on that belt, you know, childhood fantasy, being in the ring, the crowd screaming and also Micky’s journey is very much like mine. The only difference is I was in the entertainment business and he was an athlete, but other than that, we grew up thirty minutes from each other, both from a family of nine, and both had to overcome a lot of obstacle to achieve our goals and pursue our dreams.
How did you train for The Fighter?
We just decided we want to look like a real boxer, a guy who could win the welter weight title. Obviously having to duplicate Micky’s style, it ended up, because of all the false starts in the movie, it ended up taking four and a half years to train and become the guy, but it was well worth it.
What do you think made Micky a great fighter?
His heart, his unwillingness to quit or give up, he always wanted it more than anybody. It was always a test of will and sheer determination and that’s why every single one of his fights was an amazing event filled with emotion, and drama, very much like a good boxing movie.
How was it working with the real Micky and Dicky?
Well, they mostly worked with us on the training aspect. They came and moved into my house for a while, and you know, I have a boxing ring in my back yard that I built. We were training there and we would do all of the casting at my house and we basically set up shop right there in my house.
What makes this more than a boxing movie?
Boxing is really just the back drop, this is a family drama. It’s about family, relationships, overcoming adversity and those types of things.
What do you want people to take away from The Fighter?
People are coming out of the theatre, bobbing and weaving and throwing punches and saying “head body, head body”, you know, that’s what Rocky was to me. When I came out as a kid, I think I ran all the way from the theatre, imagining that kids were chasing me and the crowd’s getting bigger and bigger until I got to the museum.
David O’Russell (Director)
David O’Russell (Director)Q: What is the movie about?
DOR: Bleach blonde mother with seven bleach blonde sisters who all form a gang, and they train two brothers, one who used to be a star locally, who’s become a criminal, the other who’s the younger brother who’s trained by the older brother and the mother who wants to rise up. The red headed bar tender who’s sexy comes in and everybody reacts to that big time, that’s Amy Adams, she comes in and says to the younger brother, you need a better way and he says “how can you say that about my family!”, and there’s the movie. To have all those people in ways that you see the mistakes they’re making, but you still love them, and can laugh at them but still have them break your heart, that’s to me the movie.
What made you want to make a movie based on this family?
The brothers, with this crazy dynamic of older brother, younger brother, and they are both fighters and they have this really crazy relationship, and the older brother almost seems to be the favourite of the mother, all that made me want to do it.
What do you make of the way the actors went about portraying their characters?
Every actor works differently you know, so it was really an honour and sort of very humbling to be able to work with this variety of actors. Mark is sort of more from the Spencer Tracy school, “acting’s good, don’t let them catch you doing it”, so he is going to do the subtle performance, that is the guy who’s the centre of the storm, who’s reacting to the storm and emotionally anchoring the movie. Spinning around him is the asteroid of Christian Bale, at the other end of the spectrum completely! He inhaled the character of Dicky, he lost 30 pounds, he shaved his head so he had a bald spot, put these horrible teeth in, and become this chaos maker who’s charming and talented and bedevilling. Then Amy Adams breaks type, she shows up to break type saying “you know I don’t want to be enchanted in this one, I want to be the girl who can throw a punch”, and that girl Charlene did throw a punch with the sisters and she did know how to stick up for herself and she helps Micky stick up for himself in his life, he needed a little help against all the odds in the family. Melissa Leo is the mother who always fought for the fact that listen I see how this movie is portraying me, as a little bit like the mother’s making all the bad mistakes but I also want to be the mother who loved all her children, nine children, which Mark comes from the same family, nine children, so Melissa fought for that, so that makes you love the characters, to me that’s what matters.
What did you think Mark brings to the role of Micky?
Mark trained for as many years to want to fight like Micky, and to look real is a huge accomplishment, but in addition to that, to be like what he is like in his own family, Mark Wahlberg is in his own family of nine children from a working class background, the one kind that had to deal with an older brother, Donny Wahlberg, who was the favourite of the mother and who was the first successful one, I mean the parallels are kind of amazing. So this is an even more intense version of that, where he came equipped knowing what it’s like to have this brother who’s your hero, who’s your ticket to the world who has to train you, in this case to fight, but who also is kind of being destructive and then tearing you down, so that’s what Mark brings to it.
How were the real Micky and Dicky involved in the movie?
Well if anyone is having a real story told about them, that’s going to be a little prickly isn’t it? You’re going to be a little concerned of how that’s being told and I wanted to always say we were always coming from a place of loving these characters. Which happened to be the truth, sometimes you have to tell people that and it’s not the truth. In this case it is the truth. I didn’t know how I would feel about the Wards and the Ecklands when I met them and I really love them so that enables me to tell an even better story. But the sisters will come up and say hey that girl’s not as pretty as me, why is she playing me. Dicky more than anybody had a lot of controversial stuff that he did that is in the movie. I said “it can’t be any worse than the documentary HBO did about you that made you the scandal of Lowell, so we’re only going to go up from there that I’m portraying you in a sympathetic light that shows you getting past that! So let’s not fixate on that!” Micky of course loved the picture, I think Micky knew that he won a championship and he knew he was the one who came through it, and that Mark being sort of the godfather of the picture, I think Micky Ward knew he was in good hands.
What do you want people to take away from this movie?
My primary wish as a film maker is to grab you by the throat and the heart from the beginning and for you to feel like “wow, who are these people” and to be surprised and taken through a ride that you didn’t expect, and to walk out of there having felt a lot of emotion and a lot of love for these people.
