The last time I spoke to Sonny Vaccaro, which I’ll admit was longer ago than I’d prefer, he referred to me as “young man”, as he has hundreds of times. I was approaching my 61st birthday as we talked on the telephone.
That’s one of the quirks Matt Damon might have worked into his portrayal of Vaccaro, had he chosen to do any real acting in the motion picture “Air”.
I’ve known Vaccaro for four decades, since we met when I covered the 1987 Dapper Dan Roundball classic in Pittsburgh. He is a unique character, with a method of conversation unlike anyone I’ve dealt with in my long career as a sportswriter. He has a raspy, alto voice. He talks rapidly, which is not to say he is a fast-talking salesman type. That’s because he also listens with a burning intensity to those with whom he is conversing.
Playing him in a movie would have been a challenge for any actor, even someone bearing at least a passing physical resemblance to Vaccaro. That’s what actors tell us they want, though, in every interview you might hear on “Fresh Air” or “The Tonight Show”: challenges.
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One can say Vaccaro is not widely known and so portraying him accurately is not essential to the success of “Air”, but no one knew who “Erin Brockovich” was, and Julia Roberts worked hard to deliver a realistic performance.
“Air”, to be completely accurate, succeeds on its own terms. The story is intriguing enough, and there certainly is plenty of terrific acting, most of it by Viola Davis (as Michael Jordan’s mother, Deloris), Chris Tucker (as Nike executive Howard White) and Chris Messina (who sizzles as Jordan’s agent, David Falk).
White’s presence as a character in the movie was, according to Tucker, at Jordan’s insistence. When director Ben Affleck spoke to Jordan to get his blessing, according to a Los Angeles Times interview with Tucker, there were two conditions: Davis being cast as his mom and White’s presence as part of the story.
“This is the hardest I’ve ever worked on a character,” Tucker told the LA Times. “I locked myself in this hotel for 20 days to take in and go over all this information. Then I had to dissect the script, because Howard wasn’t in it, and I didn’t want to mess up the plot. It was fun, but it was hard work.”
Damon appears to have prepared himself to play Vaccaro by looking in the mirror.
We know Damon is a terrific actor, and not just in leading-man type roles. He’s been nominated three times for acting Academy Awards. He carried the Bourne franchise with his flexibility and charisma. He was brilliant as a damaged, young soldier in his 1996 breakthrough, “Courage Under Fire”. His portrayal of Liberace’s lover in HBO’s “Behind The Candelabra” would have beaten everyone in the Emmy Award Best Actor category except his co-star, Michael Douglas. And Damon convincingly played an Oklahoma oil worker in the underrated “Stillwater”.
If it was a stretch to come off as an Italian from the Pittsburgh suburb of Trafford, Pa., who worked himself up from high school football star to schoolteacher to transformational figure in the sport of basketball, Damon at least could have tried to capture Vaccaro’s uncommon energy and distinctive lexicon.
Vaccaro was not bothered at all to have Damon play him in the movie. Why would he be? Even though Damon wore padding around his midsection to show Vacarro was not a typical “Just Do It” Nike employee/athlete, he still looked like Matt Damon. If anyone wants to do the Mike DeCourcy Story as a major motion picture and have Brad Pitt play me, I’m going to be fine with that.
But Pitt is three inches taller than me, you know.
Some casting just doesn’t work.
MORE: Who is Sonny Vaccaro? Meet the man who signed Michael Jordan to Nike
Why does this matter? Because too often when Hollywood endeavors to make a film about the world of sports, the principles don’t even attempt to get the details right. That’s what makes Jeremiah Zagar’s “Hustle” (starring Adam Sandler) or the classic “Rocky” so much better. They want you to understand the world they’re inhabiting.
As the credits roll at the end of “Air”, there are real-life videos and photographs of some of some of the prominent figures in the movie, including Jordan and his mother from MJ’s induction speech at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and Nike founder Phil Knight with his shoeless feet propped on a desk, confirming Affleck’s occasional barefoot walks through the office in his role as Knight.
Vaccaro appears in just one of the photos. He’s shown from behind. Obviously, no one wanted anyone to see how far from reality Damon had been through the previous 112 minutes.