Dermot Mulroney & Carly Schroeder Interview, Gracie!

MoviesOnline recently caught up with actors Dermot Mulroney ("Zodiac,” "Georgia Rule”) and Carly Schroeder ("Mean Creek,” "Firewall”) at the Los Angeles press day to talk about their new film, "Gracie.” Set in 1978, "Gracie” is an inspirational film about a teenage girl who overcomes the loss of her brother and fights the odds to achieve her dream of playing competitive soccer at a time when girls’ soccer did not exist.

Based on true events from the lives of the Shue family (producer and co-star Andrew Shue, Academy Award-nominated actress Elisabeth Shue), "Gracie” is directed by Academy Award-winning director David Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth”) who happens to be part of the family as well, being married to Elisabeth Shue. The film is based on a screenplay by Lisa Marie Petersen and Karen Janszen.

Living in South Orange New Jersey, 15 year old Gracie Bowen (Carly Schroeder) is the only girl in a family of three brothers. Their family life revolves almost entirely around soccer: her father (Dermot Mulroney) and brothers are obsessed with the sport, practicing in the backyard's makeshift field every day from morning ‘til night. Tragedy unexpectedly strikes when Gracie's older brother Johnny (Jesse Lee Soffer), star of the high school varsity soccer team and Gracie's only protector, is killed in a car accident.

Struggling with grief over her family's loss, Gracie decides to fill the void left on her brother's team by petitioning the school board to allow her to play on the boy's high school varsity soccer team in his place. Her father, a former soccer star himself, tries to prove to Gracie that she is not tough enough or talented enough to play with boys. Her mother, Lindsey Bowen (Elisabeth Shue) already an outsider in the sports-obsessed family, is no help either. Undeterred, Gracie finds reserves of strength she never knew existed, and persists in changing everyone's beliefs in what she is capable of, including her own. Gracie not only forces her father to wake up from his grief and see her as the beautiful and strong person that she has always been but she also brings her family together in the face of their tragedy.

Though she had played some soccer as a young girl, Schroeder’s commitment to the physical training required for the role proved absolute. To help Schroeder with her training, the Shues enlisted the help of Dan Calichman, former player and captain of the Los Angeles’ Galaxy. Calichman spent 12 weeks working with Schroeder on her fitness, strength and soccer skills prior to shooting.

"Carly is really one of the most gifted, extraordinary actresses I’ve ever worked with,” attests Guggenheim. "I kept needing to remind myself that she’s only 15. She’s got the experience and the technique of an actor who’s 20 years older, but she’s also got this fierceness that many seasoned actors don’t have. As a director, you dream of having actors as talented and charismatic as her.”

Guggenheim continues, "We really lucked out when Dermot agreed to take the all-important part of the father. He not only played soccer in high school but he was an actor that effortlessly embodies authenticity. Dermot understood the broken nature of this man and how he had to subtly change and begin to heal as he finally is able to see and accept his daughter in his life for the first time.”

Dermot Mulroney and Carly Schroeder play a convincing father and daughter in "Gracie.” Here’s what they had to tell us about their recent collaboration:

Q: Was the scene where you mention your knees in the script or an ad-lib?

DERMOT MULRONEY: It was in the script. Or maybe I added it, but it seemed like it was in the script. It was in the script. Davis is very forgetful. It’s just a tiny little story point that Brian’s soccer career was ended by an injury so you could see why he would be putting so much pressure on his kids to perform athletically. And that was meant, of course, to be in contrast to how he treats the girl in the family, who he doesn’t give any time to in sports. So later on I guess when we are watching the film I say something about it being before my injuries.

Actually, I know for a fact that that was in the script and Davis had added it just to add another subtle layer to it. But I like things like that in scripts where it doesn’t always have to be explained so much and you take it for its little meaning and add it up later on. But I guess I must have delivered it in a very subtle fashion!

Q: Did either of you play soccer before this?

DERMOT MULRONEY: Yeah, Carly played no soccer at all so that shows you how much she accomplished leading up to shooting the movie. But I grew up in a family that played soccer with two older brothers and a younger brother and a younger sister and we all played, and that was in the late 70s when I was in grade school and high school. So in a way I’m actually playing the role that my father played, which was the soccer supporter on the sidelines. When I took this part, I called him right away and said: ‘Guess what? I’m almost playing you.’

So it was one of the things I liked about the movie, that I already loved the sport. I hadn’t played in years really, other than kicking around with little kids or whatever, but it all came flooding back to me too. And even my soccer ability got better and better during the 6 or 8 weeks of shooting just because I was around people who were working really hard on it, and around experts as well.

Q: Did they use a double for you?

DERMOT MULRONEY: No double for me, but I don’t have that much soccer playing in the movie. But we had pick up games and kicked around on the lawn at lunch time. Carly worked her tail off to get to where she is because she was starting from zero. She’d never played.

Q: How did you train?

