Rookie tackling acting job head-on

By JO-MARIE BROWN

Most Kiwis would not have a clue what a 44-stack-50 monster is and, having sneered at American footballers running around in oversized padded uniforms, nor would most of us care.

So Remember the Titans, the movie about an American high-school football team coming to grips with racial integration in 1971, sounds about as appealing as watching an American football game itself. Not very.

But the film is surprisingly entertaining, thanks to a talented crop of largely unknown young actors such as 24-year-old Kip Pardue and Donald Faison, 26.

Pardue, who plays long-haired newcomer Ronnie Bass and is nicknamed "Sunshine" by his team-mates, is already billed as a future Hollywood star and is confident the film will appeal outside the United States.

"I think if you're familiar with sports and familiar with the emotion sport brings then this movie will attract you," he says.

"The bulk of the story is about overcoming adversity and overcoming obstacles and I think everyone's done that on some level."

Pardue and Faison are happily chatting and clowning around despite being locked away in a Sydney hotel room doing promotional interviews for the movie.

Pardue snatches my notebook out of my hand while I'm momentarily distracted by their room's magnificent view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

But the attempt to catch a sneak-peak at the questions backfires - thanks to shorthand he's left none the wiser.

The energy and enthusiasm of both young actors is obvious as they recall the gruelling workouts they were put through before filming began.

The movie's rib-cracking tackles and high-speed action posed difficulties for most cast members, including Faison, who had never thrown a football outside his own backyard.

Early in the movie the players are sent to football camp in Gettysburg to be forcibly moulded into a team by Herman Boone, the black head coach played by Denzel Washington. In preparation for these scenes the actors also packed their bags and set off to learn how to run, catch, jump and tackle the semi-professional football players who would be their on-screen opposition.

"The first day my body was literally in pain and it didn't wear off for about six days," Faison laughs. Scenes in the movie showing row upon row of padded-up players running on the spot and repeatedly dropping to the ground - an exhausting-looking practice known as "up-downs" - were also endured by the actors who had to get into shape.

"There were incidents when people literally couldn't get up and we had to do 10 more, and when they still didn't get up, 10 more," Faison says.

Even Pardue, who was one of the only actors to have played competitive football, found the going tough.

"It's really hard to make yourself run into someone on purpose and you can't complain about it because you've said you're going to do all your own stunts."

But as a recent Yale University economics graduate, Pardue is more at home on the football field than in front of a camera.

When Remember the Titans was filmed in 1999, Pardue had been acting for less than a year.

"I met a guy who started me modelling and then a couple of years after that he called me out of the blue and said, 'Why don't you come out to LA?'

"I got my first job a couple of months later. As far as Hollywood goes, this movie's opened a lot of doors for me."

Faison, on the other hand, has been appearing on stage and screen since he was 5, with New Zealanders most likely to recognise him as the ultra-hip Murray from the hit teenage movie and television series Clueless.

"This is the biggest movie I've ever been in," Faison says.

"My mum loves Denzel Washington and for me being in a movie with him is like her dream come true.

"In her eyes I've made it, I've arrived. But I kinda kept her away from the set because I was afraid she might do something crazy."

The film-makers hoped Remember the Titans would uncover some new faces, but for Pardue the thought of seeing himself on the big screen was almost too much.

"I really struggled with that for a long time. I didn't even want to go to the premiere because I hadn't seen the finished movie - and knew that guys like Denzel were in it."