 SYNOPSIS
Will Ferrell (Elf, Old School) stars in a lively comedy about the cutthroat, hyper-competitive world ... of little league soccer. Kicking & Screaming stars Ferrell as Phil Weston, an average Joe who's had to put up all his life with his overly competitive father, Buck (Robert Duvall). When Phil decides to coach his 10-year-old son's soccer team, he goes head-to-head for the league championship against Buck, who coaches his own young son on the preeminent team of the league. Old scores come into play as Phil and Buck find themselves going to extreme measures to win the championship trophy. The comedy is directed by Jesse Dylan (American Wedding, How High) and is produced by Jimmy Miller (Elf) and Charles Roven (Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed); the writers are Leo Benvenuti & Steve Rudnick (The Santa Clause, Space Jam). Judd Apatow and Daniel Lupi serve as executive producers.
PRODUCTION NOTES The idea for Kicking & Screaming began with a conversation between producer/manager Jimmy Miller and his client and friend Will Ferrell, about Ferrell acting in a film with kids. "Will had done a sketch on Saturday Night Live where he ended up berating this little boy—and it was very funny," says Miller, "especially because of the visual of Will being so much physically bigger. We thought anything he'd do with kids had great comic potential." Miller continues, "Will and I wanted to find something where he'd be both loveable and kind and ultimately winning with the kids, but then somewhere in there, be able to lose his stuff and get sort of, well...crazy." Ferrell and Miller started thinking about the world of youth soccer, both immediately sparking to the popular sport as fairly untapped movie material. Recalls Ferrell, "We were marveling at the fact that on any given Saturday, in every park, there's a kids' soccer game going on. It amazed us that there hadn't been much cinematic attention paid to this national phenomenon." The actor, who's played soccer all his life, also liked the idea of how the parents of these kids get so fanatically involved. "It just seemed like fertile ground for a good comedy," says Ferrell. Miller heartily agreed. "I know this world because it's my life on the weekends. My son Sam plays AYSO [American Youth Soccer Organization] soccer and I've seen firsthand how seemingly civil and upstanding dads turn into animals—storming the field, getting in the ref's face, following their sons or daughters down the sidelines. To say the least, it can get pretty out of hand." Director Jesse Dylan has also witnessed this kind of behavior. He adds, "I've watched my brother's kids play T-ball and the parents there are at heightened states of emotion at every game. It's like they're the ones playing, not their children." Convinced this was the way to go, Miller brought in the screenwriting team of Steve Rudnick and Leo Benvenuti (The Santa Clause, Space Jam) to pen the soccer comedy. The writers worked out the basic story with Miller and Ferrell: nice guy (Ferrell) at odds with his overly competitive father (say, a Robert Duvall type) with both coaching opposing soccer teams, and then nice guy recruits his dad's arch rival, a winning Super Bowl coach (say, someone like Mike Ditka), to be his assistant coach. "Not that we had Robert Duvall or Mike Ditka," admits Miller, "but we used them as prototypes. And it was such a simple, high concept to understand, you're already laughing." Rudnick and Benvenuti borrowed from their own lives to flesh out the story, starting by setting it in their native Chicago. "We were also both coaches on our respective son's athletic teams," explains Rudnick. "And, although we never saw a coach become quite as maniacal as Phil Weston does in the script, we weren't too far off." The two young Italian soccer champs Ferrell's character Phil recruits to help his ailing team were concocted from Benvenuti's past. "When I was growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, there were two Greek boys who came to America to apprentice at their uncle's butcher shop and learn English. They excelled in hockey like you wouldn't believe and took their high school team from obscurity to almost state championship," relates Benvenuti. "We took that idea, made the kids Italian—because it's my heritage — and switched hockey to soccer, because that's the film we were writing." The writers then wove three separate themes into the story: the sport of kids' soccer, the lunacy of aggressive soccer dads and the complexity of father/son relationships. Now for the first hurdle—convincing Duvall and Ditka to sign on. "Though we always had them in mind," reveals Miller, "we never actually thought we'd get them." But, to the surprise and thrill of everyone, Duvall, one of the industry's most respected actors, signed on immediately after reading the script. "The story was very funny and I liked my character," says Duvall. "I'm also a big soccer fan, plus I really admire Will Ferrell's type of comic acting. It's not just rooted in shtick, it's rooted in reality," maintains the Academy Award® winner and six-time nominee. In addition, this is the first time the prolific actor had ever appeared in a broad comedy. "I'd done M*A*S*H a long time ago," he considers, "but this was a different kind of