Stephen Bishop

0:20Thank you so much. You appreciate it. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing well. Can't complain at all. We're coming to an exciting time right now. Well, your money balls up for everything. Well, I'm realizing the validity to the statement. It's just nice to be nominated. Who knows what's going to happen? I'm excited. I mean, just to be a part of something that big and to be a part of something that gets to go through the entire process first time for me in my career. And it's awesome. I'm happy to be a part of it. I was going to say, let's go through that process from addition because you're a ball player to begin with. So how did that trade? Were you acting in high school? I took my first drama course in college. I got a lot of encouragement from my instructor. He told me he thought I had a future and that I should maybe consider doing it for a

1:09career. And I was playing baseball at the time and I was like, listen, I'm going to play pro baseball. So this is not something that's, this is just for credits, man. I got to tell him. And he was like, well, you know, just keep it in your back pocket and we'll, you know, see what happens. You never know. I'm like, okay, cool. And then when I got released by Baltimore, we were in Victorville, which is hour and a half from here. And I had an epiphany moment. I just packed my bag, you know, called a buddy out here, ran into the car and drove out here and started getting work thanks to, you know, some really cool people. Peter Berg being first and foremost, has given me a lot of opportunity to stay in the game and stay relevant. And you know, so I started working more and more and then this opportunity came along and, you know, knowing David justice when I played with the Braves and, you know, having

1:58him take me under his wing and treat me like a little brother. I mean, it was, he was already a hero to me. So I started the audition process and they asked me, you know, tell me about your baseball experience and I did. And I told them that I knew David and I, you know, I finished it all off on tape for the director to see by saying, there's nobody on earth more prepared to play this role than me unless you go get David, which you're clearly not doing. So nobody. And they were like, wow, they were, I think they may have been a little intrigued at the same time impressed by the arrogance of somebody to run in and say something like that. But it was really my part there. I mean, there was never, you know, there was trepidation, you know, because there's the

2:45process. There's the studio. There's everybody that could say no if they wanted to. But for me, there was never really any doubt. What did he think? I saw you guys at the Toronto Film Festival together. I guess you would have both watched the film for the first time together. Yeah. Yeah. He actually sat here. What are you doing? He, you know, he actually did sit next to me. He turned to me at certain times and smiled and, you know, gave me a pound and, you know, the key for me was his wife, Rebecca, gave me her thumbs up after the movie was over. She was like, you know, you nailed it. You got him perfectly. And a lot of people who have seen it since then have said the same thing. So people who know him, people who have covered him as reporters and things like that, it's, you know, it was, it was really cool to get his approval and her approval.

3:34That's the, and then, you know, my grandmother. Yeah. I had to learn how to throw left-handed. Yeah, I did. That didn't work out too well. It must be really difficult. After spending as many years as I did throwing from the right side, you know, when you're right-handed, you step with the left leg and vice versa. So I left-handed throwing was something that I was not, not really good at accomplishing. However, the left-handed hitting on the other hand was something that came along quite well for the film. I mean, I was right-handed, he's well. So I had to switch over and work on that. But to make it where I could pass for a major league hitter, not just a major league hitter, but his face at David Justice was a major league superstar. He was known for his hitting. So, and he had a very distinct swing in a stance and everything from the, even the bat toss

4:24that you see in the film, you know, I got that from him. He tosses his bat and immediately grabs the elbow pad. And if you see that play and watch that to the very end of that little sequence, I grab for the elbow pad and throw it off. You know, it was a lot of fun to be able to be there for a while. When you saw him call five questions, five quick questions, one more answer is, who was scared to fight Denzel or the Raw? Denzel. Leonard or McCartney? Leonard. Favorite ball club. Which sport? Baseball. Sorry, yeah, ball club, yeah, fair enough. Baseball. Brace. Rule your most proud of. David Justice. And in one word, money ball. Inspiring. Nice. Thank you very much.

5:10This is great.