Details
Union:
Union
Area of media:
Feature Film
Network:
Paid?:
Yes
Rates:
ACTRA + 130% Advance
Deadline:
Oct 5, 2021
Shooting starts:
Nov 1, 2021
Shooting finishes:
Dec 20, 2021
Shooting locations:
Winnipeg & environs
Cities for response:
Winnipeg
Comments
MARCUS - Woody Harrelson. ...Based upon Javier Fesser’s Campeones.
Documentation of COVID-19 vaccination may be required. No in-person
auditions will be scheduled; self-tapes are preferred.
Documentation of COVID-19 vaccination may be required. No in-person
auditions will be scheduled; self-tapes are preferred.
Storyline
Marcus Marinovic is an ambitious basketball coach frustrated that he
can’t climb the ranks to a more senior coaching position. He has a huge
blow-out with his head coach Pierotti, on the court in the middle of a
nationally televised game. He gets fired, then he gets drunk and is
arrested for a pretty serious DUI. Marcus is sentenced to ninety days of
community service, coaching a basket-ball team comprised of individuals
with various intellectual and developmental disabilities, The Friends.
...Des Moines is a relatively small place, and Marcus soon discovers one
of his team-members, Johnny, is the brother to Alex, a woman with whom
Marcus has a less than perfect past. Over the next few months, our
imperfect but dedicated coach develops The Friends basketball skills so
they qualify for the North American Special Olympics Regional
Championships. Marcus slowly loses the chip on his shoulder, gives all
he can to the team and discovers what it really means to be a champion.
can’t climb the ranks to a more senior coaching position. He has a huge
blow-out with his head coach Pierotti, on the court in the middle of a
nationally televised game. He gets fired, then he gets drunk and is
arrested for a pretty serious DUI. Marcus is sentenced to ninety days of
community service, coaching a basket-ball team comprised of individuals
with various intellectual and developmental disabilities, The Friends.
...Des Moines is a relatively small place, and Marcus soon discovers one
of his team-members, Johnny, is the brother to Alex, a woman with whom
Marcus has a less than perfect past. Over the next few months, our
imperfect but dedicated coach develops The Friends basketball skills so
they qualify for the North American Special Olympics Regional
Championships. Marcus slowly loses the chip on his shoulder, gives all
he can to the team and discovers what it really means to be a champion.
Roles
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Supporting | Johnny | Male 18 - 40 Years old |
Description Johnny is a friendly guy who loves music and absolutely all animals. He’s on the Friends basketball team, loves to play and is super excited to have a new coach, Marcus. Johnny’s very close with his sister Alex, both of whom still live with their mother Dot. Johnny wants to move into a group home with some of the other guys on the Friends team, but worries that Alex will miss him, so he avoids expressing his desire to leave home in front of his sister. ...TO PLAY CAUCASIAN. PLEASE ONLY SUGGEST ACTORS WITH AN INTELLECTUAL OR DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Supporting | Cosentino | Female 18 - 40 Years old |
Description The only female on the Friends basketball team, Cosentino is a fire-cracker and nobody’s fool! The other players all respect and look up to her, in awe of her assertive personality and her very aggressive style of playing basketball. Cosentino is not sure if she likes the new coach Marcus but eventually he earns her trust, and even a little respect. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. PLEASE ONLY SUGGEST ACTORS WITH AN INTELLECTUAL OR DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Supporting | Darius | Male 18 - 40 Years old |
Description Darius has a brain injury sustained from an accident with a drunk driver. At the time he had a promising basketball career in sight and had been scouted by the NBA. ...All that changed after being hit by that car. Skill-wise, he’s definitely the best player on the Friends team, but Darius won’t play for coach Marcus because he knows he was convicted of driving drunk. ...It takes Darius some time to forgive Marcus for the kind of reckless behaviour that robbed him of so much. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. PLEASE ONLY SUGGEST ACTORS WITH AN INTELLECTUAL OR DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Supporting | Showtime | Male 18 - 40 Years old |
