Kicking Emotional Goals

Filmmakers Look at Family, Life, Loss and Responsibility with Gracie

It took twelve weeks of training to make actress Carly Schroeder look the part of a soccer star. And while all this training was certainly hard work, it helped immensely that it just happened to be a heck of a lot of fun, too. “I guess you really can’t call what I did playing,” laughs a bubbly Schroeder. “It was more drama-mama. Hands on my knees, breathing real hard, running around acting like I was chasing the ball and doing something. It was fun.”

I was sitting at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle speaking with both the actress and writer Andrew Shue about their new movie Gracie. Loosely based upon the Shue family’s own history, the film is a winningly inspirational sports-themed melodrama anchored by a fantastic central performance from its young star.

“I really had intense training, however,” continues the youngster. “I trained with the former captain of the [Los Angeles] Galaxy. It was an everyday process. We did circuit training so that I would get stronger, we worked on ball control so I could move fast with the ball and make it go where I wanted it to go.”

All this work meant she must have been getting pretty good. After all, the film is about a 1978 girl who decides to try out for the Boy’s Varsity Team at her local high school. Did that mean she tried her new skills out on any guys before filming the fictional version? “Oh yes,” exclaims Schroeder excitedly. “I actually had talked to these guys that were in this park that I ran around to do [workouts], and they were playing soccer and I thought, all right, I have to at least try and play with them.”

“I didn’t even have cleats or shin guards on, but I still walked over and asked if I could play and they were, ‘Sure, Blondie, come play with us!’ The rest of the game they spoke in Spanish so I was completely out of it, didn’t know what was going on at all. But, the first game I scored a goal which was really cool, and then after that they did not go easy on me. They were kicking me in the shin every chance they had!”

Carly Schroeder in a scene from Gracie.

In many ways, Shue can’t believe his luck in the casting of his star. “You won’t find a performance, at any age let alone by a 15/16-year-old, that carries the movie and just draws you in right away with her honesty and her depth,” says the writer as Schroeder tries not to blush with embarrassment. “You’re just with her right from the start. You just stay with her. You feel for her. It is a real tour de force.”

Not that the producers made things easy on her. “It was a tough shoot,” Shue states plainly. “This entire movie was riding entirely upon the person playing Gracie. And, we had no idea just how difficult it would all be, that she would have to go through three months of training and then show up and be in every scene and then also work in the middle of the night. This was a tough movie, a tough shoot, and there is a reason that [Carly] came through and it is because she’s got the goods.”

Making it even more difficult was the fact that many elements, including the tragic death of an older brother, were all based on moments the Shue family actually lived. “Basically, when we got to New Jersey, [Elisabeth] and I would have a ‘Girl’s Night’ where she would take me the soccer field where she first played soccer, the tree house she played in when she was younger and we’d eat at this little pizzeria and she’d tell me funny stories about when she was younger,” explains Schroeder. “She really just opened up and made me feel like I was part of her family and part of her life.”

“She ended up by telling me she didn’t want me to be playing her. She wanted me to be playing myself, so that way it wasn’t so close to her. She said I had a lot of traits that rang through to her own personality, such as my competitiveness, and she wanted to make sure I played the character closer to myself than to who I thought she was.”

Still, with so many sports-themed pictures out in the market place right now, why was this one so important to Shue to see come to life? “For us, this was just a story as a family we’ve wanted to tell for about five years,” says the writer. “We’d talked about doing this, and it wasn’t like we thought the world needed this story right now (although I do think it does), it was just a story we wanted to tell.”

“That said, a lot of the moms are telling us that their kids didn’t understand where they are in the journey of giving girls equal opportunity. They all think they’ve arrived, but they’re actually still in the middle of the journey, and moms want to be able to talk to them about [it]. So I do think [Gracie] has arrived at a great time, especially when we have a woman running for President and people like Michelle Wie trying to play golf against the guys.”

Andrew Shue and director Davis Guggenheim on the set of Gracie.

But, it was still more than just looking at the history for the Shue family. This was a story to honor their fallen brother Will and to look at a rich family sporting history. The picture was a labor of love, and for all Shue’s talk of historical significance aside that was the true motivating factor uniting all of the Shue’s to see Gracie made.

“That’s true,” agrees Andrew. “This was a personal story that honored our brother and celebrated soccer and showed how it had such a large influence upon our family. I feel we really lucked out in some ways in how it all came together.”

Considering all of this, one has to wonder, if only a little bit, if Schroeder ever imagined she’d be involved in a story like this one, especially as the star. After all, playing Gracie is one heck of a long way from being a costar on Lizzie McGuire. “Yeah, I’d say so,” laughs the actress. “No, I didn’t. I mean, Lizzie McGuire was such an amazing opportunity for me. I got to work with a bunch of incredible actors, and I’ve been very fortunate to have only worked with very good people who have treated me very well, but I never imagined I’d have gotten this far.”

“I just act because it is fun. And, I have no idea where I am going to go from here. I don’t see it as a job. I do it because it is fun.”

For all the real-life inspirations swirling within, at its heart Gracie is a father-daughter love story, parent and child learning how to live and deal with the other while also rediscovering the eternal bonds making them family. “That was Davis [Guggenheim’s] contribution to the script,” comments Shue. “He was the one who really formulated that relationship and would be the central vehicle, central conflict, that would draw audiences into the movie.”

All of this meant Dermot Mulroney, playing Gracie’s father Bryan, was handed one of the meatiest and complex characters he’s had the pleasure of sinking his talented chops into for quite some time. “I agree,” the writer responds. “He’s either played the funny, cute friend, or he’s just a little off-beat like in About Schmidt. But, here, he plays a real person with real depth and you really felt his complexity. It was a subtle performance that was very, very believable.”

“Dermot was the jokester on-set,” laughs Schroeder. “When we were working on the scene where we petition the school, he was sitting there on the set reading ‘101 Ways How to Gut a Fish.’ He kept going around informing everyone that Daniel Webster had, by far, the superior way as to how to gut a fish. One day he was telling us how to make the best corn bread. Others he was talking about how much he loved those Ranch Doritos. He was definitely the snack monster on the set. He always lightened the mood.”

“But, he’s an amazing actor. He’s the king of downplay. As soon as they yell action he is completely professional, and I completely respect him for that. But as soon they call cut, it’s back to fun-time with Dermot. There were times I was like, ‘Dermot, stop it!’ He was really great. I loved working with him.”

At the end of the day, though, this is still a highly personal film, so what does Andrew hope other families will take away from the picture when they leave the theater?  “I hope family’s really go home and talk to each other afterwards,” says Shue. “Maybe open up some conversations that they might not have had otherwise, ones that help them get over some struggles they might be having. I think a lot of families are bottled up and dealing with some pretty tough stuff, and if you don’t talk to each other it is pretty hard to get anywhere. It’s a conversation starter, this movie, for sure.”

(Click here for the review)