comedy. I just thought it would be fun." With Duvall onboard, next came the task of landing famed Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka. As it turned out, like Duvall, the Super Bowl champ was eager to join their team. Jokes Ditka, "The filmmakers were looking for someone to play me, and they figured they couldn't find anybody to play me, so they got me to play me. Seriously though, I really thought the script was fun, and while the time commitment of doing a feature film was a little overwhelming, I knew I couldn't pass it up." Ditka can also completely relate to Ferrell's Phil Weston. "He starts out as a guy who wants to teach the kids how to play and make them students of the game. And all of a sudden, after he's in it for a while, he just wants to win. He goes from being a very timid guy to this really boisterous coach. Kind of like somebody else I used to know," Ditka adds with a grin. Additional cast members were then hired, including Kate Walsh as Phil's supportive wife Barbara; Dylan McLaughlin as Phil's cute, athletically challenged son Sam; Josh Hutcherson as Buck's confident, overachieving son Bucky; and Musetta Vander as Buck's sexy younger wife Janice. Finally came the massive job of assembling the league's twelve soccer teams, as well as finding the two perfect Italian soccer players. The filmmakers enlisted the expertise of Dan Metcalfe, winner of Nike's 2004 Boys Coach of the Year, to spearhead the effort. In addition to screening the potential team members for playing ability, Metcalfe coached the "teams" before and during principal photography and choreographed all of the soccer plays that appear on-screen. Metcalfe, with assistant coach Ian Feuer and the film's soccer stunt coordinator, Kathy Jarvis, held a national search for the 10- to 12-year-old Americans, while a casting director traveled to Rome to scout and tape young Italian players for the filmmakers' consideration. Metcalfe had varied requirements for the different teams. "For the Tigers, Phil's losing team of misfits, we were looking for actors who weren't the best soccer players, but who were good enough that they could look bad," he explains. "These actors had to be able to play at a higher level than they were actually required to play in the script." The boys also had to have distinctive looks and personalities. To that end, the Tigers' starting lineup ultimately included: Erik Walker as Ambrose, the indifferent, distracted big kid; Elliot Cho as the diminutive Byong Sun, the adopted son of a lesbian couple; Steven Anthony Lawrence as Mark, the smart-aleck jokester; Jeremy Bergman as Hunter, a hyper kid with a sugar jones; Sammy Fine as Jack, who loves his soccer uniform (and never takes it off); and Dallas McKinney as Connor, the goalie with terrible eyesight. For the rival team, Buck Weston's first-place Gladiators, Metcalfe asserts, "We cast some of the most talented players I've coached over the last few years, keeping height and size in mind." As for casting the other teams, open auditions were held all over the country, where players had to prove their technical skill. "They had to dribble, juggle and receive, and pass a ball under certain pressures that we set up," details Metcalfe. "The boys had to concentrate and perform on command so when the movie was being shot, there'd be no waiting around for them." He concludes, "It was a tough process, but we're very proud of the kids we cast." As for the Italian boys, Alessandro Ruggiero and Francesco Liotti were ultimately selected out of a slew of talented young soccer enthusiasts to play brothers Massimo and Gian Piero. After all the players had been cast—and before filming began—Dylan McLaughlin, Josh Hutcherson and Team Tiger spent two rigorous weeks training at soccer camp, to perfect their skills...or lack thereof. "We couldn't have done the movie without this prep time," says coach Metcalfe. "The difference between how the boys started off and where they ended up was unbelievable. "For example," Metcalfe recounts, "Dylan, who had played soccer before, had a real passion for the game, and a certain flair that I had to kind of take away from him. He couldn't ‘stand out' on the field since his character, Sam, is not supposed to be a very good player. "Josh, on the other hand, was not an accomplished soccer player before we began, even though his character, Bucky, is his team's star," Metcalfe continues. "But Josh, who's inherently a strong athlete, was determined to become a good soccer player. With practice and hard work, he achieved his goal in a very short period of time." The other young actors playing the Tigers began to improve so quickly that Metcalfe actually had to back off and give the guys more down time. "We didn't want them to become so good that they'd suddenly have to fake being bad," he affirms. The coach was also impressed by the adult actors' soccer knowledge and ability. "Robert Duvall made me feel like an amateur," Metcalfe confesses. "He was talking about coaches and players you wouldn't know about unless you were deeply involved in the sport." "I've followed soccer in my own way since probably the 1960s, so I guess I've picked up a thing or two," says Duvall. The actor also wasn't a complete stranger to his Kicking & Screaming role, as he played the