Description Showtime’s signature move on the court is to stand with his back toward the net and hurl the ball behind him over his head. Although this never leads to scoring a point, his team-mates admire Showtime for his confidence. Showtime has a mischievous glint in his eyes, and his speech can be difficult to understand. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. PLEASE ONLY SUGGEST ACTORS WITH AN INTELLECTUAL OR DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Supporting | Marlon | Male 18 - 40 Years old |
Description Marlon is on the autism spectrum and always looks slightly worried. Although he loves playing basketball on the Friends team, he’s a hypochondriac and does not hesitate to share his various physical ailments with his team-mates and Marcus. Because Marlon has autism, Marcus mistakenly believes he’s great at math. But Marlon explains his form of autism is more OCD with a Worry component. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. PLEASE ONLY SUGGEST ACTORS WITH AN INTELLECTUAL OR DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY INCLUDING THOSE ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Supporting | Benny | Male 18 - 40 Years old |
Description A quiet, thoughtful man, Benny absolutely loves playing basketball, and has a restaurant job scrubbing dishes which he needs to support himself. But his boss Vodhanel exploits Benny and won’t give him any time off work. When the team is invited to a game, Benny doubts his boss will give him a day off to participate - that is the 'doubt' to which he refers in the first scene of the sides. Eventually, Benny decides to put his foot down with Vodhanel, a courageous act for him, standing-up to a bully employer for the first time. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. PLEASE ONLY SUGGEST ACTORS WITH AN INTELLECTUAL OR DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Supporting | Julio | Male 66 - 74 Years old |
Description Julio runs the Des Moines community center and gymnasium that is The Friends basketball team’s home base. A man of great warmth and empathy, he encourages Marcus in his efforts to coach the team. Julio’s niece is judge Mary Menendez - Julio knows all about Marcus’ drunk driving conviction and the demands she placed upon Marcus’ community service sentence to coach The Friends. When Marcus is feeling lost and thinks it’s impossible for him to coach players with an intellectual or developmental disability, Julio quotes Mohammed Ali - “Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion.” ...TO PLAY LATIN AMERICAN. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Supporting | Sonny | Male 25 - 35 Years old |
Description Sonny’s uncle is a GM for the NBA, affording Sonny a junior position as the assistant coach’s assistant on Marcus’ team. In the hierarchy of the coaching staff, Sonny is pretty close to the bottom. Before he gets fired, Marcus is the lead assistant coach - Sonny falls well below that. He looks up to Marcus and is trying to cement a real friendship, but with limited success. He knows Marcus is professionally frustrated and the main reason he spends time with him is due to his family connections in the NBA. ...After Marcus gets into an on-court, televised fight with his boss coach Pierotti and is arrested for drunk driving, he is personae non grata in the world of professional basketball. But Sonny does not abandon him and eventually supports Marcus efforts coaching The Friends all the way to Special Olympics regional championships. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Supporting | Casey | Male 18 - 40 Years old |
Description Casey is a long-time member of the Friends basketball team. He’s a quick wit with a great smile. When he’s not playing basketball, he performs in a local death-metal rock band and attends a vocational school in welding program. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. PLEASE ONLY SUGGEST ACTORS WITH AN INTELLECTUAL OR DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Principal | Blair | Male 18 - 40 Years old |
Description Blair takes his being a member of The Friends basketball team very seriously. There is a wary nature to his personality - but Blair totally looks up to Cosentino and is in awe of her powerful basketball skills and total fearlessness. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. PLEASE ONLY SUGGEST ACTORS WITH AN INTELLECTUAL OR DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Principal | Craig | Male 18 - 40 Years old |
Description Craig is prone to epileptic seizures, but that does not stop him from playing basketball. A dedicated member of the Friends team, he’s very proud of having a girlfriend and loves telling the guys about their dates, sometimes in great detail. Craig has an assembly-line job at a hair-dye factory, which allows him to indulge in another favorite pastime - frequently dying his hair. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. PLEASE ONLY SUGGEST ACTORS WITH AN INTELLECTUAL OR DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Principal | Judge Mary Menendez | Female 35 - 55 Years old |
