Smat said casting started with the Nelsens, and part of that was about a connection he had with Sainty’s brother Charlie Reid (now the assistant tight ends coach at TCU).
“Eric was one of the first members to come on to the project, and he’s also an executive producer on the film. He and his wife Sainty, who’s also in the film, they’re both very well known for their work on The Bay, which is a soap series on Amazon, they’ve won Emmys on that show. I know Sainty because I played football with her brother Charlie, who is a coach at TCU; he played with TCU for a little while and now he’s coaching for them. They were the first on the project and they had this very wide swathe of friends who are actors and connected with actors, so we started to package the project starting with Eric and Sainty and a couple of others.”
After that, Smat was able to convince O’Heir to come on board in a role written specifically for him.
“And then as we had five, six, seven actors attached, we started to take it to ‘Okay, who’s going to be Coach Vic? Who’s going to be these other characters?’ When it comes to Jim O’Heir, I had actually written the role with him in mind, and one of the actors who had come onto the film had worked with him previously and put me in touch with him. Usually you do these things through a casting director, but I always feel it’s nice to just put a personal touch on it, so I just emailed him directly and said ‘Hey Jim, I’m a big fan of your work, not just Parks and Recreation but all the things that are in your very wide Rolodex. This is a script, I wrote this role with you in mind, give it a look and let me know what you think.’ And he came back really liking it and we were able to make it work with his schedule, which was awesome.”
Leland joined later, and proved to be the perfect fit for the central role of Coach Vic.
“As we got closer to shooting, we got in touch with Brad, we did go through a casting director to get to Brad, but he was really nice and really connected with me right off the bat. We had dinner and talked about movies and this character. And he pulls off a gargantuan task in this movie; he was on set for 12 of the 13 days, always on, always acting. And he only had a few weeks to memorize all the lines, and he did a fantastic job. When we get to the end of the movie, it feels like we’ve been watching this one-man play, were it not for all the awesome performances around him. It’s amazing how much the movie puts on his shoulders and how he performed in that role.”
And Miles came on board thanks to a call from his agent, one that took Smat by surprise.
“And then the man of the hour, Les. Les had done a couple of smaller roles, and his agent at the time called me. And I was actually driving to a production meeting at that point and we were in a situation where it was like ‘Okay, we’ve got these five or so actors attached, we’re starting to think about who our star’s going to be,’ and I’m on the 10 freeway, right past Fairfax, and I get a cold call. And I think, ‘Oh no, it’s going to be a robocall’ or whatever, but I pick it up and the person on the line says ‘Hi, I’m a representative for Les Miles, he’s acting now and he loves your movie.’”
“I didn’t even say anything for a second, I was like ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ Because I was born in Louisiana, my mom’s family is there, they’re LSU fans. So it became apparent to me, ‘Oh my God, this is huge.’ And it was cool, because he was like ‘We saw the casting breakdown you posted, we’d like to talk more,’ and so about a month later, we had Les fly to Dallas and meet with us and have a little audition session, sort of get to know him. And a few weeks later, he was on set in his first released movie role.”
Smat said working with Miles was a great experience, as he not only wound up acting, but also consulting on the football scenes and the coach’s speeches.
“It was cool because out of those 13 days we filmed, Les was there for the first two or three as an actor, and then he flew back for some business he had to take care of, and then he came back to set for the last two or three days sort of as an advisor. And that was so incredibly helpful; he brought so much to the movie that we were lacking and that we didn’t know that we were lacking. I was sitting there and I was like ‘We can handle this, a lot of us played football, we know this world, it’s not like it’s a movie about exorcisms and we need an exorcist on set, I think we know how this works.’ But what I didn’t account for was just those very unique pressures that go into coaching, and all the things that go on in coaches’ minds that set them apart from the rest of the team, the staff, that make them the head coach.”
“And so, when I first sat down with Brad to talk about his role, he brought that up too and said ‘Hey, I want to get inside this character’s head, is there someone I can take this to?’ And I said ‘Oh, well, we’re going to have Les Miles on set,’ and he said ‘Oh! That will do just fine.’ And it did.”
…“Les also worked very closely with our stunt coordinator, Craig Coole, to design the plays and make sure that in the actual football scenes whatever plays Brad is calling matched the plays on the field, trying to make sure that all the players were in line. And all our players were high school players themselves, going on to DI programs, so it was cool for them to get to work with this BCS championship-winning coach.”
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“One of the most notable things was on our 10th day, Brad has this scene where he gives this big speech to all the players before they go to play their championship game, and it comes at a pretty important part of the film. And what had happened while we were sort of setting the lights up and getting everything ready, Brad and Les took the script to a table. And basically I’m blind to all this, I’m down in the trenches, I’m setting up all the lights and everything, and Brad walks in, and he says ‘I’m going to add some stuff in, if that’s okay,’ and I said “Absolutely, do whatever feels natural to you,’ and the speech that follows was so beyond anything I had written. It was absolute poetry. It was Brad, it was Les, it was having that experience there and saying ‘Hey, here’s how you connect with these kids.’ It went so far beyond anything that I had the skill to write, and it was cool to see.”
Smat said some of the most interesting moments in shooting this came from watching Miles, O’Heir and Leland working together.
“On the days on set where we had Les, Jim and Brad all in the same scene multiple times, the three of them just worked together beautifully and it was really cool to see. You’ve got Jim, this guy who comes from comedy and studio movies, you’ve got Brad who comes from giant TV shows and lots of stage performances, but more on the dramatic side, and then you’ve got Les, who’s lived it, has seen it, and is brand new to acting but knows [football] better than anyone in the room, and the three of them just worked together in a really cool way, and it was cool to see three legends come together as one.”
The Last Whistle will premiere as the opening night selection of the Lone Star Film Festival in Fort Worth on Nov. 7. Producers are then hoping to do a limited theatrical release, followed by a nationwide release on Video On Demand platform afterwards. Acquisition rights are still available.