CARLY SCHROEDER: It was pretty intense. I trained for 3 full months for this movie and every day I woke up and thought, let’s go play. And by the end I thought, oh my gosh! The training just kept getting harder and harder and I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere in the middle, but by the end my mom showed me videos of the first time I tried to play soccer and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh! Turn it off! This is horrible!’ But my mom videotaped the whole thing every day for three full months to see the difference and changes I went through. I trained with the former captain of the Galaxy. I had a professional there with me at all times and I trained at a gym three times a week at a gym called Cats doing circuit training and there were so many different things we did. I learned ball control and touch and just anything I possibly could in these three months that would prepare me for this movie. And still, when I got on set, these guys that I was playing with, there was no way that I was going to be able to get to their level just because they had muscles and their skills and they had been playing since they were six and they were Division 1 college players and they were incredible! But still, I hung in with them and played my best and it seemed to work.

Q: Were they ever too rough?

CARLY SCHROEDER: We actually had a soccer choreographer, Dan Metcalf, and he was incredible making sure all the plays went the way they were supposed to so nobody really got hurt. But the guys were more like big brothers watching out for me and making sure they didn’t hurt me. At first they didn’t really want to play with me. It was like the movie in that they were worried they were going to hurt me if they pushed me a little bit. There was this one guy, Robbie, and we’d be running to the ball and he would always let me get the ball. I’m like, dude, if you don’t try to take the ball away from me I’m going to slide tackle you or something. And I had no clue how to slide tackle or anything, but the guy said okay and I told him he was letting a girl get the ball and isn’t that hurting his ego a little bit? So the guys were starting to make fun of him. Then he full-on took the ball and pushed me as hard as he could and I said, ‘That’s what you need!’ Then Davis said, ‘We got that on film, the whole thing!’ I started giving them a hard time and it became like Camp Gracie. It really was. And the guys started becoming more and more comfortable with me and the more comfortable they got, the higher their playing became because then they started becoming more comfortable and if I did get hurt a little bit, big deal.

Q: Was it tense watching the discussions of how real the action should be?

DERMOT MULRONEY: To be honest with you I didn’t see too much conflict of any sort. From being told I know that they had differences of opinion on what should be included in the story and so forth. But I have to say that script was really well developed by the time we were looking at it. So a lot of those decisions had been made well in advance. The only strains I saw were whether we were going to get the day shot. As close as this was scheduled to the time we had, that was our biggest challenge. On any film set, the end of the day can get pretty tense if you are not getting the scene shot in time. In fact I’d have to say, especially husband and wife, they got along remarkably well under those circumstances.

CARLY SCHROEDER: And Davis had so many different camera angles that we did for every scene, just covering and more covering. He just made sure that we got it all done in that time. I don’t know how he did it, but we ended up getting all the shots we needed. I think there was only one scene we cut.

Q: Having played soccer in your youth, was this movie more exciting to do?

DERMOT MULRONEY: Yeah, this was more exciting because I’d already played soccer. I have to be honest. There are 11 guys on a soccer team and I was the 12^th guy. So I wasn’t a top player. I don’t want to give you this impression that I’m somehow some star player. I was not, but I did play enough that I really understood the game so that was one of the things that drew me to it for sure, but also I was already friends with Elizabeth from another film that we’ve done years ago. In fact, in honesty, I knew what the family had gone through when her brother died because we were friends and she let me in on that, so I was fond of the script for a number of reasons. And as I said before, I came from a soccer family so I was already playing a version of my own father, which is kind of interesting too.

Q: Was it like looking at your own father on the screen?

DERMOT MULRONEY: It was. We didn’t have stands. We were standing on the sidelines when we were playing. My actual visual image of him is different from being up in the risers on the side of the field, if that’s what you are asking. But he made every game I can think of and supported the league and a friend of the family was the guy that ran the league and the coach, so it was really part of our culture. It was one of those pockets of early days of when soccer was just kind of kicking in during those years in Northern Virginia. Same as it was in New Jersey, but it wasn’t happening everywhere. There was some in Ohio and North Carolina and Virginia and New Jersey and that was about it for a number of years, but now it’s nationwide.

Q: Did you ever see him get so upset that he ripped apart a goal?

DERMOT MULRONEY: No, nothing like that. He’s a pretty level-headed guy to begin with. But I was also a referee on the weekends just to make pocket money when I was a teenager, for the little league teams. And that classic stereotype of the hotheaded parent of the kid, I definitely saw people cussing on the sideline. They had red cards and yellow cards in soccer if there is an infraction. I’d have to card the parents and send them to their car. I remember doing that for real because the one guy just wouldn’t stop with the profanity and the yelling at his own kid and this whole thing. So that was happening way back then too. There is lots of talk about that now with parents going crazy with their kids in little league, but that was going on then too.

Q: You were a musician too?

DERMOT MULRONEY: I was a busy kid and looking back that’s probably why I was the 12^th kid on the soccer team because every Thursday afternoon I had to skip practice and go to my cello lessons. So I was doing it all at the same time and was one of those busy high school kids.