Description Known as ‘Hanging Mary’ in Des Moines legal circles, Judge Mary Menendez presides over Marcus’ trial for drunk-driving and a bevy of other charges that make a jail sentence a very real possibility for him. In court, she is devoid of humour but under her tough demeanor, Mary is capable of mercy. Rather than prison, she offers Marcus an opportunity for redemption that still allows the practice of his chosen career, albeit in a different setting than the NBA. She sentences Marcus to ninety days community service, coaching a basketball team comprised of players with intellectual and developmental disabilities, based at a community center run by her favorite uncle, Julio. ...TO PLAY LATIN AMERICAN. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Principal | Attorney McGurk | Male 46 - 62 Years old |
Description When Marcus goes to trial for his DUI, McGurk is his lawyer. He thinks it should be a straight-forward case with a relatively minor sentence - until he discovers the presiding judge is Mary Menendez, well- known for her harsh administration of the law. McGurk tries to warn Marcus and reign-in his shoddy court-room behaviour, but his bellicose client only makes his job harder. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Principal | Dot | Female 60 - 70 Years old |
Description Dot is Alex and Johnny’s mother. She worked hard all her life and struggled to raise them as a single parent - her husband left shortly after Johnny’s birth. Dot’s strength as a parent is her practical, straight-forward wisdom. Although Dot loves her adult children with all her heart, she hopes both will eventually find their way in life, spread their wings and leave the nest. She thinks it’s great Johnny wants to move to the same group-home with some of his team-mates - this creates some tension with Alex who does not want the status quo to change for her own reasons. ...All this family tension comes to a head one night when Johnny invites Marcus to their home for supper. Of course Dot, and Johnny, both know Alex and Marcus are romantically involved - Dot just wishes Alex would be more of an adult about it. ...TO PLAY CAUCASIAN. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Principal | Coach Maya | Female 36 - 49 Years old |
Description A basketball coach for an opposing team, an after-game exchange with Coach Maya teaches Marcus some valuable lessons about how to motivate The Friends to be the best players they can be. A fireball on the court, Maya is a tough, demanding and wise coach who refuses to treat her players with kid gloves just because their disabled. Maya’s respect for her team runs deep, and that attitude shifts Marcus’ perspective. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Principal | Bus Driver | Male 38 - 56 Years old |
Description Marcus and The Friends are taking a city bus across Des Moines to attend a basketball game with an opposing team. Marcus lost his license for driving drunk, so public transit is the only option. The bus driver is annoyed to have passengers that sing or want to talk to him while he’s driving. He does not have the skills, or decency, to communicate with respect or professionalism...When Cosentino confronts his rude behaviour in her own ball-kicking style, he forces them all onto the street, but The Friends win the battle on the bus! ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Principal | Headband | Male 28 - 41 Years old |
Description A pipe burst at the run-down gymnasium where The Friends play, so Marcus moves the practice to a court in a public park. There’s some pick-up players there, but one of them doesn’t want to share the court for the worst of reasons. This rude, unsportsmanlike dude is called ‘Headband’, he crosses a line so Marcus puts him in his place. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Principal | Frank Vodhanel | Male 40 - 64 Years old |
Description Benny works at a restaurant, back in the kitchen scrubbing dishes. His wealthy boss Vodhanel is cold-hearted and self-absorbed with his own ambition - he knows perfectly well how hard it is for folks with a disability to find a job and exploits Benny's fear of unemployment. Benny pretty much works seven days a week and has never seen a cent of over-time, an arrangement that lines Vodhanel's pockets. Eventually Benny gets the courage to confront his boss and demands a day off to play basket-ball - so Vodhanel fires him without cause. ...When The Friends qualify for the Special Olympics regional championships up in Canada, the travel and accommodation costs for the team are well beyond reach. Alex hatches a brilliant scheme to make Vodhanel pay, and Marcus is in awe. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Principal | ESPN Reporter | All 31 - 51 Years old |
