George Clooney feared The Boys in the Boat was 'dead' when he first saw the cast row

Yahoo UK

George Clooney speaks to Yahoo UK alongside The Boys in the Boat cast Callum Turner and Joel Edgerton about the biopic&#39;s intense rowing scenes.

Transcript

00:00 I wanted to say I was particularly struck by the rowing scenes because I loved how intense they were.

00:05 Like I was on the edge of my seat for every single race.

00:08 And I wanted to ask you George, how did you want to approach as a director in New Calum?

00:12 How did you find filming them and preparing?

00:14 We just wanted to make it exciting. You know, rowing's a hard sport.

00:18 It's one of the hardest sports to do physically in the world.

00:21 You have to be one of the greatest athletes in the world.

00:23 On the other hand, it doesn't look fast from far away.

00:28 You guys were moving by the end.

00:30 Yeah, we were moving fast. I think we got up to 46 strokes per minute,

00:34 which is what the boys did in the last race to win the gold.

00:37 We trained for two months. We did four hours a day and it was an arduous process.

00:42 We rowed in the snow, we rowed in the rain and the sunshine.

00:45 You know, eight actors who don't know how to do something,

00:49 all learning at the same time at different paces and different ways.

00:53 It was an incredible experience.

00:56 I read the book a couple of times in preparation,

00:59 and I thought I understood what they were talking about.

01:02 Now in hindsight, reading the book again,

01:04 it's so profound what we did and what we were able to achieve,

01:08 especially as we started out with nothing.

01:11 The way they started out was shocking.

01:13 It was not good.

01:14 It was literally like, "Dudes, you know you're all rowing together, right?

01:18 You understand that."

01:19 Grant and George came down to check in after four weeks or something,

01:24 and we were awful.

01:26 It's funny, they had actually rowed better before.

01:29 They were trying to show off.

01:31 And we got there and they said, "Yeah, they're doing a pretty good job."

01:33 And I watched them and Terry said, "That's the worst thing I've ever done."

01:36 And I was watching going, I'm like, "It's the worst I've ever done."

01:39 I could see the pain through the smile.

01:41 Grant, literally, we got in the car driving home and we're both like this.

01:45 Okay, we could maybe replace their heads.

01:48 Maybe we could, I don't know, what can we do? What are we going to do?

01:51 I was like, "We're dead." And then they got together.

01:54 I was terrified before the shoot.

01:55 Not because I'm not scared of water or boats,

01:58 but just knowing that boats move and trying to put a camera from one boat

02:03 to shoot another boat, you just figure this is going to be a disaster.

02:07 And it wasn't at all.

02:08 It was still incredibly efficient.

02:11 Rowing is one of those sports that's probably far more exciting to do

02:15 than to watch, and yet in a movie you have the chance editorially

02:19 to really put the scissors in and build a momentum

02:23 and build a point of view and a narrative structure

02:28 around even just the sequences.

02:31 [ Silence ]

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