Actor James Madio portrays legendary boxer Willie Pep in The Featherweight. (Photograph courtesy of Pep Movies, LLC)
Premiere evening in New York Metropolis. For filmmakers, it’s the make-or-break time. However for actor James Madio, the one particular person whose opinion mattered was his father, Gerard. And when The Featherweight ran its closing credit, dad accepted.
“Jimmy boy, you might need one thing right here,” father mentioned to son. “You probably did nice.”
“That’s his approval,” laughed Madio, glad that, sure, he did an awesome job with the movie that’s in choose theaters this week. “On the finish of the screening, the very first thing I mentioned once I obtained up for the Q&A was I had him stand and I thanked him from the underside of my coronary heart, and so they gave him a standing ovation in honoring him. And he humbly, form of sheepishly, simply waved and sat down. However he’s very happy with it. And with out him pushing me, this may’ve by no means occurred for all of us.”
This isn’t a son thanking his dad for being in his nook through the years. Actually, with out Gerard Madio, we by no means would have seen a movie that deserves Oscar buzz throughout the board for its portrayal of legendary featherweight champion Willie Pep. As a result of he was the one which confirmed his son a photograph of Pep years in the past and mentioned that this was the function he was born to play.
“My father’s an old-school Italian man, at all times anxious about my profession,” James recalled. “His son’s in an trade that’s not structured or doesn’t carry stability and can’t carry longevity, as nicely, relying on what you’re doing. So he at all times anxious – ‘What are you doing? How’s issues working?’ After which someday, I used to be in California, and he mentioned, ‘Jimmy boy, you bought to lookup this fighter. He’s wonderful. Willie Pep. He seems similar to you, it is best to do his film.’ And I don’t wish to say I brushed him off, however I used to be like, ‘Yeah, I’ll look into it. I obtained lots of issues occurring. I can’t begin attempting to provide a brand new film proper now.”
Willie Pep, circa 1955. (Photograph by Stanley Weston/Getty Photographs)
Out of respect to his dad, Madio appeared Pep up, printed out an image of “The Will ‘o the Wisp” and put it on a board above his desk.
Enter screenwriter and pal Steve Loff, a fellow New Yorker (Madio is from The Bronx) who had been residing out in Los Angeles. He visited Madio and noticed the Pep image.
“I’m an off-the-cuff boxing fan, perhaps even a bit of above that,” mentioned Loff. “I like the game, I observe all the massive fights and fighters, and I’m similar to, ‘Who’s that?’ And he goes, ‘That’s Willie Pep.’ And I had heard of Willie Pep being a younger child in Brooklyn, however I didn’t know rather a lot about him. He’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s Willie Pep. He’s obtained essentially the most wins in boxing historical past. And my dad mentioned that’s the function I used to be born to play sometime. I wish to make a film about it.’ He simply retains strolling and speaking, and I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m out right here. Let me show you how to make this film.’ And that’s when it began.”
Loff remembers that this dialog befell in February of 2008, and by the point cameras began rolling on The Featherweight, it was November of 2021.
Madio’s bodily resemblance to Pep is placing, however he additionally nails him on a human stage. (Photograph courtesy of Pep Movies, LLC)
“That’s 13 and a half years,” he mentioned. “After which we premiered at Venice in September. I feel it was September third, 2023. That’s nearly 15 and a half years after. Fifteen and a half years of me saying, ‘Hey Jim, who’s this man in your bulletin board?’ And now we’re popping out in theaters a 12 months after that. So we’re 16-plus years to this theatrical launch of The Featherweight.”
That’s lots of years to do something, however let’s face it, Hollywood was most likely not beating down the door for a Willie Pep biopic, particularly one which portrays him within the time main as much as his 1965 comeback. This isn’t a feel-good, the nice man wins the massive combat on the finish of the film movie. Performed in a documentary type, it feels as actual as it could possibly get. The boxing scenes, that are interspersed with actual footage from Pep’s fights, aren’t the standard “man takes 100 unanswered pictures to the pinnacle, then comes again with a haymaker to win the combat” takes on the combat sport. It’s gritty, and it portrays boxing the best way it truly is. That authenticity is obvious from begin to end, and perhaps Hollywood doesn’t need one thing that doesn’t really feel like The Avengers. Regardless of the case was, Madio and Loff had been decided to get the movie made.
“In some unspecified time in the future in something in life, you understand you’re going to fail and you chop your losses, proper?” mentioned Loff. “However I at all times believed if we might get it finished, it was going to be an attractive movie. I additionally at all times believed if we might get it finished, this was the function that Jim’s father informed him he was born to play. I believed Jim’s father was proper. He was born to play this function.”
Madio and Steve Loff on day one in all manufacturing. (Photograph courtesy of Steve Loff)
All alongside, the duo remembered the phrase Pep at all times signed his autographs with: “Hold Punching.”
“Once we had a setback, we had been like, ‘Okay, we obtained to maintain punching,’” mentioned Loff. “So I saved that in my head. Additionally, that is loopy … February eleventh, 1949, he beats Sandy Saddler to regain his title. It’s the best win of his profession. He was the primary featherweight to ever regain a misplaced title within the historical past of the game. So 2/11 is his best combat and a quantity I at all times had in my head.