Description It's the Special Olympics Regional Championships and this ESPN reporter is interviewing Marcus in a pre-game news segment. So much has changed for him since his DUI arrest, no longer a pariah in the world of professional basketball, Marcus actually just got an offer to coach for the Seattle Sonics - his dream job. The Sonics have just suffered an embarrassing sexual harassment scandal, and this reporter suggests Marcus' hiring is a strategic distraction from some bad public relations. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Actor | Reporter - Zach Devine | Male 28 - 39 Years old |
Description A local Des Moines sports reporter gets word that Marcus is now coaching a team of players with intellectual and developmental disabilities, so he asks Marcus for an interview. He brushes off the reporter - it’s right after his first Friends practice and Marcus is not ready to publicly discuss what he views as a professional step backward. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Actor | Bartender | Male 39 - 64 Years old |
Description Marcus is not in a good place. He just got fired from his job as a high-level assistant coach and now he’s getting seriously drunk, all while watching the very game from which he was just ejected. The bartender knows who he is, and why Marcus was fired, so he offers to turn off the TV - but Marcus is a sucker for punishment and keeps on watching... ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Actor | Officer | All 29 - 49 Years old |
Description After getting arrested for drunk-driving (and more) this jail-house cop attends Marcus’ cell to let know bail has been posted. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Actor | Supervisor | All 26 - 39 Years old |
Description Craig’s supervisor at the hair-dye factory appreciates his work ethic - and knows how much he likes to color his hair, allowing Craig to keep any product not quite fit for sale. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Actor | Mom | Female 28 - 37 Years old |
Description On the bus-ride across town, some of the other passengers are uncomfortable with the diversity of personalities and behaviour The Friends present. And some passengers like this mother of a young boy don’t hide their disdain sharing a public space with folks who have an intellectual or developmental disability. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Actor | Opposing Coach | Male 36 - 54 Years old |
Description This coach on an opposing team cheers on Peter, his star player. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Actor | Referee | All 28 - 44 Years old |
Description It’s the big game that will decide who qualifies the Special Olympics Regional Championships, and this referee asks Marcus who will take the shot? ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Actor | Counselor | All 31 - 49 Years old |
Description Casey’s counselor at his group home knows he’s down because The Friends don’t have enough money to make it to Canada for the regional championships, so they’re happy to see Casey smile again... ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Actor | Nun 1 & Nun 2 | Female 32 - 84 Years old |
Description On his flight up to Winnipeg for the Special Olympics regional championships, these kindly nuns are seated beside Benny and listen to his story... ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Actor | Flight Attendant | Female 26 - 36 Years old |
Description On his flight up to Winnipeg for the regional championships, Marlon knows the flight-paths and schedules of the other carriers. He’s worried they may be getting too close to another plane and alerts this flight attendant, who responds with professional courtesy. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Actor | Producer (ESPN) | All 30 - 49 Years old |
Description The ESPN producer managing the media scrum at the Special Olympics Regional Championships in Winnipeg. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Non Speaking | Pissed-off Cop | All 29 - 46 Years old |
Description Marcus is driving drunk with reckless abandon so this cop pulls in front of him to make a stop - but Marcus slams into back the police car...not good. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||
| Role type | Role | Gender & Age range |
| Non Speaking | Little Boy | Male 5 - 8 Years old |
Description This little fellow is on the crowded bus the Friends are taking across town to a game. His mom seems angry at some of the other passengers and he doesn’t know why - they all seem friendly to him. ...TO PLAY ANY RACE. | ||