With the new Apple TV+ series Swagger now streaming, I recently spoke to producer Brian Grazer about making a series inspired by the life of NBA superstar Kevin Durant. If you haven’t seen the trailers, O’Shea Jackson Jr. plays a former star player who’s now a youth basketball coach and it follows what happens when one of the top-ranked youth basketball players in the country (Isaiah Hill) joins his squad. What makes this series worth watching is that it’s just not telling a Disney version of what happens, instead focusing on the real-world obstacles young players face on and off of the court while pursuing their dreams of becoming the next NBA star. In addition, it pulls back the curtain on what coaches go through to try and keep top rated talent and how money can influence everything. Swagger was created and executive produced by Reggie Rock Bythewood.
Swagger also stars Shinelle Azoroh as Jenna, Jace’s mother who is determined to chart NBA success for her son; Quvenzhané Wallis as Crystal, a top young basketball player; Caleel Harris as Musa, the team’s glue and point guard; James Bingham as Drew Murphy, a player from an affluent part of town; Solomon Irama as Phil Marksby, the enforcer for a rival team; Ozie Nzeribe as Royale, a sub-par player with a wealthy dad; Tessa Ferrer as Meg Bailey, a former basketball player and coach for a rival team; Tristan Mack Wilds plays Alonzo Powers, the grassroots division leader at a major shoe company; and Jason Rivera as Nick, a player from Puerto Rico with the drive to become the best player in the country.
During the wide-ranging interview, Grazer talked about how Kevin Durant pitched him on the project, how little he knew about youth basketball and the way the money chain begins at a very young age, what it was like working with Apple and if they wanted to know they had plans for multiple seasons, and more. In addition, with Grazer’s amazing resume, I had to ask about other projects and we also talked about Spies Like Us, why Ridley Scott’s American Gangster was such a hard film to get made, which of his films went through the biggest changes in the editing room, the film he almost directed, future projects, and more.
Watch what he had to say in the player above or you can read the full transcript below.
COLLIDER: If someone has never seen anything you've produced, what do you want them to watch first?
BRIAN GRAZER: I would want them to watch the movie 8 Mile, the television show, Friday Night Lights, and then Apollo 13.
These are all excellent choices. If you could get the financing to make anything you want, what would you make and why?
GRAZER: What would I make and why? I like stories that are about science. We have a project called The Seven Eves. And "the why" is it's a female empowerment vehicle, but it's enlightening to enter this new world of space from this perspective. I have a televisions project called Outliers with Malcolm Gladwell and it celebrates greatness. So I would definitely want to be able to make that. And it's not easy to get anything financed because, all things that I've ever made have been incredibly difficult. After the movie Splash, which was success, I thought, this is a threshold in my life that everything will be super easy until I made the second movie, which was called Real Genius about genius kids that go to Caltech.
Oh, I'm aware of that movie.
GRAZER: Yeah. Or you're one of those super nerds that followed it.
Later in I was going to bring up with you. I love Real Genius and I love Spies Like Us and you made both those.
GRAZER: Wow. I love your filmography. I love Spies Like Us too. It was hilarious.
Why wouldn't you love Spies Like Us.
GRAZER: I like when characters that you believe in get duped. Therefore, in the case of Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd, they think they're super smart. They think they're fully qualified to be in the secret service in any way. And they don't even realize it for a long time that they were duped. They just are operating as duped agents. So that's funny. I like people that are trapped in over their head and have to recognize the limitations have been put upon them and get through those obstacles. So being duped is kind of a perfect construction for that. Spies Like Us is one of those. Oh yeah.
And if anyone's watching this, who's never seen Spies Like Us. You, you should watch. It's very, very funny.
GRAZER: It's super funny.
I think a lot of people don't realize how difficult it is to produce, but what ended up being the thing that really almost broke you to get it made?
GRAZER: The movie American Gangster nearly broke me. That starred Denzel Washington and Russell Crow that Ridley Scott ended up directing. Why did it end up almost breaking me? Because I was deeply passionate about this story of Frank Lucas that was played by Denzel who was really a small time hustler in Harlem, just trying to survive and get respect. He found it pretty early on that that was impossible to get respect, self-esteem. I like when people have to fight for self-respect. The bottom line on that is that the studio is prepared to make it at a certain number. It's like over a hundred million dollars. Then they decided without telling anybody, including Denzel and myself, that they were going to cancel it. So as hard as it was to get it to the place, I had it with a director and in the cast of Denzel, they shut it down.
So then I decided, this has happened to me before on the movie Splash, for example, where everybody just hated the idea of doing a movie about a mermaid and thought it made absolutely no sense. So I would go into like a state of meditation for weeks, just to try to regain strength, to go back into the field, to try to get that movie made.
In this case, I was so stunned, the studio said, do not ever mention American or Gangster separately or together. Those are words that can't ever be used at our studio, but we love you just try to adhere to that. It was kind of a strict warning by the Chairman of the studio. I thought okay, I'll abide by that. And the next day I woke up and I thought, I can't abide by that. My psyche, my mind has been so fully impregnated with this story that I can't let it go. So really against them, the system, I rebuilt a new case that would star Denzel, who agreed to stay with it. Then instead of a previous actor, I went and got Russell Crow because I'd just done a couple of movies with him, including A Beautiful Mind. He said, I'll do it, I'm not sure what the character is, but I'm in. Between Denzel and Russell and the new Ridley Scott, they agreed. So by recontextualization I was able to overpower, overcome those obstacles and get the movie American Gangster made to the studios and my satisfaction.
Which of your films ended up going through the biggest changes in the editing room compared to what you thought going in?
GRAZER: Biggest change, A Beautiful Mind, went through tremendous amount of change. So that one, A Beautiful Mind was the most. Apollo 13, the second, and 8 Mile, the third. All for different Reasons.
