Telling a remarkable true story, new uplifting sports drama The Boys in the Boat transports us to the '30s, when America is still reeling from the effects of The Great Depression. In a desperate attempt to earn some cash, young University of Washington student Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) joins a rowing crew after hearing that making the team means regular income.
Adapting Daniel James Brown's non-fiction book of the same name, the film follows the team of working-class athletes as they go from competing in local university tournaments to winning gold at the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin. That event, of course, was hosted by Adolf Hitler, who had become Führer of Germany only two years prior.
As director George Clooney, here helming his ninth feature film, tells GamesRadar+ and the Inside Total Film podcast, these boys therefore went on a journey like no other, facing obstacle after obstacle. For the filmmaker, this is why The Boys in the Boat stands out amidst the crowded sports underdog genre: "We haven’t seen this before. There hasn’t been a real rowing movie, not one which has addressed it technically in the way we did. It's a pretty fascinating sport – it doesn’t seem like it might be if you don’t row, but it is. Dan, who wrote the book, invested in really interesting characters and honestly, any film you see isn’t interesting unless you give a damn about the characters. So, more than anything, it’s about caring for these young men who really rose against all the odds – legacies, rich schools, and then the Nazis."
The final chapter of the movie, then, is set in Nazi Germany, as the team represents the United States at Hitler's Olympic Games. Actor Daniel Philpott dons a mustache to portray the dictator, with the film's lead Turner being full of praise for his performance, saying he did a "great job". But, how do you even go about casting an actor to play the most evil man in history?
Clooney admits that it's a strange, tough challenge, and whilst he's cast Hitler before, for 2014's The Monuments Men, it's a task that will always be difficult, revealing: "Yeah, it's weird, and we had a really tough time. I've done it before and it's always been hard because you know – Hitler's Hitler. But it's like any time you have to cast a famous person, it's a really tricky thing to do. You see it in films all the time and you think, 'Good luck,' but here, he's a good Hitler. Actually, this guy really committed to it, I remember he just kept stating that he was trying to be in character the whole time."
As Clooney chuckles at Philpott's dedication to the part, Turner jokes: "I remember, I tried to say hello to him one day and he ignored me!" Well, that's certainly one way to make an impression on set.
The Boys in the Boat is out in US theaters now and will release in UK cinemas on Friday, January 12.
For more from our interview with George Clooney and star Callum Turner, look out for the new episode of the Inside Total Film podcast later this week.
