Gracie
Dermot Mulroney on Gracie
Actor Dermot Mulroney explained, "I was really interested in that aspect of the character because I thought it was true to the time where this was a male oriented family and especially with the loss of the eldest son who was kind of a golden boy and captain of the soccer team and so forth, it seemed realistic to me that at that time in the late '70s, this family would be, or this man would be dismissive even of his daughter, especially when it came to athletics. So when Gracie decides to try and take the place of Johnny or chooses pursuing soccer as her way of playing out her grief or honoring his memory, it made perfect sense to me that this father would just not even acknowledge that even really. So I think there is a way to look at it where he comes off as the bad guy or something but I know between Davis [Guggenheim, director] and myself, that was a really important aspect of his character so that it was interesting too. There wouldn't be much of a story really if the father just immediately agreed with her and supported her from the beginning. So it shows how strong her decision was too to ultimately convince me to back her up."
When he does train Gracie, and earlier in the film when he practices with the boys, that's really Dermot Mulroney on film. "I play pretty well. I hadn't played in years and years but I did play growing up, in fact in these same years. In 1978 I was on the junior varsity team at my high school in Northern Virginia. I just keep that sort of to myself. I was afraid if anything happened and the movie fell apart or I couldn't take the role or something that it would just be harder on them if they knew that the guy could actually play soccer. So I just waited until the time was right."
Ultimately, Gracie played even harder. Actress Carly Schroeder went all out with her on screen father. "One of her worst injuries I caused. We collided with each other and I think her cheekbone caught me on the shoulder bone. I could tell from the impact that she really caught one. So there was a moment there where she's kind of going like this and covering her face and I honestly wasn't sure if she was going to come up with a shiner or a broken tooth or whatever. She was all right. She took the knock pretty well but I can tell you, that was a hard knock."
With only a boy of his own, Mulroney still supports girls' right to play contact sports. "I just love this story and soccer sometimes I think is considered to be sort of a lighter sport or something but the way it's portrayed in this movie and the way Carly plays that part, she really gets some of the crap beat out of her from time to time. She gets taken down here and there so I think it shows it's a tough sport and you have to be tough to play it. There was an article in the paper the other day, and this isn't a contact sport but I guess the 14-year-old girl in one of the suburbs here has like 900 strike outs. She's a hardball pitcher and of course they want her to play softball but she's going to join the high school team and pitch against boys. So the very issue that we're making the movie about from 30 years ago is still going on today. I don't know, there's a lot of resistance to this girl because she's a hotshot and it's not a contact sport, not necessarily, but this story takes place in a time when there wasn't an alternative. There wasn't a girl's team so now everywhere you turn nationwide there's girl's soccer everywhere. This story predates that by a little bit so Gracie came from this soccer obsessed family and there was no place to put her talent at all except on the boys team. That's what makes it a good story."
Gracie is out in theaters now.
For the trailer, interviews, poster and more movie info, go to the Gracie Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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