Rudy (32 page)

That priest was the last of the hangers on who nearly messed up the movie. The last obstacle. Yet another lesson for me to never blindly trust anyone who tried to become a part of my life and a part of my dreams. It wasn't a lesson that sat well with me. I didn't want to be a hesitant, distrustful person. But perhaps I needed to be a lot less naive about the ways of the world.

It just goes to show, even the people who show up in your life in a negative way are really positive: they teach you a lesson, every one of them, as long as you're open to learning. The lesson I needed to heed, and a lesson I would continue to struggle with for many years to come, was not to blindly trust in everyone I met, but to verify. To do my due diligence. To be careful that the people around me were really who they said they were, that their actions matched their deeds, and that their intentions were honest and forthright. It's up to each and every one of us to be careful with whom we align ourselves.

Once that priest was paid off and out of the way, I felt as if my alignments were finally, finally in place. My life's story was now in the hands of an incredible ensemble. They were a group of people who would wake long before dawn, raring to go, day after day, ready to throw their hearts and souls into making the most out of my life story for the next two months.

While I had been busy sorting out the various payoffs to get the film off the ground, the movie-making machine had forged ahead. The power of Angelo's script attracted the best of the best at every level. The crew was phenomenal. All of them. Truly. I've never seen such a well-oiled, professional bunch of people so dedicated to their work in my life. It was like a navy crew, but every one of them wanted to be there and truly loved what they did. They all seemed happy to just be a part of the movie-making process, and every one of them played a vital role. What an awesome way to live! Watching the sensitivity and brilliance of David Anspaugh at the helm, I saw the way he worked as both an artist and a leader at the same time. I don't think I had ever seen that combination in a human being before. From the moment that first camera rolled, it was simply a thrill.

Of course the cast, which I had some input into selecting, was nothing short of sensational. First off, Sean Astin—a talented young actor who had just appeared in
Encino Man
and
Memphis Belle
, and who made a big impression even as a youngster in
The Goonies
, was awesome. I was thrilled to have him play the on-screen version of me. The guy really gave it his all too. He had two stunt doubles at the beginning of the shoot, and the football sequences were so hard, both of those stunt doubles got injured. One of them broke his hip! So Sean had to jump in and do all of that stuff himself. Now get this: Sean Astin had never played football in his life. He didn't know how to get in a stance before he started rehearsing for this film. You would certainly never know it by looking at the finished product, and that's a testament to what a strong actor he is and what a dedicated, focused guy he is. He learned more about football in two days than some kids learn in their entire high school and college careers! It was awesome to watch.

There were also two super-talented newcomers to the feature-film world: Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, two great guys the studio discovered through Second City, the comedy troupe based in Chicago. This was the first big Hollywood feature film for both of them. They had basically only done some extra work and TV work before this, so for both of them, it was like playing the Super Bowl fresh out of high school! It was a big leap, and they loved every minute of it. Vince's part was smaller; he played the All-American football player who cut me down on the field and nearly made me quit the team (based on the fifth-year senior who pushed me in the locker room). Favreau played D-Bob, which was a composite character in the film, a combination of both D-Bob and Freddy. There were lots of composites in the film, and that was part of the genius of Angelo's script. When they say “based on a true story,” that's exactly what it means. All the elements of my story were true, but they were adjusted to their finest moments and reduced to the finer elements to drive home the meaning of the scenes and situations. It would take too much screen time to set up two friends, so why not combine the best of both—the comedic relief of D-Bob and the tutoring ability of Freddy? It worked.

Despite his relatively small role, Favreau was on that set every day, quietly observing the whole process. He peppered people with questions now and then, and he kept his eyes close on David Anspaugh. It was clear he had ambitions that extended far beyond acting. Of course, he and Vince would go on to make
Swingers
just a couple of years later, an inside story about young people trying to make it in Hollywood, which would become a huge cult hit and launch both of their careers to new heights. Vince would become one of the biggest actors of the '90s and early 2000s, and Favreau would go on to become one of the most bankable directors in all of Hollywood, anchoring the
Iron Man
franchise. It's amazing to think they got their starts in my little movie.

On the other end of the spectrum, everywhere I looked there was an actor I recognized. Robert Prosky was Father Cavanaugh (a composite of Cavanaugh; Father Burtchaell, the University Provost; and a couple other influential members of the order of Holy Cross). John Beasley was one of the assistant coaches. Charles S. Dutton perfectly embodied all the heart of the old janitor, Rudy, ACC director Joe Sassano, and some of the other staff who helped me out with jobs and living arrangements and advice around campus all combined into that wise, almost mystical character Fortune that Angelo crafted so brilliantly.

Then, of course, there was Ned Beatty, who I swear could have passed as my dad's real-life brother. My parents and siblings were on set often, and seeing my dad and Ned Beatty side by side was a treat. Ned picked up on the timbre of my dad's voice and some of his mannerisms. It was wild! Everyone loved my parents, and it brought back that whole glowing feeling of pride they had when they first came to visit me on the Notre Dame campus. Their presence made the whole film feel like a family affair as well. It was as if it was something we were all a part of, a dream come true. It was an accomplishment we could all share in. There was a scene that mentioned my birthday, August 22; Sean Astin got to talking to my mom, and he wanted to be sure the script was accurate, so he asked her when my birthday was. She answered August 23! Once again making the same mistake that she'd made since I was a baby. Sean listened to her instead of following the script and changed the date, so my birthday is stated incorrectly on screen now for all eternity.

