Brand Elton
Clippers star Elton Brand wants to be a Hollywood player. Maybe enough so that he can afford courtsside seats at Lakers game.
Brand is co-producer of the new movie, "Rescue Dawn," which came out today. The movie, inspired by a true story (as they say), stars Christian Bale as a Navy pilot shot down over Laos at the start of the Vietnam War and later escaped a POW camp. The movie comes from director Werner Herzog from his own documentary, "Little Dieter Needs to Fly."
Gibraltar Films, which Brand co-founded, made the film for $10 million. Brand spent a month on location in Thailand durng the shoot.
In a Q-and-A with Associated Press movie writer Christy Lemire, Brand (pictured here with his wife Shahara at the Toronto Film Festival debut of the movie in 2006) explained his new branding of a Hollywood player:
AP: Why use your offseason time making movies?
Brand: I write — I write a lot of stuff — and I actually wrote a screenplay. ... I wrote a few — I don’t want to give it away. There are some talented people that could take it up real fast .... intellectual property rights, copyright infringement, things like that. So my good friend and partner in Gibraltar Entertainment is (nightclub owner) Steve Marlton, and he said, “Why don’t we make a production company?” I was like, “OK.” But we had no projects, so
we were searching for projects, and “Little Dieter Needs to Fly” was a documentary that I fell in love with.
AP: What is it about movies that appeals to you?
Brand: Just that you can take your mind to a different place. It’s like an escape — even if it’s a scary movie and you’re fearful, or a romantic movie and you’re sad, or a comedy and you’re laughing. I enjoy that aspect of watching movies and moviemaking. ... Growing up, we didn’t have cable or nothing. There was cable in Peekskill (N.Y.), but I didn’t have it. But when I got the opportunity to go to the movies, it was a special treat. I would go to see “Rocky” and — I don’t know if I want to mention this — but like, “(Teenage Mutant) Ninja Turtles.” And I was just very excited and happy to just go to the movies.
AP: A lot of athletes make an album, make a movie, do a TV show, and it can seem like dabbling. How do you convince the world that this is something you take seriously?
Brand: I think I took the right step in convincing the world that this is something I take seriously by doing a serious movie. It’s an intense film. You know, it’s action and it’s exciting but it’s very intense and very current.
AP: What else would you want to do, movie-wise?
Brand: I like character-driven movies and I want to tell a good story. You know, we’re independent so we don’t have a big budget for special effects and things like that anyway, and that’s why I really liked “Rescue Dawn.” We wanted to make it real — feel real, seem real.
AP: Do you envision a day after basketball is done when you would make movies full-time?
Brand: I really enjoy it, but I don’t think I’m going to do anything full-time aside from basketball. ... If the right project comes around and I want to do it, tell a story, then I might go into it. But I’m not looking to do five films a year or anything like that.
AP: Best basketball movie?
Brand: I liked “Hoosiers.” And I liked the one with Shaq and Penny (Hardaway). ... “Blue Chips.”
AP: Worst performance by a basketball player in a movie?
Brand: I would say Walter McCarty, and he was in that movie with Ray Allen, "He Got Game.” He was on the bench. But that’s my friend so I can throw him under the bus.
AP: I was gonna go with Gheorghe Muresan in “My Giant.”
Brand: Oh, yeah! That was terrible. I’m gonna switch mine — that’s what I’m going
with.
==Another interview Brand did the New York Daily News is here.
==One more done last year when the movie came out, with ESPN.com