RH: Yeah, I remember Wood and I talked about this having the capacity to affect people. So my agent said to read it again. I said, “Who’s directing it?” She said, “Boaz Yakin.” I was like, “What?” Fresh was one of my favorite movies. “The guy who did Fresh is doing this?” I was like, “Sign me up.”
WH: I was excited to work with him. His track record of Fresh was all it took. And then Denzel. I mean, come on!
Wood, were you surprised you got the role as a 30-year-old playing a teenager?
WH: Nah, man. I’ve got that fresh shit going on. When I was 30, I pretty much was 18 anyway in my mentality. I basically felt like I could still go pro [laughs].
RH: About six months before I auditioned for the role—I’ve never told anybody this except Wood—I had this reoccurring dream that I was on a football field, running with a football, and then I ran up to the stands and I pointed at this black man, standing in the stands, and he pointed back to me.
WH: I do remember this story!
RH: [The dream] came back and it came back, and then it went away. I auditioned for the role. I actually wrote Boaz a letter, and I was like, “I’m supposed to play this role.” Four months went by. I’m at the premiere at the Rose Bowl, where they’ve flown in high school football teams from all over the United States. I walked into this stadium, turned around and looked up into the stands. I look at all of these people, and the only person I see is Wood. I stand there, and I just reflexively point. And he pointed at me, and something left my body. I was like, “Am I still in a dream right now?” It was one of the most otherworldly experiences of my entire life.
WH: That’s deep. I totally remember you pointing to me. I didn’t put the two of them together.
Because this was a football movie, did you know what you were getting into from an athletic perspective?
WH: I assumed we’d be genuine to the sport, which means we’re going to have to work out. I actually had to put on 20 pounds because I had just [played] Jimi Hendrix. I was skinny […] Ryan also lost so much weight. He lost like 100 pounds. He got in shape for the movie in such a way that was inspiring. We would go to the gym—this dude was curling 100 pounds on each arm, and I was like, “Get the fuck out of here.”
RH: We were in the gym together side-by-side. If I’m trying to take it off, Wood was putting it on. I remember being in the gym starving and looking over at Wood with an ice-cream sundae.
Did you guys hit it off with each other right away? Did it take a little while to know how your characters would mesh?
WH: We instantly hit it off, it was brotherly right away. Chemistry is something that you can’t explain all the time.
RH: The moment that I shook Wood’s hand, I was like, “Wood is electric.” He has electricity and it rebounds outward and outward. I met him, looked in his eyes, and was like, “Yo, who are you?” Wood is a poet, Wood is a musician. Wood does everything, and he does everything with passion.
WH: Ryan, send me your Cash App, I’ve got to get you some bread on this [laughs]. For real, I felt like that, too. I felt like this is a good guy, an undeniably good-stewarded person. I’m pretty quiet on the set. I don’t really eat lunch with people. I tend to be by myself. Until there’s one person when you’re like, “That’s my guy right there.” And that’s kind of what happened […] The most unique part of the movie was really done by Ryan. No one talks about it. When you see the montage of the players, and it’s in 16 millimeter [film] all of a sudden, we’re sort of building camaraderie—Ryan created that.