‘Winning Time’ Team on Portraying Iconic Lakers and Awaiting Magic Johnson’s Reaction (original) (raw)

Winning Time officially kicked off in Los Angeles on Wednesday, with the 1980s-set Lakers drama taking over downtown’s Ace Theatre for the HBO drama’s world premiere.

The show stars John C. Reilly as team owner Dr. Jerry Buss and follows the franchise’s rapid rise after drafting Magic Johnson, teaming him up with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the heavy dose of glitz and glamour that came with that success.

Executive producer Adam McKay asked Reilly to play the role just days before filming after Michael Shannon dropped out last minute. Turning up to set with very little prep, “I was really lucky that I look enough like the guy that with a little bit of help from hair and makeup I could pretty quickly get dialed into what he looked like, so I was halfway there with that,” Reilly told The Hollywood Reporter on the premiere’s purple carpet.

“And then it was Adam McKay, who I’d worked with before in a really improvisational way, so I knew, ‘Well, this is going to have to be improvisational because I have seven days before we start shooting,'” he continued.

Cut to the onset of the pandemic, which then delayed production for months and gave Reilly the proper time to research, though Buss did few interviews and did not write a book like many others of that era.

“There was a lot of blanks to fill in and I tried to do that with empathy and heart and really projecting myself into what that must have felt like,” Reilly said. “Yes, he had ups and downs, and we don’t sugarcoat the downs and less attractive parts of his life, but at the same time, it’s a real love letter to the guy. I had nothing but admiration for him at the end of this and it was a real honor.”

Reilly added that he feels like “I’m getting to play the equivalent of Walt Disney or something, someone who built the town in a lot of ways. That’s a big responsibility, and I hope people like it, honestly, because I put my whole heart into it.”

Those who may not like it include the real-life subjects who were not consulted or involved in the show’s development. Johnson has previously said he was “not looking forward to it,” and Abdul-Jabbar (a longtime THR contributor) has said, “the story of the Showtime Lakers is best told by those who actually lived through it.”

“We wanted to have a perspective that was objective, and there was always this thought that if you go to one person it becomes their story,” said co-creator Jim Hecht on the decision to make the show without any Laker input. “I love The Last Dance, love it, but that’s Michael [Jordan]’s story, and this is like who’s story is this? It’s a lot of people’s story and has a different perspective on it. That’s what makes it a good drama because you should root for all of our characters when they’re in competition with each other, when only one can win, and they’re all coming from some place real.”

Added showrunner Max Borenstein, “We’re trying to tell the story of a whole constellation of characters and real people who were involved. We didn’t want to pigeonhole ourselves by focusing on any single perspective. It was really important to us to have that balanced view.”

Newcomers Quincy Isaiah and Solomon Hughes star, respectively, as Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar, after an intensive casting process and heavy basketball training, though both had been athletes prior.

“I played college and a few years of professional ball, so I’ve been in some training camps, and I’ve seen brutal training regimens and this was as brutal as those, for sure,” said Hughes — who has a Ph.D. in higher education and had a gig at Stanford before the show — of the prep.

And though Abdul-Jabbar has been critical of the project, the star hopes “that he sees someone who literally stepped outside their comfort zone in large part because of the great example and great life he’s lived.”

Isaiah, a Michigan native like the superstar he’s portraying, has a similar sentiment about Johnson possibly watching and reacting to the series.

“I just know what we put into it, the respect and the admiration that we have, and I just hope that that comes across,” he said. “It’s about 1979 and a rookie at 20 years old moving from Michigan to L.A. I hope that people understand that and that who we’re talking about in the show isn’t the man he is today.”

The cast, which also includes Adrien Brody, Jason Segel, Jason Clarke, Sally Field and Molly Gordon, is full of L.A. natives and avid NBA fans who hope to do right by the team, including Hecht, who declared, “It’s hard for me to imagine anybody, save like [current owner] Jeanie Buss maybe, who didn’t play on the team who has as much attachment to it as I do.”

And as for his hopes on the reaction, seeing Johnson’s initial comments didn’t get him down.

“I was like Magic Johnson is talking about me, that’s so cool!” Hecht remembered. “I think he’s going to like it. I can’t pin my hopes on that, but there could not be bigger Laker fans than Max and I, and so I hope he gives it a chance; I hope Jeanie does too, but I can’t count on that.”

Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty premieres on HBO on Sunday.