I recently had the opportunity to speak with Brett Bentman, director of the new film 90 Feet From Home featuring WWE Hall Of Famer Shawn Michaels. Two of Bentman’s other upcoming films also feature professional wrestling stars, with Dustin Rhodes set for Cutter Bill and Rhodes, R-Truth and Kevin Nash rounding out the cast of Thunderclap! Bentman spoke about the benefits on working with professional wrestlers on films, including having their built-in fanbase along for the experience. He also noted that it’s been fun to also see these wrestlers that have been able to transcend wrestling get a chance to play a role outside of their gimmicks.
“There always is this inherent audience there when you work with a WWE Superstar. I’d be lying if I wasn’t like ‘we really like Shawn, he’s a great person, we got to know him, he’s a great on-set personality’ but you get that built-in audience for your film. On the business side of it, it was a no-brainer. It was almost better in a way to have someone with a following—Twitter, worldwide, different markets—but what I think happened is a lot of these WWE fans, myself included, my kids are now at an age where we’re watching wrestling—it’s really interesting because the fans of the business getting to act out this fictional world every Monday, Tuesday and Sundays when they have pay-per-views. It’s really cool—I’ve always thought—to take wrestlers out of that element and put them in a real situation.
For instance, this movie is based on real events; there really was a Conway family and a Jimmy Devine [Shawn Michaels’ character in 90 Feet From Home] that abused his son to the point that he could no longer play baseball, and the son comes home with a vendetta to kill his step-father. He gives him the ultimatum of ‘you have three days to leave the house or I’m going to kill you.’ That all really happened. I get a kick out of guys like a Kevin Nash, guys that have transcended WWE into acting, like seeing Edge on [History Channel’s] Vikings. I just get a kick out of that because you’re used to seeing them beat someone to a pulp and pick up a chair and hit someone, and now they’re acting how a normal person would act in a real situation. I think that’s what the fans get the most enjoyment out of, and I can honestly say you’ve never seen Shawn like this before in or out of the ring.”
Bentman also spoke about how humble wrestlers are, noting they don’t come with a level of cockiness that’s sometimes seen in seasoned actors. He speculated that it might have something to do with their desire to keep working outside of wrestling, and noted he might be biased since he grew up as a fan, but they are great to work with.
“That’s really something else that I’ll note about these Superstars that we’ve worked with and met with, is how incredibly humble they are, which is something that isn’t as prevalent in the acting world to someone that’s just grown up in the business. There’s a certain attitude or cockiness that comes with being an actor or actress and you need that, but the WWE Superstars are just so hungry and eager to work outside of the ring. It might be—and I don’t know—but I think it might be that wrestling has such a short shelf life except for guys like Shawn and Steve Austin and Kevin Nash that could probably still get in the ring and hang. But it’s very much like a running back in the NFL. You only have a certain shelf life and then you’ve got to find something else to do.”
“One of the beauties about Thunderclap! is that Dustin’s character struggles with the fact that he can’t get in the ring and hang with these young guys. He doesn’t want to be The Wrestler; he doesn’t want to be Mickey Rourke, he wants to have something to still hold on to. The balance with the kid works because he can see himself as having a purpose training this kid to not get beat up and stick up for himself. I love working with these guys. Part of it is biased because I did look up to them as a kid, but I wouldn’t trade them out for anything. I think they’re tremendous people to work with.”
