The Olympics are now in full swing, which means it’s time to dream of being an elite athlete. For actors, it might also mean dreaming of playing an elite athlete.
“Actors want to be athletes and athletes want to be actors,” says Aimee McDaniel, a sports coordinator who’s been in the business of setting big scenes in sports movies for 25 years. One of the industry’s best, McDaniel has trained actors to credibly pass as athletes in films like “Miracle,” “Trouble With the Curve,” “Invictus,” and “Coach Carter.” Likening what she does to “sports choreography,” McDaniel specializes in getting even the most unathletic actors to look and act the part.
“We take pride in really trying to develop the choreography to something that [actors] can do or at least get close to, and get as much footage with the actual actors as we can,” she says. “We know that’s what audiences really want to see, and it helps sell the character. We do have to be realistic. If we read a basketball script and it calls for an actor to come off a pick and then dunk, and the actor is 5 foot 6, we might have to scale things back. But we try not to take it entirely away. Maybe they can come off the pick and do a spin move, and then the double can come in for the dunk.”
Whether they are dunking or not, actors cast as athletes should expect to work like athletes. “Putting in the work is key,” McDaniel says. She begins with an evaluation to determine an actor’s athletic strengths and weaknesses. “We really put them through the paces. Whether it’s basketball, baseball, football, or track, we put them through agility drills to get a sense of what we’re working with, and then we film them. We try to find two or three things they’re good at. Maybe they shoot better from the baseline than the top of the key, for example. Then we take our findings to the director, and then try to get a sense of how long we get with the actor. Whether it’s two days or three weeks, the work is hard.”
Just as with athletes, success relies much on learning from teammates and acting coaches. “We like to get an actor with a double right away,” says McDaniel. Doubles typically have a background in a particular sport, often at a collegiate or professional level. “So instead of them looking at, say, some professional major league baseball player that they’ll never be, I want them to be with their double, to see how they do things, and to learn from them. The goal is really to bring the actor up and the double down for a reasonable match.”
For “Trouble With the Curve,” McDaniel worked with Amy Adams on a scene in which she had to catch balls from a hard-throwing pitcher. “The first thing she told me was, ‘I'm not athletic. I really don’t like things flying at my face,’ and I started laughing,” McDaniel says. “So we did baby steps, starting with a tennis ball 2 feet away. Then we brought in the double, and Amy just had that willingness to learn from the person who knew what to do. By the end, she was really catching, and she did very well.”
Passing as an athlete also requires nailing the subtle nuances, which means attention to detail is critical. “It’s not just the physicalness of it,” McDaniel says. “How do you walk into a gym? How do you command a locker room? Even if there might not be dialogue, what would you say to your teammates to pump them up? We put them through these scenarios. And then we rehearse. We walk them through like it’s a real game, so that by the time they get to the director, the director is like, ‘Oh my god, what did you guys do?’”
Ultimately, McDaniel says winning performances often come down to an actor’s desire. “When the actor is really buying into it and putting in the work, that just opens up our whole choreography and we have more room to play. That’s our favorite. When they have it and want to take it to the next level, we’re right there. We’re ready.”
If the Olympics aren’t enough to satisfy your sports drama fix, check out these all-time great sports movies:
“Rocky” (1976)
Yo, Adrian! The ultimate underdog story follows Rocky Balboa, a Philly guy dreaming of a career as a boxer, who gets a shot at the big time when heavyweight champion Apollo Creed selects him for a title fight. Sylvester Stallone, who also wrote the film, gives a career-making performance as Rocky, a palooka with hangdog determination and an abundance of heart.
“Bull Durham” (1988)
McDaniel counts Kevin Costner’s performance as a veteran AAA catcher tasked with reigning in an eclectic, lunk-headed pitcher among her favorite performances in a sports movie. “He was just so fantastic. At the height of his career, and utterly believable as a baseball player.”
“Raging Bull” (1980)
When it comes to committing as an actor, no one tops Robert De Niro, who famously bulked up to play Jake LaMotta, then put on 60 pounds to play the onetime middleweight boxing champ when he was past his prime. But that’s not all. De Niro also reportedly trained with LaMotta himself in the ring for a thousand rounds. He also fought in professional boxing matches in Brooklyn, winning two.
“Field of Dreams” (1989)
Kevin Costner and baseball were a winning box-office combo in the late 1980s. The story of an Iowa farmer (Costner) who builds a baseball diamond for the ghosts of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox is pure cinema magic and one of the best of all movies devoted to America’s pastime.
“Miracle” (2004)
The story of the U.S. men’s hockey team’s dramatic “Miracle on Ice” defeat of the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics is a great primer for rooting for this year’s Summer Olympics athletes. It was also McDaniel’s first film. “I got spoiled early on,” she says. “I thought [director] Gavin O’Connor did a great job of just pushing Disney and saying, ‘You know, I want all hockey players and we’ll teach them how to act.’ I was like, ‘Wait, you can do that?’ So all those kids went through acting boot camp and it was amazing. And the best thing is that a lot of them caught the bug and kept acting.”
“Chariots of Fire” (1981)
The 1981 Best Picture winner will make you want to become a track and field athlete, thanks to rhapsodic running scenes and inspiring performances from actors Ben Cross and Ian Charleson, who play British Olympians who ran with conviction at the 1924 Games.
“I, Tonya” (2017)
Sometimes the most compelling sports storylines happen outside of competition. The unbelievable story of American figure skater Tonya Harding and boyfriend Jeff Gilooly’s 1994 infamous swipe at the knee of Harding’s rival, Nancy Kerrigan, is wonderfully retold in this dark comic masterpiece. An avid ice hockey fan, Margot Robbie trained for five months for the role and did much of her own skating. “The amount of stuff that she could do was amazing,” director Craig Gillespie told People. “For that end sequence when she comes out on the ice, those 30 or 40 seconds with all those turns and spins, that’s all Margot.”
“Coach Carter” (2005)
“I don’t want to toot my own horn,” says McDaniel, “but this is one of my favorites, both storytelling-wise and for the way all the actors bought into all the choreography.” The story of a high school basketball team inspired by a tough coach was a unique experience behind the scenes. “We didn’t have to double them. They all got into it and they did it all. It’s one of the most believable sports films because it’s all of them all the time. And of course, Samuel L. Jackson is just flat-out crazy good.”
“Challengers” (2024)
Luca Guadagnigno’s tennis love triangle story may be the steamiest of all sports movies. Zendaya put in the work to create a believable version of her tennis prodigy-turned-coach, training with Brad Gilbert, a former ATP tour player who coached Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick. She also studied footage of female tennis greats including Venus Williams and Naomi Osaka.
“Friday Night Lights” (2004)
Peter Berg’s ode to Texas high school football is a master class in sports cinema verité, with game sequences so real you can practically feel the humidity in the Texas air.
Aimee McDaniel, a former Pepperdine basketball star born and raised in Southern California, loves all things sports and entertainment. Her diverse movie and television career of 15-plus years has taken her all over the world, coordinating films from Brazil to England to India to South Africa.