FEATURE
Brian Presley and Kurt Russell star in Anchor Bay Films’ Touchback. Photo by Wallace “Mike” Crouch, Property of Anchor Bay Films
ABOUT TOUCHBACK
Former high school football star turned farmer and family man, Scott Murphy (Brian Presley) finds himself with a unique opportunity to revisit his glory days during the state championship game where he permanently injured his knee in a game-winning play. Given a second shot at his destiny, Scott seeks counsel from Coach Hand (Kurt Russell), Scott’s longtime mentor on and off the field, to help him decide whether to let his fate unfold, or follow a path that will change his future.
Written and Directed by Don Handfield, Touchback also stars Melanie Lynskey (Win Win, CBS’ “Two and a Half Men”), Mark Blucas (Knight and Day) and Christine Lahti (Obsessed, NBC’s “Law and Order: SVu”).
VYPE: When you played at Jenks you won a state championship in ’93, and you had that experience at a large school program, how much of what you did in high school were you able to fall back on because Touchback takes place in a small town?
Presley: I quickly realized I’m not 18 anymore. I had a couple of doubles that were college quarterbacks for some of the scenes. It’s something the director and I really worked on. I hate to watch movies and
Brian Presley at Jenks High School Courtesy of Anchor Bay Films
Brian Presley stars in Anchor Bay Films’ Touchback. Photo by Wallace “Mike” Crouch, Property of Anchor Bay Films
I’m sure you’re the same when you can tell an actor never played that sport a day in their life. I really wanted to try and bring something to the action in the movie. All of the passing, a lot of the runs, I did as much as I could to tie me into the action. I quickly feel back into a routine, but my arm felt like it was going to fall off after a few days of workouts. I really worked hard to get ready for it. I’m 34 years old and I’m in good shape, but we did a week of practices everyday then we did a week and a half of filming. We had over 600 guys try out for the football team. You had to be 18 years old to be in the movie and some of the guys played in college and some pro. After the first day we started shooting at 5pm and ended at 5am, a lot of the guys were like “we’ve never played football for 12 hours straight.”
VYPE: The movie starts out pretty heavy. After the injury you fast- forward to present day life for your character Scott Murphy. Your character was facing a lot of adversity and didn’t seem happy or excited about the way his life has turned out. How difficult was it to play that role, someone who’s facing so much adversity?
Presley: What’s interesting is on the movie website and on you tube there’s a testimonial I did about some adversity I faced in my life. Literally I was faced with a situation that was going to cost millions of dollars concerning a film I did. This wasn’t even a worst-case scenario this was the unimaginable. Having to take on a huge studio and take
APRIL 2012 |
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