I have 3 brothers and a sister and we were all musicians and athletes and in student government and everything. I came from a family that, looking back I don’t know how it all got sprinkled out.

Q: How did you prepare to play a character loosely based on Elizabeth Shue?

CARLY SCHROEDER: I had to watch a movie that she was in because I’d never seen anything that she was in before. And my mom rented ‘Adventures in Babysitting’ and the other one was ‘The Saint.’ And I loved, loved, loved ‘The Saint’ and we actually went digging through our closet and found out we had ‘The Saint.’ And then I went out, rode my bike over to the store the next day and went and bought ‘Adventures in Babysitting’ because I loved it and I wanted to make sure I had it on DVD so I could watch it over and over again.

Other than that I really didn’t know what else to do to prepare for it other than start soccer training. And once we got to New Jersey, Elizabeth and I talked and she made me feel like I was part of her family and informed me that she really didn’t want me playing her exactly and it was more that they cast me because I had a lot of characteristics that she had growing up, and she probably won’t admit it, but she still has them. And she’s completely fierce and won’t give up and is very competitive against boys and girls. It doesn’t matter your gender, she wants to beat you. And I feel the exact same way. I refuse to lose.

Q: You met Elizabeth?

CARLY SCHROEDER: Of course, and we hung out with them and barbequed with them. Her mom is really nice. Her dad is great. I know her parents are actually divorced, which is a difference from the movie. And I know her dad’s whole family and her mom’s whole family. It was really a family movie so there was always a family member on set. There was always somebody coming down to the set. I know her younger brother John and of course Andrew is in the movie so we really got to know everybody.

Q: Did that help you sculpt the characters?

DERMOT MULRONEY: I’m a father myself and there were kids all over the set too because Andrew has three sons and Davis and Elizabeth have three kids. I’m also working with Carly and her younger brother Hunter who played Mike Bowen, the younger brother. So beyond the fact that it was a family-based story, we were portraying members who are all members of a family and that family was around the whole time. So there is no avoiding it really. It was what it was. The environment we were working in was really family oriented. And working with younger actors, it just happens automatically in some ways because there I am in my early 40s sitting around with teenagers and younger around a table. It’s very realistic when you are in that situation.

Q: Would you want to work with your own families since it doesn’t always work?

DERMOT MULRONEY: Sure, I have one brother and a sister-in-law that are screenwriters. I don’t see how it could go terribly wrong. And this was a great example of how it goes right.

Q: You recently worked opposite another young actress, Lindsay Lohan, in "Georgie Rules.” How was that experience?

DERMOT MULRONEY: Carly is a great example of how to do it right. And Lindsay in her own way is as well. I had a great time working with her. She’s really talented and beautiful and charming. Most of my scenes in that movie were with her. I hadn’t seen that movie. I saw portions when I did the post-production on it. We stay in touch a little bit and we remain friends and I’m sure she did a really good job in the movie. We know people had different experiences with her, but I know for me there weren’t any scandals or anything like that when I was on the set. I just made sure to keep true to my story instead of getting drawn into that stuff.

Q: What is your take on young Hollywood?

DERMOT MULRONEY: It’s not really my position to dole out advice to anybody, but certainly you can see how it’s been done wrong by other people, whether it’s staying out too late or pursuing extra curriculars so I can tell you this. Carly’s got a real square head on her shoulders and when you see her future films, you’ll see the result of good clean cut thinking.

Q: Didn’t the actors in "Young Guns” have the same reputation?

DERMOT MULRONEY: Yeah, that’s a good point. I started as young Hollywood myself and especially that film got its reputation for being bad or stepping over some boundaries and stuff. We only had one arrest in that cast. But for me, that’s something that I grew out of and I think that probably applies to those other guys, some of whom I come across. I saw Lou Phillips recently and he’s got twins and everybody kind of had to grow up.

It also depends on the types of parts you do. ‘Young Guns’ were all in Santa Fe, cut loose on this town, it was 1988 and we were all under 25, of course it’s going to be a mess.

Q: Do you still have the urge to yell Mexican!?

DERMOT MULRONEY: No, we buried the hatchet long ago. We are good.

Q: What’s next for both of you?

DERMOT MULRONEY: I haven’t had a job in a little while. I’m always looking for good work and I’d rather not work than do something I don’t like. I do have a small part in this movie ‘Jolene.’ I think it’s in the book there and that should prove to be pretty interesting. I haven’t seen that yet either. They are still editing it.

CARLY SCHROEDER: I have a movie coming out this summer, a little independent film called ‘Eye of the Dolphin.’ And I’m just kind of looking for the next good script. I have a bunch of them I’m looking at now. One shoots in Hawaii, one shoots in London, and the other one shoots at Martha’s Vineyard, so it’s three great locations!

"Gracie” opens in theaters on June 1^st.