Carl Weathers adds another sports movie to his lengthy, impressive resumé with a starring role in The Comebacks, a comedy spoofing some of the better known sports-oriented films. In The Comebacks, Weathers tackles the role of Coach Freddie Wiseman, the guy who convinces the most pathetic coach in the history of sports (played by David Koechner) to return to the field for one last shot at winning.
Have you been waiting 30 years to spoof sports movies?
“No. Quite frankly, I never even thought about it. It was just, I guess, the good fortune of a script to come along that you like. Certainly after doing so many movies that were somewhat serious about all that stuff, certainly Rocky, that whole arc of that character was very serious about it. It wasn't a spoof at all. Then to do Happy Gilmore, which was not really a spoof but a comedy set in the world of golf, to do a movie that sort of sends it all up and spoofs it, but a good script and to work with good people. When those come along, you're just very happy to see it. It's a joy.”
Do you feel protective of the underdog story since Rocky was the ultimate one?
“No, not really. If you get too sacred about some of the stuff, I don't know that as an actor or as an artist, you can really explore it fully. So like any artist, I think you have to look at things from different perspectives and different viewpoints and try to find just another perspective, another way of looking at something. If you're fortunate again where you can look at it from a particular perspective and find either humor in it or pathos in it or whatever that thing is, the drama in it, the tragedy in it, whatever it is, and it turns out the material simply works, you're an actor. That's what it's all about. Or in the case of a director or just a filmmaker.”
Have you turned down a lot of sports movies?
“No, no. There've been other movies that had to do with boxing and that sort of stuff people ran by me, of course. That just didn't interest me, not because I had some sort of feeling of allegiance to anything. It's just that some things aren't good or what they're about, you just don't want to endorse. Or the characters don't somehow resonate for you or whatever that thing is. I turned down stuff or just passed on stuff that didn't appeal to me for whatever reason. It doesn't have to be about sports. It can be about anything.
Certain things, quite frankly, at the end of the day, unless they're paying you drop dead money, what's the point? They're just not worth doing because at the end of the day, you're endorsing something by doing it. If you have a fan base that really has positive things to say about the work that you do, that's what I want to encourage. I want to encourage the fans who think what I've done has been appealing, has been certainly entertaining but for them, has had some sort of positive something to it whether it was a comedy or drama. If it's not something I want to endorse, then why do it?”
Were there particular movie characters your coach was based on?
“No, I don't think so. I don't know what the writer necessarily had in his mind, or writers in their minds, as this progressed. But I know when David and I got together and were just working on it, there was never any sort of template that you chose or that you thought this person was based on. I think you borrow from just about every one. It could have been a coach at somebody's school. It could have been something that you saw. It could have been somebody who wasn't a coach at all. It might have been a teacher who might have had a parental kind of relationship or a father figure or, for that matter, a mother figure. It's just somebody that could have been a priest if you went to Catholic school or a rabbi. It could have been almost anybody. So at the end of the day, with any character it is can you relate? That's all. If you in the audience can relate to that person, whether you're laughing at them or with them, if you can relate, then we've hit a home run. That to me is what the job is all about.”
Did you play Happy Gilmore as a straight coach also, not a goofball?
“No. In a way, it wasn't so much, because you have to ask yourself what is a coach? There are probably as many coaches as there are, in terms of personality and styles of coaching and approaches to the job, as there are players, athletes. So to go in, it's not so much I'm going to be a coach, because I don't know what that is until you define the person and how the person tends to go about communicating what they're trying to communicate. But when you do go in and you see a human being who has things that they want. They happen to do this job.
In the case of Chubbs Peterson, it was two things. It was redemption on one hand because he'd lost his hand and the alligator and all that sort of stuff. The other thing is you want to see someone achieve something that you yourself never achieved, kind of a father figure in a way. Every father, in a way, wants to see his child do much better than he ever did. I think that's what Chubbs was about. He found this kid who he thought was a prodigy and he was going to drive this kid into being what he never could, getting that jacket or whatever that thing is.
In The Comebacks, you've got a guy who simply wants to be a winner and he's stuck with a guy who's the absolute opposite, who everything this guy touches turns into mud. It's a catastrophe. At a certain point, Freddy Wiseman just decides the best way to become a winner is to take this guy out. ‘I'll coach myself.’ Well, everyone who wants to do something does not necessarily have the chops to do it. Freddy, in his own way, finds out at the very end that best laid plans don't necessarily always work out. But Freddy is resilient. He bounces back up at the end. He'll take the coach out no matter what.”