manager of a second-tier Scottish football team in the 2000 film A Shot at Glory, which he produced as well. "Mr. Duvall also had a constant thirst to learn as much as he could about coaching, so he'd be prepared during production," offers Metcalfe, who put together and coached an actual game so the actor could observe the job firsthand. "I think it helped inspire his performance," says the coach. "He sure paid close attention." Metcalfe was also wowed by Will Ferrell's prowess on the soccer field. "When Will got there and started kicking the ball around, I was a little shocked…I didn't expect him to be so good." But once Metcalfe learned that Ferrell played the game through high school and for the Coast Soccer League in his hometown of Irvine, California, it made perfect sense. "CSL is arguably the best league of its kind in the U.S.," confirms Metcalfe. With casting, script and soccer training in place, it was now up to director Jesse Dylan to bring it all into play. Once filming got underway, Dylan's first request was that writers Rudnick and Benvenuti be on-set every day, a luxury that seemed to greatly benefit the actors and the production. Says Dylan, "I came from directing commercials where it's pretty normal to have writers around all the time. I think it really works for films, too, because dialogue often needs to be adjusted, jokes punched up, and so on. It was great having Steve and Leo on set. They were true collaborators," he enthuses. Ferrell wholeheartedly agrees: "Having Steve and Leo there during production was crucial. If Jesse would see that a scene wasn't working perfectly, he'd immediately call for the writers and say ‘We need something better.' The guys would then come up with great stuff on the fly." Dylan was also a fan of improvisation and would often pitch out lines and see where the actors would go with them. "I like to give actors choices if the scene isn't just right," says Dylan. "And, of course, Will is just so good at taking a line and making it even funnier." Robert Duvall was also a fan of this approach and adds, "I've always been into improvisation. I use it a lot when I direct movies. In this film, when Jesse would throw me a line, it gave me another option, something extra to use or not." The actor was also impressed with co-star Mike Ditka's improv acumen. "Mike was whacko," laughs Duvall. "I could say anything I wanted to him in a scene and he'd always come back with something great. He was fearless!" And, though a creative, looser style added a special dimension to the film's humor, the actors agree that rooting their performances in reality helped keep the comedy honest, relatable and, most of all, funny. Duvall, an actor known for his stellar dramatic portrayals, reveals he takes the same approach to comedy: "The meanings are lighter—everything is lighter—but you still have to play it real." That's also one of the many reasons Duvall admires co-star Ferrell. "Will is so in touch with himself. He acts like he would in real life, without commentary or forced behavior. It's made him a wonderful comedian." Ferrell returns the compliment. "Bob's a master. He approached his role from a place of reality, as opposed to, 'Gosh, wouldn't it be funny if I said or did this?' He provided a really fun contrast. For as over-the-top as my character gets, he just plays Buck very real, which makes it twice as funny." Concurs producer Miller, "Duvall's comedic instincts are freakishly good. To him, there's no difference between comedy and drama. Watching his comedic choices, you'd swear he was doing it his whole life." Mike Ditka proved another natural actor who borrowed from reality—his reality—to play himself. "It was easy," he admits. "I just highlighted some of my more notable characteristics—like chewing gum, wearing sunglasses and smoking cigars. It was my version of 'method acting'!" "Ditka doesn't even know what a good actor he is," notes director Dylan. "He gets warmed up and then he's off and running. He's a funny, quick and creative performer who gives as good as he gets." Ferrell also got a kick out of working with Ditka and enjoyed one scene in particular. "At one point, my character's ego gets so big that he starts ordering his assistant coach [Ditka] to run and get him a juice box. But I'm not just ordering, I'm yelling—about four inches from his face. Mike won't do what I want, so I fire him. Now, that was fun." Ditka enjoyed the scene, too, happily reasoning, "I've been fired before in real life, so it didn't bother me too much." Another favorite scene of Ferrell's was a tetherball face-off between Phil and Buck. "It was pretty surreal," the actor recalls. "I mean, I hadn't played tetherball since, like, sixth grade, and who am I playing against now but Robert Duvall. It was almost like a Western showdown, but instead of guns, our weapon of choice was a tetherball. It was another great example of how the father and son get way too serious about a kids' game." Though Ferrell describes Phil and Buck's relationship as "classic love/hate," he explains that the men are "just so totally opposite, they can't help but approach everything differently." Adds Duvall, "Buck definitely loves Phil, but he's one of those macho guys who likes his own way—and always gets his own way—so there's not a lot of room