Military Movies - Military Times

‘Express’ is about grace, Quaid says

Dennis Quaid is no stranger to sports on screen: Check out “The Rookie,” “Any Given Sunday,” “Everybody’s All-American” and even “Breaking Away,” which put him on the map.

He adds to his sporting resume with “The Express,” in which he plays real-life football coach Ben Schwartzwalder. However, it’s not the coach’s story. The focus is on Ernie Davis, who, in 1961, became the first African-American player to win the Heisman Trophy.

Quaid’s megawatt grin that can seem smirky on screen is genuine in person: The man definitely looks like a movie star.

Question: Were you familiar with Ernie Davis before reading the script?

Answer: I knew the name, but I didn’t really know the story. But now seemed like the perfect time to tell the story.

Q: Why?

A: Because of what’s going on. We may have an African-American president. This movie discusses things like segregation and race relations and how it used to be, how far we’ve come and where we still have yet to go.

Q: The script went through several rewrites, right?

A: When I came on board, it was also understood that John Lee Hancock, the director of “The Rookie,” would come in to do a rewrite. He really punched up the themes and the emotions.

Q: From some accounts, it sounds like Ernie as a character would have to be punched up because he wasn’t a guy full of angst.

A: (laughing) No, that would be Jim Brown.

Q: And Jim was a help to you on this film?

A: I worked with him on “Any Given Sunday.” He was my resource for finding out about Ernie, Ben and Syracuse at that time. He was greatly touched by Ernie because Ernie touched everybody profoundly. He also butted heads with Schwartzwalder. They had a contentious relationship at times, but he had respect for him as a coach.

Q: The coach isn’t the star of the movie; it’s Ernie. Does that matter to you?

A: What appealed was that this was a football movie, but it was more than a football movie. Ben really represented the status quo at the time of white America in terms of segregation. He’d probably be called racist by modern standards, but back then there was a line you didn’t cross. He cared about his team, and he’s obsessed about football. All the civil rights issues that were beginning to bubble up were just an annoyance that he didn’t want affecting his team

Q: As you say, the character will probably rub a lot of people the wrong way.

A: We tried to approach that issue of the film honestly rather than doing a politically correct platitudes sort of thing. There’s conflict there. It’s more like the conflict in “In Heat of the Night” in that there’s an arc there, which is really how it happened. Ernie Davis really got to Ben. A personal relationship was formed.

Q: So no trepidation about doing another football film?

A: No, not really, as long as it’s about more than football. This film is about grace. Life is full of stuff, and it’s all about how you get through it. That’s grace.