George Clooney’s The Boys in the Boat reveals a forgotten moment in sports history
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Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom won’t be the only film on the water this holiday season. Amazon MGM Studios’ new period drama The Boys in the Boat is chronicling the story of the men’s U.S. Olympic rowing team as it attempted to earn a place at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Movie magic and CGI can create some compelling illusions, but rowing is a hard sport to fake if you don’t know what you’re doing. In a newly released video from behind the scenes of The Boys in the Boat, director George Clooney reveals how the cast trained together during their downtime to become a real rowing team.
The Boys in the Boat | “Learning to Row” Featurette
One of the intriguing things about that video is when Clooney says the film was shot in chronological order. This was done so that the cast could be as convincing as possible for their final race on the water.
The Boys in the Boat is based upon Daniel James Brown’s book about “the University of Washington crew that represented the United States in the Men’s eight at the 1936 Summer Olympic games in Berlin, including the coaches, boatbuilder George Pocock, and the working-class student athletes involved, especially rower Joe Rantz, who was effectively abandoned by his family and left to fend for himself at a young age.”
Callum Turner headlines the film alongside Joel Edgerton, Jack Mulhern, Sam Strike, Alec Newman, Peter Guinness, Luke Slattery, Thomas Elms, Tom Varey, Bruce Herbelin-Earle, Wil Coban, Hadley Robinson, Courtney Henggeler, James Wolk, and Chris Diamantopoulos.
Clooney directed the film from a script by Mark L. Smith. The Boys in the Boat will premiere in theaters on December 25 and on Prime Video shortly thereafter.