for what anyone else wants or needs. He's not a bad fellow, per se, just extremely 'limited.'" The film's many comic moments aside, Ferrell feels the real message of Kicking & Screaming hinges on this often difficult father/son connection. "Family relationships don't have to be perfect," observes Ferrell, "as long as you can find a way to make them work in some kind of positive way. It's about accepting each other for your differences and for who you really are." Coincidentally for Ferrell, while filming a movie about fathers and sons, his first child, Magnus, was born. "It's kind of special that, whenever I'm on a soccer field now, I'll have that amazing memory of my son's birth," beams the actor. "I can't wait for the day we'll be able to sit and watch this movie together." Filming began in February 2004 on the Universal Studios back lot, where production designer Clayton Hartley created the film's key location—the soccer field. "The movie is set in a suburb of Chicago which, coincidentally, is where I'm from," says Hartley. "I ended up assembling our little movie world based on my own small hometown and some of its surrounding communities." Hartley designed the soccer grounds to resemble a multi-use field that would be built by a park district. He explains, "It's very common in the Midwest to have a soccer field on one side, a baseball diamond on the other, with a field house, snack shack and bleachers there as well. We also put up lots of trees indigenous to Illinois, to hide the California hills and Universal's City Walk in the background." Hartley adds, "We also put up some façades of homes and a bit of a small town, to give the hint of a neighborhood beyond the field." All the film's soccer scenes were shot first for practical reasons. To maximize the available time with so many children (the movie's 12 soccer teams consisted of 14 boys each), the production week was scheduled for Tuesday through Friday. To further expedite matters, director Jesse Dylan put the soccer scenes in Coach Metcalfe's capable hands. "It was so important that the soccer be absolutely right, I completely entrusted Dan to oversee it all," tells Dylan. "He made just an enormous contribution to the movie." On shoot days, Metcalfe had three things in mind: "I had to make sure the players involved knew what they were doing—the moves, the pattern of play and so forth. I then filled in the background players to make sure their action was within a game setting. Finally, I combined the main action with the background to ensure it all worked cohesively." In filming those scenes, Dylan and director of photography Lloyd Ahern had to be extremely efficient in their coverage. Explains Ahern, "Between the shorter daylight in February and the limited amount of time the kids were allowed to work per day, we really had to be prepared. There wasn't a whole lot of room for error." As a result, they used at least three cameras at all times. This helped them blanket the action, covering the soccer play and the related dialogue. Besides their A, B and C cameras, Ahern also employed a Steadicam for close-ups of the action, a "doggy cam" to follow action below the waist and a "lipstick cam" to capture the soccer ball's point-of-view. With the soccer scenes now guaranteed to look good, the players needed to look sharp as well. That's where costume designer Pamela Withers-Chilton came in, conceiving colorful, specific uniforms for the film's 12 soccer teams. Though most soccer uniforms are limited to primary colors, she discovered a process wherein she could digitize any color she wanted. "This really gave me a wide palette to choose from to help distinguish each team," she says. Withers-Chilton designed the two "starring" teams, Phil's Tigers and Buck's Gladiators, to match their personalities. "I picked light blue for our hero team, the Tigers, because it was a good, sweet color for them. I used black and gray for the 'enemy' Gladiators to give them a scary, more intimidating look," she explains. The designer also created a progression for Phil's uniforms as the Tigers' coach. "I started him off in weekend street clothes, like khakis and a plaid shirt. Then, as he gets deeper into coaching, he wears a succession of tracksuits. By the time Phil makes it to the championship—and he's kind of lost his mind—we put him in a light blue track suit with bold, dark blue tiger stripes and a roaring tiger on the back. It looked really hilarious and, of course, Will really went with it." After filming two months on the field at Universal Studios, Kicking & Screaming moved some 20 minutes away to Pasadena, which doubled for a Chicago suburb. Clayton Hartley chose houses there for Phil, Buck and Mike, each befitting their personalities. "A stately colonial house matched Buck's strong will and bravado," describes Hartley, "while a big, sprawling estate epitomized the larger-than-life Mike Ditka. A smaller New England-style home typified Phil's more humble character." Hartley also chose the interior of Burbank's landmark Smokehouse Restaurant for the site where Buck throws the soccer season kick-off party. Hartley asserts, "It was a great location for this scene because it really looked like an authentic Midwest suburban steak house. I could totally see someone like Buck choosing it." |
