Casting Standout: 'Warrior'

From King Vidor's Depression-era talkie "The Champ" to last year's David O. Russell film "The Fighter," the world of boxing has appealed to filmmakers as a natural setting for character-driven drama. And something about portraying fighters seems to bring out the best in actors. "The Champ" earned its lead, Wallace Beery, an Oscar in 1932. In 1955, Marlon Brando netted his first Oscar for his portrayal of down-and-out former boxer Terry Malloy in "On the Waterfront." In 1981, Robert De Niro won his second for his performance as "Raging Bull" 's Jake La Motta. And in 2005, Hilary Swank took home her second Oscar for her role in "Million Dollar Baby." Recently, as the popularity of boxing has declined and the popularity of mixed martial arts competitions such as Pride and the Ultimate Fighting Championship has soared, filmmakers have taken notice.

"Warrior" tells the story of Marine Tommy Conlon (Tom Hardy), who goes AWOL after a firefight that claims the life of his best friend, and returns to his hometown of Pittsburgh to lay low. When he rejoins his old boxing gym, now converted to an MMA training center, he learns of Sparta, an upcoming winner-take-all competition. Tommy enlists his estranged father, Paddy (Nick Nolte), to help him train in hopes of winning the $5 million purse, which he promises to the widow of his fallen comrade. Meanwhile, 300 miles to the east, Tommy's brother, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), a former amateur fighter and now a high school physics teacher and family man, begins fighting again after he learns he's in danger of losing his house to foreclosure. After the premier fighter at his gym suffers a knee injury, Brendan convinces his trainer to enter him in Sparta.

For casting director Randi Hiller, the challenge was finding two men for the leads who could provide the requisite physicality and masculinity while convincingly inhabiting the roles of brothers who were, in her words, "able to wear where the separate roads of their life took them."

For Tommy—a character who wears his rage and resentment on his shirtsleeve, a fighter who, as the saying goes, "fights angry," and overwhelms his opponent with brute strength—the key was an actor who could embody that menace while revealing glimpses of the decent, moral person he is at heart: the war hero, the man estranged from his own family but dedicated to helping that of his friend. "You believe that Tom could kick somebody's ass," says Hiller, but there's also "an element of being a very damaged little boy, as well as a hard-fighting guy. And if he was just a straight-up hard-ass without some kind of vulnerability, you wouldn't feel for him at all. And that's what Tom has: He has a vulnerability and a masculinity, as well as that sense of danger."

For Brendan, the dichotomy of outward aggression and inward virtue is reversed. He is a teacher, universally liked by his students, and a loyal family man who seems to have largely put his troubled past behind him. As a fighter, he's more of a tactician, waiting patiently to take advantage of his opponents' mistakes. You don't have to believe that he can fight so much as you have to believe he can win. "There's something incredibly heroic about Joel and the way he reads onscreen," says Hiller. "There's something about him that reads like he's just got a core of decency.

"What made these guys so right," she continues, "there's an element of [each character] that's just who these guys are as people, and the fact that they're both such phenomenal actors is an added bonus."

For Paddy, O'Connor had Nolte in mind from the start. Indeed, he was to have played the role eventually assumed by Jon Voight in O'Connor's 2008 film "Pride and Glory," a drama that also focuses on the relationship between a father and his two sons. In "Warrior," Nolte's performance as the former alcoholic father trying to make amends for the past is gritty and heartbreaking. "He's a national treasure," says O'Connor. "And I wanted to use him how he's best and hoped the role would remind everyone what he's capable of."

The only prominent female role—that of Brendan's supportive wife, Tess—was filled by Jennifer Morrison. In a prior draft of the script, the source of Brendan and Tess's pecuniary problems was medical bills related to Tess's chronic illness. In the final draft, one of the couple's daughters was sick—so Morrison's audition called for an interpretation that was very different from the one that wound up in the film. According to Hiller, Morrison was up to the task: "She auditioned as a very sick woman. She did a beautiful job; it was heartfelt and real and winning and all of those things. And then they changed the character, and she took that turn and did it beautifully."

A number of recent films have been set in the world of MMA, and more are in the pipeline, but Gavin O'Connor's "Warrior" is arguably the first great one. Taken together, the performances in it place it on par with anything in the fight-film canon.

Casting Director: Randi Hiller
Director: Gavin O'Connor
Writers: Gavin O'Connor, Anthony Tambakis, Cliff Dorfman
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Jennifer Morrison, Frank Grillo, Nick Nolte
The Pitch: Two estranged brothers, an AWOL Marine (Hardy) and a high school teacher and family man (Edgerton), meet for the first time in 14 years as competitors in a winner-take-all mixed martial arts tournament.

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