My parents were interviewed for TV. There were news crews that came around and reported on the filming—not only local news crews, but national crews. There was something magical about this story and this film that was catching attention everywhere, even during the filming process. That's pretty unusual. Most films don't get much hype or publicity (or at least they didn't back then) a whole year before they hit theaters. But we couldn't keep the press away. These crews wanted to talk to me, go back to Joliet with me to see the old neighborhood, and shoot all over Notre Dame's campus. It was awesome, and I really got into it all. It was fun for me to tell the tale again and again. I think it was fun for the whole cast to see that kind of attention being paid so early in the process. It helped contribute to the feeling that we were all involved in something important.

I could go on and on about the cast. They were all so good. From Lili Taylor as the girlfriend (who mirrored the girlfriend I had back when I first laid eyes on Holy Cross), to Scott Benjaminson, who played Frank—a completely fictionalized version of a brother, created by Angelo, since none of my brothers were adversarial. He was a character whose purpose was to symbolize all the tension I felt with the naysaying crowd back in Joliet. And then there was Jason Miller. I was real excited that we were able to bring Jason on to play Ara Parseghian. Despite the fact that he never wound up writing my script, I had great affection for the man. He was such a Notre Dame fan and such a passionate, artistic guy. He still knew all of Ara Pareseghian's mannerisms. He had the guy down pat! I don't know how he did that just from watching him on TV. He was such a gifted actor. Now here we were all these years later and he was pacing the sidelines with his whistle in hand; we couldn't have had a better guy for the part.

Jason almost got us into trouble one morning right at the beginning of the shoot, though. The call came at 4:00 a.m. The football players were all called to set that early so they would be there at first light. The cinematographer wanted all of the football practices to be shot in that early morning glow. The “magic light,” they call it, just before the sun actually peeks over the horizon. Well, on this particular morning, we walked out onto one of the practice fields and the whole place was filled up with this beautiful morning mist like a radiant fog. It was spread all over the campus, and the cinematographer went nuts for it. He knew how rare and beautiful it was, and he wanted to capture every second of it. He and his crew started shooting all kinds of visuals right away while they rushed everyone into costume and hurried the football players onto the field faster than anyone anticipated. There was just one problem: some of the cast and crew had been out drinking the night before, and Jason Miller was among them. He was nowhere to be found, and filming the team without Ara Parseghian on the sidelines just didn't make any sense.

There were frantic phone calls and knocks on doors. Finally, they found him in his hotel room fast asleep with the phone unplugged.

When they got him up and into costume, he showed up on that set. I swear, it was like he had slept for eight hours and prepared himself to win an Oscar. He was perfect! He knew his part so cold, he just became Ara as soon as the cameras started to roll, and the cinematographer got his shots, which in some ways set the tone for the whole film. The beauty, the majesty of the campus, highlighted in all of that mist and beautiful early morning light, set the tone for everything.

We couldn't use the real Notre Dame football team for any shots because of NCAA rules. I don't think Notre Dame would've risked their real guys getting hurt in our practices anyway. But there was no way David Anspaugh was going to cast a bunch of extras with no football experience to put on those uniforms and play the parts. It wouldn't look real. Even paying a bunch of stunt people to do the football scenes would have failed, for one big reason: TriStar had hired NFL Films to shoot all of the big football sequences. NFL Films has special cameras and patented techniques for shooting real football games. They have super-slow-motion capacity, where you see the ball flying through the air, and the guys' faces through their face masks, and the sweat pouring off of them. Their shots all have that grainy, feature-film look that takes you right down on the field and makes it seem like you're right there in the game. Other football movies might get by with extras filmed from afar, or by using trampolines or other tricks to get guys jumping and flying through the air when they take a hit, but the NFL Films crew didn't know how to work with any fakery. It could have been a problem, finding enough real football players to fill the film's teams. But the beauty of all those chalk talks at my condo and the fact that I had spent so much time dreaming about this film and planning for this film—even before we had a script that worked and Hollywood finally stepped in—is that my friends and I were prepared for every question that could possibly arise.

The studio had brought Al Cowlings in to coordinate all the football sequences, and he was a super-talented advisor when it came to working under traditional Hollywood setups. But when we decided that the football needed to be real, and I mean “really” real, I introduced David Anspaugh to my friend Paul Bergan. He and his son, Bill, put the word out, and they wound up pulling in forty-four ex-college and semi-pro football players from all over the region. These were massive guys—like six foot six, 310 pounds—who had all played football in recent years and were now working, teaching, or coaching all over the region. The magic of it was that all of those guys had had dreams of playing for Notre Dame, and now, in a small way, they were going to get the chance to do it. You can imagine how pumped they all were.

David and Paul agreed that if we wanted it to look real, we'd have to practice with the guys, come up with real plays, get them playing like a real team. David had taken a similar approach with the basketball teams on
Hoosiers
, so he knew what needed to be done: five days of practice, treating all of these guys as if they were full-on Notre Dame legends.

They passed out uniforms, and most of them were too small, which left the costume department scrambling. They weren't expecting such giants! The biggest pair of shoes they had was a fourteen, and one of our guys was a size seventeen. We blew out a dozen or more pair of those gold pants before shooting even started in earnest. We were using period helmets from the early 1970s, and these guys were hitting each other so hard, we cracked half the helmets on the first day! We had no choice but to switch to stronger, modern-day helmets, and anyone with a sharp eye will notice that period mistake in the film.