(c) 2008 - 9 David Ramsey All Rights Reserved.
.net
Quaid Interview
David – “What attracted you to “The Express.”
Dennis -“My criteria if I’m going to do a sports movie is to make it more than just a football movie, it has to be more than a football movie. It has to be something more universal, that people can relate to, identify with. “The Rookie” was a baseball movie but it was really about second chances in live and I think “The Express” although it’s a football film, its definitely dealing with the racial issues of that time but also its really about living your life gracefully and facing the challenges of life. Ernie Davis definitely embodied that.”
David – “I have a friend who knew Coach Schwartzwalder and told me that you nailed him. How did you do that? Did you watch films?”
Dennis – “I watched some film. I don’t really look much like him. I feel a responsibility when I play a real person to try to capture their spirit and play them honestly not idealistically. My main resource really was Jim Brown. He was a friend of mine already. We did “Any Given Sunday” and played a lot of golf together. He is a straight talker, he told me about his relationship with Ben, which was abrasive and contentious at times but he had a deep respect for the man. He told me the way it really was, about his time there and the atmosphere in the country and at Syracuse. And about Ernie Davis, who he was very close with. What I really like about the movie, while it deals with racism and segregation as it existed back then it really does speak to where we are today and where we still have to go. Its been one little barrier at a time, the way it has been progressing. Younger people see the film and are for the most part shocked to see how it really used to be. I grow up in Texas, in Houston, I remember separate restrooms and drinking fountains. It was the way it was, it was unspoken it was just the rules of society the way they existed. My generation really started to question all that and of course the civil rights movement did a lot to change that when Martin Luther King came along. Schwartzwalder sort of represented that status quo in a way, white America which in today’s standards would be termed racist but that was the way the majority of white people everywhere, certainly more in the South. Ernie kind of changed Ben on a personal level, I think.”
David - “How familiar were you with the Ernie Davis story?”
Dennis - “I really didn’t know Ernie Davis, I knew the name but I didn’t really know the story. When I read a script is the only time I get to be an audience member, with a first time experience. It had a profound impact on me, it hit me right in the gut, the heart and a place where I really don’t have words. He came along at a time before the civil rights movement really started to bubble up and I think that’s one of the reasons his story has been lost for a time."
Dennis -“My criteria if I’m going to do a sports movie is to make it more than just a football movie, it has to be more than a football movie. It has to be something more universal, that people can relate to, identify with. “The Rookie” was a baseball movie but it was really about second chances in live and I think “The Express” although it’s a football film, its definitely dealing with the racial issues of that time but also its really about living your life gracefully and facing the challenges of life. Ernie Davis definitely embodied that.”
David – “I have a friend who knew Coach Schwartzwalder and told me that you nailed him. How did you do that? Did you watch films?”
Dennis – “I watched some film. I don’t really look much like him. I feel a responsibility when I play a real person to try to capture their spirit and play them honestly not idealistically. My main resource really was Jim Brown. He was a friend of mine already. We did “Any Given Sunday” and played a lot of golf together. He is a straight talker, he told me about his relationship with Ben, which was abrasive and contentious at times but he had a deep respect for the man. He told me the way it really was, about his time there and the atmosphere in the country and at Syracuse. And about Ernie Davis, who he was very close with. What I really like about the movie, while it deals with racism and segregation as it existed back then it really does speak to where we are today and where we still have to go. Its been one little barrier at a time, the way it has been progressing. Younger people see the film and are for the most part shocked to see how it really used to be. I grow up in Texas, in Houston, I remember separate restrooms and drinking fountains. It was the way it was, it was unspoken it was just the rules of society the way they existed. My generation really started to question all that and of course the civil rights movement did a lot to change that when Martin Luther King came along. Schwartzwalder sort of represented that status quo in a way, white America which in today’s standards would be termed racist but that was the way the majority of white people everywhere, certainly more in the South. Ernie kind of changed Ben on a personal level, I think.”
David - “How familiar were you with the Ernie Davis story?”
Dennis - “I really didn’t know Ernie Davis, I knew the name but I didn’t really know the story. When I read a script is the only time I get to be an audience member, with a first time experience. It had a profound impact on me, it hit me right in the gut, the heart and a place where I really don’t have words. He came along at a time before the civil rights movement really started to bubble up and I think that’s one of the reasons his story has been lost for a time."
I had the opportunity to talk to Dennis Quaid about "The Express"
.net
