Eddie Cahill joined the real Jim Craig to discuss "Miracle," directed by Gavin O'Connor and starring Kurt Russell as Coach Herb Brooks:
How cathartic is it to relive these events?
Jim Craig: I think that what I love about the movie is that it’s not about us; it’s about everybody talking about what they were doing and how it affected them. I mean, the first thing anybody ever tells me is, “When that thing happened, I was here. This is what I was doing. This is what we were doing. This is what it did for me.” And so, when I’m watching that I’m thinking, “Boy, 24 years later it’s doing different things for me, too.” When I’m sitting there watching I’m thinking, “This is a great legacy. This is a wonderful thing.” When I’m an old man and passed, my son is going to be able to throw this DVD in and his son hopefully – or daughter – will be able to see what his dad was like. I think it’s timeless, this type of thing.
Are you surprised it’s still so prominent in people’s memories?
Jim Craig: You know, sometimes I don’t think you realize how lucky you are. What I loved about the movie is the start of the movie, where it just takes you back and it lets you not only look at the clothes you wore but it tells all these really most important things that’s happened. And how many times American soldiers have protected our freedom. The legs this has, and continues to have, is because it’s something that makes you feel really good. Eddie, you and I were saying this yesterday: it takes you to this special spot of yours. This little dream that you are afraid to tell anybody that you’re going to fail at. Maybe you are a singer and you don’t want anybody to know. You’re practicing and all of a sudden you become one. It lets everybody do that all the time.
What did this movie do right that most hockey movies get wrong?
Jim Craig: You know why this is so great and why it took so long to do? This is not a hockey movie. This is a story about being American and having dreams and telling people you are afraid to fail. As far as the accuracy goes, this is dead-on. Gavin [O’Connor] did an unbelievable job at explaining what it was like to be on this team.
What do hockey films usually get wrong about the sport?
Jim Craig: First of all, everybody doesn’t really know the game so you’re starting out with people watching it and they don’t really know what to look for. And then, to make it easy for people when it is a hockey film, you have to make it uninteresting for people who know the game. All of a sudden you’re watching it and you’re saying, “How did they do that? That’s not possible.” That’s because you’re a hockey fan and you know it. Then when you’re doing it the right way, people who don’t understand the game say, “What are they doing?” I just think here it wasn’t the hockey as much as it was the story.
Were you concerned Hollywood was going to take away the social and political environment and turn it into a sports movie?
Jim Craig: I think what’s interesting is that most of us don’t even care that they did a movie. What we care most about is that they didn’t ruin the story. When I met Eddie for the first time it was really interesting because we just said, “Go with it, Eddie. It’s there. You don’t have to change anything, you just have to tell the people the story.” I think the movie did a great job of that.
Eddie, you’re one of the more accomplished actors in the bunch. Did the guys come to you for advice?
Eddie Cahill: I think what happened was when we came together as a group, we pretty quickly discovered we had one goal to accomplish and that was to tell the story. I think every one of us was too young to remember it but being hockey fans growing up, we knew the story. We had idol worship of each and every one of them in the story itself. When we realized we had that in our hands and that was the main goal, all coming from different backgrounds, all lacking in something else, we pretty quickly discovered not only that we needed to but that we could rely on each other. It often wasn’t spoken about, it just kind of happened by way of the 6-week hockey camp we went through. I think the guys realized pretty fast that I’d never played goal so it became about encouraging in that respect. But when we realized we had such a huge task that being in that group of guys, it really just felt like being in an inspiration and encouragement soup. I mean, it’s really what it felt like. It was just an ongoing thing.
PAGE 2: On Goalie Challenges and Herb Brooks' Test
ADDITIONAL “MIRACLE” CAST INTERVIEWS:
Kurt Russell / Nathan West / Billy and Buzz Schneider
Additional “Miracle” Resources:
“Miracle” Photos, Trailer, and Credits
