Jake Gyllenhaal, the star of Southpaw, was unfamiliar with the sport before signing on, though he now calls himself an avid fan. For him, director Antoine Fuqua, who’s a dedicated boxer himself and trains every day, was the main reason for his interest in the film to begin with.
Fuqua insisted that he’d love to direct the already-acclaimed actor in something that audiences had never seen before. While Gyllenhaal initially chalked the claim up to just being typical Hollywood talk, Fuqua eventually made good on his word. Determined not to make SOUTHPAW “just another boxing movie,” the filmmaker was determined to find an actor willing to take on the role of Billy “The Great” Hope in the most literal, brutal way conceivable – no doubles, very few effects, little reliance on editing – just straight training and as faithful a replication of the boxing world as possible, right down to the camerawork. “The reason why I like to play certain characters is because of the doubt that I have in my ability to do it,” says Gyllenhaal. “Antoine believed in me years before I even knew, and then in the process he believed I could do it. I think that belief in anybody allows you to go do your best work.”
Given Gyllenhaal’s intensive immersion into the role of Billy, it’s surprising to learn that the film was originally intended for hip hop artist Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem.
SONS OF ANARCHY creator Kurt Sutter, whose father was a semi-professional fighter, was first approached by the rapper’s team three years ago to do a remake of the 1979 boxing classic The Champ.
Sutter disagreed with the idea, however, of simply doing a reboot of an old film. “I try not to do anything that feels too derivative, so my pitch was at that point to tell Marshall’s story through the analogy of boxing.” Serving as inspiration for character Billy Hope’s downward spiral was Eminem’s own real-life struggle with the death of his best friend, Proof. His close relationship with his daughter Hailie Jade was also a key piece in informing the film’s other crucial theme: fatherhood. When the musician dropped out of the project at the last minute to focus on an album instead, Sutter and Fuqua went back to the drawing board and, ultimately, won the interest of Gyllenhaal. He remains enthusiastically connected to the film however – his single “Phenomenal” is the first song off the movie’s official soundtrack, which he is also executive producing and releasing on his Shady Records label. “He just seems to have a natural ability to understand the world – the highs, the lows and emotional roller coaster,” explains Fuqua as to why he insisted that Eminem remain involved. In fact, the rapper was the first person he showed the film too when it was done. “I wanted to see if he felt it,” he says. “He’s somebody who’s gone through his own darkness. If he walked out of the room feeling it even more, then I knew I did my job.”
Together with Sutter, Fuqua and Gyllenhaal were determined to craft a film that was both a realistic ode to the sport and a complex but relatable tale of familial and personal hardship. Gyllenhaal notes: “The thing that intrigued me from the get-go was the idea that Billy’s a guy who has gotten by on his rage and his own anger – made a career out of it, had great success and made lots of money from it. That anger can actually indirectly destroy you. Ultimately for me, and know for Antoine as well, this is a story about a man coming to grips with his own anger, and the idea of what it is to be a father.” Sutter also notes that after going over the script with Fuqua and Gyllenhaal, the approach to the script began to take shape from a specific metaphor for the character’s personal journey to a more far-reaching theme. “I realized that it really wasn’t one man’s story,” says Sutter. “It was really this universal story about redemption, overcoming obstacles and personal demons, and putting others before you.” What was also agreed upon between the director, writer and lead actor was that the boxing film genre comes with so many familiar tropes, and that they wanted to do their best to steer SOUTHPAW in a different, fresh direction.
In order to build a strong foundation for an exceptionally realistic boxing film, Fuqua enlisted the services of legendary trainer and fight choreographer Terry Claybon. A former professional fighter who won three Golden Glove Championships and retired undefeated, Claybon has worked with some of entertainment’s biggest names, including Denzel Washington, Kevin Spacey, Nicolas Cage, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Claybon also has a role in the film as T, assistant to Forest Whitaker’s character Tick Willis. The two met over seven years ago when Claybon worked with the director for his film TRAINING DAY. Fuqua approached him about SOUTHPAW about three years prior to the film’s eventual shoot, when musician Eminem was in talks to play the lead role. On what makes Fuqua unique as a helmer of a boxing film, Claybon notes: “The difference is that Antoine knows boxing. He’s been in the ring, he’s boxed, he’s sparred. So if he sees something on the screen and it doesn’t look real, he’s able to catch it really fast. He has a quick eye on boxing.”
Using Sutter’s script as a kick-off point, Gyllenhaal and Fuqua sought to create a seemingly real Billy Hope in tandem through a long period of patient, excruciating work. The director and actor chose to train together with Claybon – who traveled everywhere with them – nearly every single day over the course of six months, learning the intricacies of a boxer’s technique, physicality and mentality. In those months, they worked twice a day,
