Film starring Kevin Costner releases this week.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Award-winner playwright Rajiv Joseph, whose mother is French-German and whose father is Indian, is making his big-screen debut this week with the release of the sports drama Draft Day, which Joseph has co-written.
The film stars Academy Award-winner Kevin Costner (Dances With Wolves, Man of Steel) as Sonny Weaver, Jr., the fictional General Manager of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns. Similar to real-life, the team has fallen on hard times, and has just completed the dubious honor of having 13 consecutive losing years in a row. Determined to turn things around, Weaver begins making controversial roster changes in order to build a winning team, with everything leading up to who he decides to draft with the #1 overall pick on NFL Draft Day.
In an interview with the New York Daily News, Joseph explained that the film was special for him because it’s about his hometown team, was shot around his hometown (although was originally meant to take place in Buffalo), and is the very first movie he’s ever written. Joseph collaborated with Scott Rothman, also a big-screen rookie, beginning in 2011. As the script began to take shape, they got a high-profile director to attach his name to the project: Ivan Reitman, whose Ghostbusters films are an icon of the 1980s.
The film’s cast is also packed with big names, including Jennifer Garner (Dallas Buyers Club), Oscar-nominee Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Oscar-winner Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist), and features cameos from several luminaries in the world of sports: ESPN color commentator and Super Bowl winning coach Jon Gruden makes and appearance, as does, while NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also makes a cameo.
But the icing on the cake, according to Joseph, was the chance to work with Costner. During the writing process, and during filming, Joseph would throw a football around with Costner, and the two became fast friends. Joseph commended Costner, in the aforementioned News interview, for being a perfectionist on the set, and for having a cannon of a throwing arm.
Costner is no stranger to classic sports movies, having starred in Field of Dreams and Bull Durham, and Joseph is hoping that his first foray into the cinema will yield the same success as his theatrical ventures. Just last year, Joseph won the prestigious Steinberg Playwright Award for 2013, for his play entitled “The Lake Effect,” about a dead father who harbors secrets about his family.
Although Draft Day is Joseph’s first film, it likely won’t be his last. He and Rothman are reportedly already collaborating on their next project, which is said to be a starring vehicle for Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook). Joseph is also staying in touch with the theatre, and is working on a two-man play set in 17th-century India.
Draft Day opens in theaters on Friday, April 11. The trailer can be viewed below: