The game of their lives

Enlarge Image

Morgan Freeman, left, Matt Damon, right and Clint Eastwood join forces to tell powerful South African story. (WARNER BROS.)

Enlarge Image

(WARNER BROS.)

Enlarge Image

(WARNER BROS.)

LOS ANGELES — In movies, sports have always been treated a metaphor for the bigger game of life, with triumphs and setbacks representing the peaks and valleys of life’s journey.

In his capacity as a filmmaker, Clint Eastwood understands that, or so he demonstrated in the Oscar-winning boxing movie Million Dollar Baby.

But some of the more savvy world leaders understand that too. Nelson Mandela grasped the deeper implications of the game upon his ascendency to the presidency of South Africa after enduring 27 years of imprisonment by that country's brutal apartheid government. A former rugby player, Mandela noted that black South Africans were largely hostile to the nation's rugby team, the Springboks. He saw, with transcendent clarity, that having the entire country unite behind its team was a way of uniting the country, long split by a festering racial divide.

At a time when white South Africans feared reprisal for the gross injustices of the apartheid regime, Mandela spent some of his own political capital, not only to support the Springboks, but to help power their surprising showing at the 1995 World Cup.

That episode of Mandela's life proved to be an entry into telling his story for actor Morgan Freeman, 72, who was anointed to play the leader by Mandela himself, or as he is reverentially known in South Africa, "Mandiba."

"This started out with Mandiba naming me as his heir apparent, so to speak, when he was asked during the press conference at the publication of his book, Long Walk to Freedom, 'Mr. Mandela, if your book becomes a movie, who would you like to play you?'

"He said, 'Morgan Freeman.'

"So, from then on, it's like OK, so Morgan Freeman is going to be Mandela somewhere down the line," Freeman says at a press conference for Invictus.

Freeman and his production partner Lori McCreary had tried for years to adapt that book to film, but the story was simply to big to be contained in a feature-length movie. When they received a proposal for a book titled Playing the Enemy by John Carlin, detailing the story of Mandela's intervention with the rugby team, "it was perfect," Freeman says.

"We bought it. We got a script written. And this was the role to play to give the world an insight into who Mandela is and how he operates."

In need of a director, the project gravitated to Clint Eastwood, who not only won a directing Oscar for Million Dollar Baby, but also helped Freeman win one in the supporting actor category.

The only component missing in the triangle was an actor to play the Springbok team captain François Pienaar. That job fell to Matt Damon, who was unaware of this episode in South African history.

"The first thing I did when I read the script was I called Clint and said, 'I can't believe this happened. I can't believe this is true.' And he said, 'I couldn't either, but this is true.'

"So, I went immediately and looked up François online and I said, 'Clint, this guy is huge. We've never met but I'm five-foot-10.'

"I told him on the phone and he started laughing and he said, 'Oh hell, don't worry about that! You go worry about everything else.

"And I said, 'All right, I'll worry about everything else. You worry about the fact that I need to grow six inches to play the guy.'"

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Freeman on studying Mandela in person:

"When he said that he would prefer that I be the one to play him... I had to start then preparing myself to do it. I met him not long after that and I said to him, 'If I'm going to play you, I'm going to have to have access to you. I'm going to have to be close enough to hold your hand.'

"And, over the years, while we were trying to develop Long Walk to Freedom, that is what happened. Whenever we were in proximity, like a city away, for instance, I would know about it and I would go to him and have lunch, have dinner, or sit with him while he's waiting to go on stage for whatever, and during that time, I would sit and hold Mandiba's hand.

"Now that's not for camaraderie. I find that if I hold your hand, I get your energy, it transfers, and I have a sense of how you feel. That's important to me, trying to become another person."

Damon on meeting Pienaar for the first time:

"I just remember I rang the doorbell and he opened the door and I looked up at him, and the first thing I ever said to François Pienaar in my life was: 'I look much bigger on film.' And he laughed and laughed and he gave me a big hug and then took me into his house and that was it."

Damon on the relevance of the movie:

"The film is telling a story that I think is a wonderful thing to remind everybody of... in South Africa and all over the world. If we listen to the better angels of our nature, there are creative and good solutions to serious problems. It's just an incredibly uplifting movie, and from the moment I read it, I was excited about being a part of the ensemble that told this story."

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 10, 2009 E10