“I’m going to satisfy Billy Papaleo, Pep’s son, for the primary time in my life, many, a few years in the past. Billy handed away a couple of 12 months in the past, perhaps much less. He had most cancers and was like 76, 77. He was my closest hyperlink to Willie. And we obtained shut through the years. He was heroin addicted, as you see within the movie, and he struggled with that his entire life. However the level is, I’m going to see him for the primary time and his house quantity in his advanced is Condo 211. You’ll be able to’t make that shit up. Each time I assumed, okay, we obtained to pack it in, we’re not going to make this film, I noticed 211, whether or not it was on the clock, whether or not it was a freeway quantity out of state or wherever. I’d be strolling down the road and say, ‘Fuck this film.’ And I lookup and I’m standing exterior 211. I swear to you, I don’t imagine in stuff like that, however then I do.”
Loff laughs, and he can do this, now that the movie is out within the universe. Nevertheless it took a bit of extra intervention to recover from the end line from an unlikely supply. An outdated co-star of Madio’s named Leonardo DiCaprio.
“At some point, after six, seven years of attempting to get this made, I used to be simply in a type of moods within the morning of ‘what the fuck am I doing?’” recalled Madio. “And I despatched a message to Leonardo DiCaprio, who was my buddy, and I used to be like, ‘Leo, I by no means broke your balls about something in my life. By no means requested you for something. What do you concentrate on this story?’ And he by no means obtained again to me. However his firm obtained again to me in lower than 60 seconds. So, he will need to have forwarded my message proper then and there to Michael Hampton at Appian Method. And I obtained a message from Appian Method, type of going, ‘Leo simply despatched me a message, inform us about this movie.’ They usually had been on board as producers.”
Additionally leaping on board was Steve James, recognized for his seminal documentary Hoop Desires, and rising star director Robert Kolodny, and eventually, there was a movie.
And what a movie it’s. From prime to backside, the solid, which incorporates Ruby Wolf as Pep’s spouse, Linda; Keir Gilchrist as Pep’s son, Billy; and Ron Livingston as his supervisor, Bob Kaplan; is sensible, and Madio deserves Oscar consideration for his portrayal of Pep, as a result of he took somebody who was a superhero to so many and confirmed the human facet, warts and all. Once more, it’s not fairly, nevertheless it’s the fact for thus many boxers, previous, current and future.
“[Pep’s] factor was ‘first your legs go, then your mates go, then your cash goes,’” mentioned Madio. “He’s obtained to borrow cash from somebody, he’s obtained to get again within the ring, and also you need this man to see folks at a restaurant the place he eats. He’s obtained to save lots of face right here. I do know this as an actor. Even once I didn’t have 12 months or a down 12 months, I nonetheless obtained to stroll round. I’m good at what I do and I’m doing nicely and I nonetheless obtained it, despite the fact that I’m like, ‘Shit, I’m struggling.’ Willie had to try this on such the next stage, a champion of the world-type stage when he walked in a room. And if you concentrate on Willie, Willie was a winner inside that ring, an entire and utter winner, an murderer to a level together with his mastery in protection and his footwork. However exterior the ring, he misplaced the whole lot. All of the wives that he misplaced, all the homes, he misplaced his relationships together with his household. The distinction of that’s so stark. And that’s how boxers are going to narrate to it, I feel. At the least, I hope.”
Madio as Willie Pep in The Featherweight. (Photograph courtesy of Pep Movies, LLC)
They’ll. They usually’ll additionally see somebody that, by the tip of the movie, is Willie Pep. In fact, as a perfectionist, Madio puzzled if he hit his mark, however I’ll unequivocally say that he did.
“Properly, the primary response is, as an actor you might be at all times attempting to do higher and marvel what you could possibly have finished higher and the way the viewers goes to understand you,” Madio mentioned. “And we’re speaking a couple of monumental man who’s within the highlight. There’s loads of footage on him, folks know him, so, for me, the preliminary response was, ‘May I’ve finished higher? May I’ve finished higher with my presentation of Willie, with the best way he spoke, his cadence, the character of Willie, might I’ve finished higher with the boxing?’
“ The man was so rattling particular within the ring. How do you emulate that? I’m not attempting to do my type. In case you put James Madio within the ring, I’m pushing you up towards the ropes and I’m pounding you just like the old-school Italian, Mexican sorts – hit you want a brick and chop you down – and Willie’s the exact opposite to my intuition. So, the boxing meant rather a lot to me. The way in which Willie labored the room meant rather a lot to me. So I used to be super-focused on that. However my preliminary response was, ‘Did I do sufficient, and might I be higher?’ After which after that settles in, you type of inform your self, ‘It’s good, man. You probably did it. You made the Willie Pep film after a decade. You made the Willie Pep film and you probably did good.’ And everyone concerned all did an awesome job to get lightning in a bottle. That’s what it takes to make impartial movie is lightning within the bottle. And that’s what that was.”
