For the period sports drama The Boys in the Boat, based on the true story of an underdog rowing team that went on to compete in the 1936 Olympics, star Callum Turner and his castmates got in “incredible shape,” as Turner tells Consequence. In fact, the production schedule allowed for the races featured in the George Clooney-directed film to be shot chronologically — meaning that for the final sequence, Turner and the other actors could actually come close to mimicking the Olympic-level achievement of the University of Washington crew.
“The idea which was great, from George and [producer Grant Heslov],” Turner says, “was that at the beginning, we weren’t going to be that good. But give us an extra two months, and we can race — obviously not as well as the professional rowers, but we could give it a go, and at least look like we knew what we were doing.”
Turner, alongside the other seven actors playing the rowing team, trained hard throughout production, and by the time they shot the climatic Olympic race, they were able to actually match the reported rhythm of the original team… for at least a little bit. “The actual boat got to 46 strokes per minute, which was unprecedented in those old wooden boats — and they did it for like five minutes straight,” Turner says. “We did it for probably about a minute or 90 seconds.”
The Boys in the Boat cast might not have been able to beat the original rowing team in a head-to-head race, but even reaching that level is still a remarkable achievement — especially when you consider that, as Turner says, “none of us had ever stepped foot in a boat before in our lives.”
Adds Turner, “It was an up-and-down process. We’re all individuals, but we’re a boat. So sometimes I would learn certain things quicker than the others and vice versa, but really we were going in this direction and then somehow… We don’t even know how it happened. We were just like, wow, we can do this. Reaching 46 strokes per minute in a way that was sustainable — not just in short bursts, but for a sustained period of time — there was this feeling of euphoria, from knowing where we came from. It was a beautiful moment.”
Turner’s preparation for The Boys in the Boat extended well beyond just rowing, as he was playing a real-life figure with a complex backstory. What helped Turner unlock his understanding of Joe Rantz was “the pain that Joe had to go through as a young boy.” Rantz’s entire childhood was a traumatic one, as Turner recounts, from “being put into the workhouse to earn his keep at eight years old” to being abandoned by his father and stepmother at the age of 13.
“The idea of that happening to anyone is unbelievably distressing,” Turner says. “And I think it was that moment in his life where he decided, ‘I’m not going to let this define me. I’m stepping up and I’m going to be responsible for what I do in my life.’ And that’s just inspiring, at 13 years old. I’m so inspired by his story.”
Initially, Turner didn’t know much about the Great Depression, at least as seen from an American perspective, because it’s “a moment in time that’s not really taught in England.” However, while researching the era, he became particularly invested in the period’s music.
“The music was amazing,” he says. “I really dived into Woody Guthrie — played ‘This Land Is Your Land’ every morning on repeat, just to get into the essence and get into the idea. [Guthrie] was moving all the time, as he devoted his whole life to just cruising and playing music and spreading his message. That was something that resonated with me for Joe — you know, what it’s like to be a man in those days. And how they didn’t express themselves and didn’t convey their emotion.”
Along similar lines, Turner also looked at one of the era’s stars, Gary Cooper, for inspiration — in part, as he says, because “High Noon is one of my favorite movies, so it was a nice excuse just to watch it over and over, diving into that.”
As he continues, “that’s the lucky thing with our job — the beautiful thing is that we can go into these moments in time or subculture or genre and really explore it. When I did Green Room, for instance, I didn’t know anything about the straight-edge punk scene, and Bad Brains became one of my favorite bands.”
However, one issue that Turner faced was timing — he started working on The Boys in the Boat just after wrapping production on Masters of the Air, the upcoming Apple TV+ World War II series. For his role as Major John Egan, Turner had enjoyed exploring the real-life figure’s Irish heritage, which meant “a lot of singing and dancing and drinking and eating terrible food that I enjoyed — which, when then you’re going to go and play a rower in a month’s time, was not great preparation.” Turner laughs. “I remember my friend looked at me at Christmas and he was like, ‘Oh my God, you could go one or two ways here’ as I put the rowing machine together in my house.”
The Boys in the Boat (MGM)
Turner says that he hasn’t had much interest in continuing to row, since production wrapped: “I got rid of my erg in the house and when I would see an erg in the gym, I would just think, ‘I’m not doing that.'”
The reason isn’t burnout, it’s that he’d be rowing on his own. “The experience was so special and wonderful — because I did it with these guys, and that’s what this movie is about. It’s about this togetherness and this team and this unity. And I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else, for sure.”
So, if the cast was interested in a little rowing reunion, he’d “absolutely” be on board. “That would be a beautiful thing. Although…” He laughs. “You kind of need George Clooney with a megaphone alongside you in a speedboat, going ‘Faster, faster.'”
For now, he has the memory of his last row with his crew, at the end of the production. “There was this silence and you could just hear oars connecting with the metal on the side. And it was beautiful. It was spiritual. It was profound in a way that I didn’t think that I was going to feel.”
Continues Turner, “I read the book in preparation a couple of times and thought, ‘Yeah, I get it. Teamwork. Sure.’ Didn’t realize that I was gonna have the most profound experience ever, especially on a film set with these guys that I’ve fallen in love with and have created this bond with. Because you really have to be together, you know? He says it, at the end of the film — ‘We weren’t eight, we were always one.’ It is just about that boat and that unity and being together and it’s such a wonderful thing.”
The Boys in the Boat row into theaters on December 25th.