In the early stages of creating “HIM,” a new psychological sports horror movie that has Jordan Peele as one of its producers, the filmmakers began researching some of the training elements football players use during practice. They soon learned about the JUGS machine, a contraption with two motorized tires mounted atop a three-legged stand that rapidly shoots footballs at players to catch.
“For us, it was like, ‘Wow, that looks like a medieval torture device,’” said Win Rosenfeld, the president of Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, which was also responsible for “Get Out” and “Nope.”
In one of the more tense scenes in “HIM,” a player stands in front of a JUGS machine, and a football bloodily blasts his face as punishment whenever his teammate messes up a drill.
Memorable sports movies are often triumphant and uplifting. Teammates at a recently integrated high school overcome racism in the post-Jim Crow era in “Remember the Titans.” Sylvester Stallone works out on the steps of a Philadelphia museum to rousing music in “Rocky.”
“HIM,” due Sept. 19, takes a more sinister approach. Through Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers), a college quarterback hoping to go pro when a fan attack threatens to derail his dream, the film tackles the darker aspects of sports, examining the pressure athletes face when their self-identity is tied to their performance. The movie arrives as professional and collegiate sports leagues are enjoying record profits, with athletes sometimes seen as mere tools to further enrich billionaire owners and media executives. If “HIM,” through its gory lens, causes moviegoers to rethink their own personal ambitions while also viewing America’s favorite pastime more critically, then the film has done its job, the director Justin Tipping said.
“I would just hope that it starts conversations,” said Tipping. “I would hope that people — whether good or bad, whatever they’re chasing and how they’re chasing it — hopefully it reminds them of their mortality and how we spend our time and who we spend it with.”
Cade tries to get his career back on track by training at a remote compound with his idol, Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), an older quarterback and eight-time champion who is clinging to his youth. But working with White — who is considered the greatest of all time or the GOAT — exposes Cade to brutal practice techniques, drugs, women and corporate politics. He also learns White’s motives are not so benign.
Tipping, who served as one of three screenwriters on the film, met Peele in 2017 after the release of his first movie, the well-regarded “Kicks,” about a teenager and a stolen pair of sneakers. Monkeypaw sent him the script for “HIM” a few years ago and asked about his vision for it.
“I wanted to explore, on more of a macro level, what happens when the athlete becomes a commodity, as in the life of professional athletes where like your body is your only kind of capital,” Tipping said.
The N.F.L. is America’s most popular sports league — the Super Bowl is consistently the most-watched annual television program, and media companies pay billions to broadcast its games. But the league has long been criticized for perceived racist hiring practices in its coaching ranks, and for player-safety issues like head injuries. In July, a gunman, who played football in high school, fatally shot four people and himself in a Midtown Manhattan building that houses the N.F.L.’s corporate offices. He carried a note that referred to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease that has been linked to repeated blows to the head in football and other contact sports.
Tipping said he focused his research on better understanding the societal critiques levied against football by academics, media types and former players.
He watched multiple documentaries in ESPN’s “30 for 30” series, which examines issues in sports beyond the playing field, and read “Rise of the Black Quarterback: What It Means for America,” by Jason Reid, who investigated racial bias in football’s most prominent position. Tipping also talked to the former N.F.L. player Ricky Williams, who used marijuana partly for pain tolerance and was suspended multiple times by the league for violating its drug policy.
The director said his conversation with Williams enlightened him about the corporate-like atmosphere of sports, which is increasing across the professional and college realms. Most leagues have embraced gambling, which can correlate to heightened harassment for athletes on social media. As sponsorship money balloons, players face added obligations from endorsement partners. And in recent years, athletes, including the Olympic gold medal gymnast Simone Biles and the tennis star Naomi Osaka, have become more vocal about their straining mental health,
“There’s constant pressure to perform at higher and higher levels throughout our sports culture, and this is becoming more and more prevalent,” said Robert Andrews, a peak performance coach who has worked with Biles. “There are very, very high expectations of perfectionism.”
That undercurrent played out in how the actors prepared for “HIM.” Withers, who is best known for the television series “Atlanta,” said he watched movies with similar themes of perfectionism, like “Black Swan” (2010), starring Natalie Portman as a ballerina driven beyond all reason to succeed, and “Whiplash” (2014), with J.K. Simmons as an abusive music teacher. Withers also trained for about two months with Jordan Palmer, a private quarterback coach who has worked with the N.F.L. stars Joe Burrow and Josh Allen, and Withers bonded with one of Palmer’s clients, the New England Patriots backup quarterback Joe Milton III.
“I think it was so important to telling this movie because I think there’s a certain swagger, a certain cadence to a N.F.L. football player that like you cannot fake,” Withers said.
Wayans, 53, whose background is in comedy, said he watched the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and read a book by Michael Jordan’s former trainer, Tim Grover, to get in the proper mind-set for his role. But he also felt genuine competition with Withers, 27, who was already in shape in the early days of weight conditioning for the movie.
“I liked that he was big like that because for me, mentally, it allowed me to go to even a darker place,” Wayans said. “It allowed me to seep into the jealousy.”
Wayans said he had always been inspired by villains who genuinely enjoyed their deeds, like Heath Ledger’s Joker in “The Dark Knight.” He said White was motivated by insecurity and envy of Cade’s potential stature.
“It’s the fear,” Wayans said. “When he starts showing up, like he could be the next GOAT, that bothers Isaiah. And so he’s just like, nah, not on my watch.”
He said that is a thread throughout the film.
“I think it exposes that grit, that thirst, that hunger that it takes to be great and you never not wanting to let that go,” he said, adding, “As much as you want success, it’s not worth it to lose your soul.”
Emmanuel Morgan reports on sports, pop culture and entertainment.
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