Jharrel Jerome was 22 and fresh off an Emmy win as one of the Exonerated Five in “When They See Us” when a great role seemingly fell in his lap — the lead in “Unstoppable.” It’s the story of Anthony Robles, the wrestler who won a 2011 NCAA championship despite being born with only one leg. But the physical challenges turned out to be just part of the obstacles with which Jerome would grapple.
“It was the first moment where I got to feel the fruits of my labor in terms of winning the Emmy because I got a phone call, man, and it was just like, ‘Hey, we have this project that we think is a perfect fit for you,’ ” he says. It was 2019. He met the real Robles and started training with him — Robles serves as Jerome’s double in the wrestling scenes — they lifted weights, wrestled and built a friendship over months. Then March 2020 happened.
“We shut down entirely for a year and a half,” says Jerome, now 27, of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was the first time I got to see the back end of a production for several years; see it work and fall apart and come back together, and all the ins and outs. So, I learned a lot.”
But through the uncertainty of whether the biopic was still happening, he and Robles stayed in touch and became close.
“I crashed on his couch a couple times. I had food in his backyard. I met his girlfriend, who’s his wife now, which is so crazy. They have a newborn now,” Jerome says. “So, it became a soul project for me.”
Robles, of course, had his worries about his life becoming a movie. He says, “It was like, ‘Am I going to be looking back on this film for the rest of my life, thinking, “Yeah, it was pretty good, but that’s not me out there”?’ But with Jharrel, he took the time to focus on the little details of my life and what makes me tick.”
When the industry came back to life, Artists Equity, the production company formed by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, got involved. William Goldenberg, the Oscar-winning editor of Affleck’s “Argo,” signed on to make his directorial debut, and just like that, things got serious for the Prime Video film opening in limited release Dec. 6.
Jerome took on a high-calorie diet (“3,500 to 4,000 calories a day,” he says), lifted weights to build a wrestler’s physique and worked with Goldenberg’s wife, movement coach Allison Diftler, to convincingly portray a lifelong crutches user. Then there was the wrestling. And not just standard technique but Robles’ unique brand.
Jerome (whose right leg would be erased in postproduction but had to be kept out of the way during filming, “like a tail,” he says) had to learn to use “just my one knee and my fists as legs. … That was about two to three hours a day, running choreography and different moves — how to take a shot, how to sprawl, fireman’s carry,” all as if he had only his left leg.
“The hardest part was the confidence. That’s how you know a true wrestler. That confidence to be willing to get thrown in the air,” he says. “There’s moments where, as an actual man who has lots of fears, I did not want to hurt myself. And there was no way I was going to be Anthony if that was my mindset.”
Being Robles, however, involved much more than looking legit on the mat. “Unstoppable” is as much about his family. Robles says it was crucial that any film about his story relate “where my strength came from, and that’s always been my faith and my family, especially my mom [played by Jennifer Lopez]. My mom was a hero in my life. She still is.”
Jerome says he learned from those close to Robles “that he is the core to a lot of people’s lives around him. You can see it in they way they love him. He was the crutch — for lack of better words, I’m not trying to be ironic — he was the crutch for the family.”
But no one is strong all the time. The film depicts crushing defeats, reversals the wrestling program suffered, an abusive situation at home.
“Those low moments, he won’t allow people to see because he’s a beacon of light for those people. I wanted to show his fears, his insecurities and what’s going on beyond the eyes and the big muscles,” Jerome says.
“I got to observe a lot of moments quietly, without him knowing. And that informed a lot of those emotional moments in the film. What he does with his eye when he cries — he fights, man. He fights to make sure that tear doesn’t come down.”
Robles says he could see himself in the actor’s portrayal.
“The scene with him and Coach Williams [played by Michael Peña], when they’re sitting in the bleachers, looking at the track, and he says, ‘I’m running out of time to be somebody’ … I remember watching him [filming that scene], and I was crying. I felt, right there, he got me.
“The emotion he was showing — because I’m not someone who really shows a lot of emotion; I try to hold it in. But right then and there, he exposed it. I was like, ‘Man, this dude’s amazing. He did me justice right there.’ ”