So you have alternate cuts of say some of these movies. Do you actually save any of these alternate cuts for your personal library or is it once the movie comes out, whatever is out, that's the one I keep?
GRAZER: Well, I do have alternate cuts on a movie. I don't know if you know, called Frost/Nixon.
Oh, I know Frost/Nixon.
GRAZER: The debate between Richard Nixon and Robert Frost. By the end it was asked to asked of us, to do three different endings. So I think that's a really good question, we obviously could only go with one ending, but we do have the other two, yes.
That's so interesting.
GRAZER: I can make NFTs out of them I bet.
Everyone's making those out of everything. Did you ever come close to directing?
GRAZER: Yes, I did. On a movie that starred Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn called House Sitter, which was a story that I wrote based on letting Michael Keaton spend the weekend at my house in Malibu, because when he left, everybody in the neighborhood started buzzing about, they never saw him, really. They just saw the results of him and they all thought those results were now Brian Grazer. Therefore I was very much in controversy because they misunderstood that it wasn't me, it was my friend, but there was a lot of irregular action activity at the house and they thought. I don't want to go into details. Brian's doing so and so and so, and bottom line is I turned it into a story. It was very attractive at the time. And I thought, I'm going to try to direct this.
Actually it was a function of Steve Martin. He was already in, and we couldn't close at a leading lady. And he said, why don't we go with so-and-so Goldie and you direct it and we'll help you. I thought smart actors are the key to directing. So maybe I should just do this. But then I realized, I wasn't that interested in, moving a lamp and a lamp shade for three hours, and talking about the lamp shade and the dust and all the positioning that takes place, I definitely was interested in storytelling and definitely interested in those two actors. Would've been a joy to do it, but that was one of them.
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My last question, before getting into Swagger, what is the status of the Splash remake?
GRAZER: We are still working on it actually. The status is it’s in progress to be made. How's that?
Jumping into Swagger. What was it about this material that said, I want to do this. I want to be Involved?
GRAZER: Kevin Durant, basically. When Kevin Durant who is one of the best athletes in the world…we saw each other in Sicily of all places. We were on a boat and a friend of mine for lunch, friend of mine's boat. He came on and he was probably a little shy, because that's Kevin or contained, controlled. When he walked out, he said, “Hey, can I get your number and call you?” I said, “absolutely.” Bottom line is he did call me, which I didn't expect. We ended up having lunch. He told me about youth basketball, which I didn't know much about. That was very interesting to me, I didn't realize that youth basketball existed and it's important to being signed as an NBA athlete, really. It's sort of the precursor of all of that.
I always thought it was high school itself, but unfortunately the substitute for high school is now if you're an athlete and playing basketball, it's youth basketball in recreation centers. And that's how Kevin Durant grew up in Maryland, five miles from the US capital in a rough tough neighborhood where he disciplined himself to play eight hours a day, of basketball or as much as he could to excel. So while he was doing that, he told me about the long game. I said, “what does that mean in the long game?” And he said, my mother, single mother was like the most expert guardian of me because what would happen is many of these scouts would come in and watch these kids play, particularly Kevin, and hoping to sign them to a sneaker company. Because the money train exists starts very early in life, 15, 16 years old.
That's basically what our show is. It's about how the money chain begins at that very young age. And in these kids, it's quite difficult for them to try to even navigate what that means. When somebody from one of the great sneaker companies comes and says, “Hey, why don't you come with us?” And it's and it's unregulated.
I said, how did your mom handle it? He said, she played the long game. She didn't let many people meet me. And she was able to very adeptly weed out, who was good, who was bad, who was right and wrong to match up with me. And he said, but I saw other kids unfortunately fall prey to very early on to the short game where just you take the quick money and you go, and it seldom works that way. He had a mom that was very protective that he dearly, loved and trusted. That was extremely helpful to him, which again is part of this show.
When you got it made at Apple, how much is Apple saying to you, “do you have a three season plan? Do you have a five season plan?” before they're willing to let the first season get made?
GRAZER: So Apple is very thorough and precise company. However, in the case of their television shows, I think they're quite intuitive and they've had great success with operating their intuition. They like the show, they like the world, and they agreed to do a season. They wanted to know that we had a vision for second and third and fourth season, but we did, didn't have to go into great detail to jump through many hoops and pitch them. Second year, third year, we just recently pitched them what the second year would look like. I believe they really loved it. Apple is very user friendly to artists. They're quite respectful of artists and there's gigantically successful in other areas. So with this, I think they trust the artists that they pick and they give a lot of freedom to make the show they believe in.
What's interesting is that this has a lot of similarities to Friday Night Lights, which you also did in the way that it pulls back the curtain on what's really going on.
GRAZER: Yeah.
What's bubbling up for you guys at the company in terms of what else are you getting ready to make? What can you tease fans?
GRAZER: What can we tease fans? We make a show called Langdon already. That's the prequel to The Da Vinci Code based on the character that Tom Hanks played. I'm hoping to make a show, really hoping to make a show that I believe will materialize, because I hedge everything, on the north shore of Oahu, because after the movie Blue Crush, which I made around the same time as Friday Night Lights, and 8 Mile.
Blue Crush is a surf show, a women's girl empowerment show, that is really interesting. Today you could make it cinematically quite dynamic where at the time you, we did the best we could to show what the physics of the ocean looked like. Now you can absolutely capture that with all the different types and variety of cameras that are available that have tremendous flexibility to go in and out of the water to follow the wave, to follow the contour of the ocean where waves are built. So we're very excited about this show.
Also, you have drones, you can just throw a drone up there and get a great shot.
GRAZER: Yeah, exactly. This show is different than, Blue Crush. It's more of a family crime drama.