Sometimes, it takes the right person to show you that you can achieve greatness.
In Disney’s latest live action film, “McFarland USA,” Joe White coaches a high school cross-country team in the predominantly Latino farming city of McFarland, California. Based on a true story, the film stars Kevin Costner as White, who inspires the team to have the determination and guts to be champions.
Costner actually has a special connection to the story of McFarland. Years ago, he read about White and McFarland in Sports Illustrated and thought it was a great story. When he was approached to be in the movie, he realized it was the same story he had read about. Costner also realized he had played against McFarland in high school.
“I lived, for a short amount of time, in the Central Valley, which is where all our agriculture is in California,” Costner said. “Going to a little high school in Visalia, California, I played against McFarland in baseball, so it’s funny how [it was] this story I read a long time ago, and I suddenly was in the movie, and then I realized, ‘My God, I’ve actually played against this community.’ So, it’s a big full circle for me.”
It was because of the Sports Illustrated article that Costner initially rejected an early draft of the script because of the way White was portrayed.
“As I read about Jim White in Sports Illustrated, to me some things that were in that script did not jive what I thought would be possible,” Costner said. “There’s no way that the results could have happened from these young men, given some of the things that the character was doing.”
It was a gesture that White appreciated.
“I didn’t have a direct contact with Costner, per se ― meeting with him and trying to say, ‘No I didn’t do that,’” White said. “I didn’t do that. I didn’t have to. He picked up my feelings and my true love for the kids through articles basically, and I was very appreciative of that because he turned it around and got it written the right way.”
When the script portrayed White correctly, Costner didn’t have to try to make him interesting.
“Jim doesn’t purposely try to act very important or really interesting. I think he’s very level with these kids; he’s so level to the point that he’s also able to tell them when they’re off course,” Costner said. “Coaching is about the big picture, which is how they’re going to be as men, and while it couldn’t have been pleasant for Jim, there were probably moments where he had to risk losing his team by telling them they’re wrong. So, I could tell, without Jim ever spelling those things out to me, that that is how he coached. And I thought to try to make no more of that other than the passion that he had to have burning deep inside him every day when he went to coach these kids.”
Many sports films are inspirational because they tell the story of a team winning against the odds in a picture-perfect ending. Costner believes that what makes “McFarland USA” inspirational is not that it has a Hollywood ending but that the Hollywood ending happened in real life.
“I don’t think the movie would have been successful if it was fiction. [If it was], ‘Hey, they’re going to win nine state championships, and they had nothing going for them.’ That would have been like, ‘I’m not sure I want to see that movie because we just made that up,’” Costner said. “But the fact that it was real made the people who wanted to make this film say, ‘Well how could that happen? How could that possibly happen?’ And it’s a combination of young men and a man with a level of wisdom, a level of desire, to come together with one goal in mind, and through work, they achieved it.”
White wants audiences to feel what Costner felt for the town itself.
“He showed a love for the kids and a love for the town and the community, and I think you’re going to get that feeling when you see the movie, and that’s a wonderful feeling,” White said.
However, White also wants people to see the hardships the McFarland children go through working in the fields, something that Costner recognizes is the heart of the film.
“At its very core, this is not a movie about running. It’s not about cross country,” Costner said. “This movie is really about the American Dream and that the American Dream in McFarland is alive and well.”
“McFarland USA” is now in theaters.
Photo Credit: COURTESY OF WDSMEDIAFILE.COM
