"Glory Road" is the true story of the first all-black starting lineup in NCAA basketball history. The film stars Josh Lucas as Don Haskins, the real life coach of the Texas Western College Miners, who in 1966 led his team to the NCAA championships against the all-white powerhouse, the University of Kentucky Wildcats. "Glory Road" delves into the real life dramas that faced the Miners on their way to the top, unflinchingly expressing the blatant racism, hatred and violence that the team suffered as a consequence of their integration and success. In a roundtable discussion, the Daily spoke with Lucas about his experiences while filming "Glory Road."
Question: [Noticing that Lucas enters the interview with a heavy cast on his left arm] What happened to your arm?
Josh Lucas: I'm making this movie "Poseidon" that I finished last week. I took a bad, bad fall during a scene. [That] I got hit by a water canon is the truth of the matter, which is the only interesting thing about the story. Not that many people get hit by water canons. I wish I was protesting something...
Q: Now, in making this film, "Glory Road"... was there an immediate love for this sort of storyline?
JL: Massive. More so than any movie I've ever done and to this day have done. It was a sense of incredible responsibility and pressure, filled with a sense of absolute total joy and love for the story I was telling and the man I was playing. And the man I was playing was there with me, as were many people that he knew, that knew him to such a level. You know, I had people literally whispering over my shoulder, "[Real life Miners coach Don] Haskins would not do that, he would do this, this is what Haskins would actually say." And Haskins would sometimes be there telling me those things as well. So it was... it was a hell of a lot of responsibility and pressure, and at the same time, the joy of it was that I really, really loved who he was and what he did.
Q: Were you a basketball fan before you started the movie?
JL: Truthfully, I didn't know anything about basketball - nothing. I played basketball one season in middle school. I scored two points. I was horrific at it, and I have really bad hand-eye coordination...
Q: Now, this is a very political movie. Do you think that the story tells of the racial tension during that time?
JL: Yeah. The director and [producer] Jerry [Bruckheimer] and all of us wanted to make the racism feel as absolutely realistic as possible. Actually, the one letter that my wife reads [in the film] is an actual, verbatim letter that was written to Haskins; they threatened to kill him and his family, which was unthinkable to a man who was basically totally colorblind. That was one of the things that drove him mad; he couldn't understand where this was coming from... I think that, as a man who was totally dedicated to winning, something bigger took over, and he was willing to risk losing to make a point.
Q: Has he [Haskins] seen the film yet?
JL: He hasn't seen the film... We are all terrified... I think he's going to be, honestly, I think he's going to be thoroughly happy and thoroughly disappointed at the same time. Because it's not his story. There are elements of it that are exactly his story, and there are elements of it that aren't, and that's just the way these films are... you can't go into it expecting to see yourself on film. It's not gonna happen, and you will be much more satisfied when you just sit back and watch it.
Q: What was it like working with the younger actors; was there a sense of camaraderie that developed between you all?
JL: They had a massive sense of camaraderie. I had the same sense of responsibility that I think Haskins had with his own players, which was to keep a pretty strong separation. They all went out; they all had a great time together. I did not, for a very specific reason: I wanted to be able to be intimidating at times. I wanted to be able to be someone who was leading very specifically by a certain kind of example in terms of the way I approached making the film... Then I had to make sure that they looked at me in a certain way, which was difficult because I wanted to go play and go have a good time with them. Again, it came down to talking to Haskins, and Haskins was like, "Truthfully, I wasn't that much of an age difference from these guys [his players] at that point." A lot of the players were in their mid-twenties when he got them, and he was only 32 when the story happened. And so he himself had to establish that. He was then like, "Okay, you [Lucas] need to do something similar."
Q: You're not typecast [as an actor]; you play villains, you play heroes. Do you have a preference? How do you balance your career?
JL: To me, it's just about obviously finding a story that I love. It's a boring answer in that you just try to find a great story... I had a very tough inner-city black basketball coach walk out of this movie last night and basically [say] like, "You nailed it." And he was a man who I had watched walk in beforehand and basically be like, "This guy [referring to Lucas], come on, he's playing a basketball coach?" You watch the difference, and that's what the challenge or the joy of this job really is. So it doesn't matter if it's a villain; it doesn't matter if it's a hero. It matters that people will walk out and say, "Wow, that's a really cool story and a really interesting, fun story to watch get told."
