Callum Turner admits that 'The Boys in the Boat' cast were "awful" at rowing to begin with.
Callum Turner found rowing hard on The Boys in the Boat
The 33-year-old actor plays the legendary rower Joe Rantz in the film that tells the true story of the University of Washington rowing team that won gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, but a lack of experience on the water left the stars red-faced in front of director George Clooney and producer Grant Heslov during the early stages of production.
Callum told The Hollywood Reporter at the flick's Los Angeles premiere on Monday (11.12.23): "George and Grant came down to watch us row and we were so excited, so proud, 'Let's show them what we've got, show them what we've done.'
"And we were awful, and I could see behind the smile and the thumbs up, the pain and the fear in George's soul."
Heslov also recalled the long road it took to get the actors to row as required.
He said: "After the third week, George and I went to go watch them and they were terrible. And we were like, 'Oh, we really screwed up.'
"But they kept working and working and finally they got it."
Callum explained how the cast set a target of 46 strokes per minute to match the real-life team and they were eventually able to reach it.
The 'Fantastic Beasts' star explained: "The more we went forward with our training and our evolution, the further it felt that we would reach it.
"And then the second-to-last day we were filming and we reached it and we couldn't believe it. We were shocked, no one spoke for hours."
Tagged in George Clooney