Rudy

by Rudy Ruettiger

  But then something magical happened. Someone else—to this day, no one recalls who it was—said, “Go, go, go!” and Sean Astin led that whole 1975 Notre Dame team out of the tunnel and onto the field. Everyone did just what Paul told them to do, stayed focused, and pretended they were really in the game. The guys from NFL Films were in tune to the whole thing, so used to capturing the action without a script (because, after all, there is nothing predictable about a real-life NFL football game), that they all just rolled cameras as soon as they saw there was some action, and they kept shooting to the best of their own abilities despite the lack of coordination between them.

  Nobody—absolutely nobody—would know whether we got the shots we needed until they developed the film and took a look in the editing room.

  We had auditioned eight or ten different guys to do the kickoff. The ball was supposed to be kicked all the way to the Georgia Tech end zone, and that’s not an easy thing to do. Luckily, we found a guy, and he had nailed it in every single practice. He was one heck of a long-range kicker. There was just one problem: he wore glasses. As he ran out to do the kickoff on this one-and-only shot we had, one of the production assistants on the movie grabbed the glasses right off of his face. “Those aren’t period!” that PA told him. His glasses were simply too modern for 1975.

  This poor guy didn’t know what to do, so he just ran out there and tried to kick the ball—a ball that was nothing but a blur to him! Well, he totally miffed it. The ball only flew about twenty feet. Luckily, it didn’t matter. With all of those NFL Films cameras going, they followed the rest of the team, and those guys ran the play as if the ball flew all the way to the end zone. So despite not seeing the ball fly through the air, the whole thing would look fine on film. Phew!

  Next thing we knew, our fake Notre Dame and Georgia Tech teams were lined up and running the two plays they had practiced. The guys running the clock nailed it. The crowd nailed it. And with seconds to go, Sean Astin nailed it—soaring through the air and sacking that Georgia Tech quarterback with all the gusto I did back in 1975. It was awesome! It was like leaving my own body and watching myself through the lens of history. It’s hard to even describe that feeling.

  That’s when his teammates gathered around him and hoisted him right up onto their shoulders. Sean raised his hands with all the glory of a real winner, basking in the roar of that massive crowd, in that magical stadium, as he gazed over the North Wall to the magnificence of Touchdown Jesus—and the cameras captured it all.

  The dance was complete.

  Six minutes. Six minutes to capture the entire climax of this movie.

  And we did it. First time out.

  Good thing too: the following weekend, when Notre Dame played Penn State, South Bend got hit with a blizzard. There was a foot of snow on the ground. If we had waited to shoot, or if we had flubbed it up the first time, none of the shots would have matched the snow-free close-ups and plays we had shot in different locations around town in the weeks prior. In other words: the film never could have come together. The whole thing might have died right there, or at best been cobbled together in a way that would have sent it straight to video instead of straight into the multiplexes.

  I could hardly believe our good fortune. It was hard to count the number of little miracles that happened in order for that film, even that one final scene, to come together.

  The whole thing felt blessed.

  Before the shoot was over, Jon Favreau made a big point of coming over and thanking me. “Thank you, Rudy,” he said, shaking my hand, serious and sincere. I thought that was very cool of him. I thanked him too. I was glad he could be a part of the movie. Both he and Vince Vaughn were great to work with and great on screen. Perfect, actually. I couldn’t imagine anyone else in those parts.

  Saying good-bye to everyone at the end of that shoot was tough. We all bonded so much that it felt like we were roommates, classmates, and teammates in every way. It was emotional, especially with David and Angelo. I couldn’t thank those guys enough for what they had done. And they thanked me too. Just like Jon. I gave major props to producer Cary Woods, a USC guy who fought the good fight for us, and of course, Rob Fried as well. The movie never would have been made if it wasn’t for Fried’s perseverance. He is a great businessman, a Cornell graduate, and I knew exactly where I stood with Rob, always. He is very sincere with a great big heart, and he knew there were big lessons that could be learned from sports, big messages that could be delivered through a film like Rudy. I truly would never be able to thank him enough for getting my movie off the ground and seeing it through.

  Once everyone left town, the emotional release of sleeping in, of not making those 4:00 a.m. set calls, of not worrying about what obstacle we’d have to overcome in any given hour, was a lot for me to take. Plus, I had spent the last decade talking to people about this dream of making a movie, and that dream came true! Like anyone, you find yourself riding on adrenaline through intense high points in life. When they’re done, it takes a while to settle down.

  The thing is, I didn’t want to settle down. I wanted to hold on to that feeling. I wanted to hold on to that inspiration and passion for the rest of my life.

  So that was that. My film was a wrap. I would follow it closely through the editing process, watching the film come to life scene by scene whenever I could, especially as the music was added. That orchestral score by Jerry Goldsmith was so powerful. I still hear that music played at sporting events and all kinds of emotional ceremonies all the time. It gives people chills!

  I watched as the TriStar team put together promotional items and started getting ready to do press, and they asked me to make myself available for TV interviews to help promote this thing. But basically, the film was made; it was set for release in October 1993, and it was done. I had accomplished yet another seemingly unattainable, incredible, awesome dream in my life. I knew that once that film hit theaters—the equivalent of a final game or graduation day—I very well could have gone back to repeating the same old pattern in my life: asking myself, “What now?”

  That was a pattern I didn’t want to repeat, and this time, I was ready. This time, with the help of a friend or two and a little forethought, I was prepared.

  What now?

  The answer was, “What not now?”

  I knew how powerful this film was going to be. We all knew it while we were shooting it. You could feel it. The energy was radiant. Plus, I knew how much press I was doing. The media world was very interested in this little movie with a big heart, and in learning the real-life story behind the tale. So even though the up-front money I should have made from that film went walking out the door before the shoot even started, I knew that a whole slew of entirely new doors were about to open for me, and that I had to be ready to walk through each and every one of them.

  For the first time in my life, I prepared myself for what would happen after the dream came true. I prepared myself for the future. And that would make all the difference.

  Part IV

  Dream Bigger

  17

  Red Carpets and White Gloves

  A lot of films are lucky to have one or two red-carpet world premieres.

  Rudy had four of ’em.

  First, it was selected as the closing film of the Toronto Film Festival. I put on a suit and tie and walked down the red carpet that September in Canada, answering all kinds of questions from entertainment reporters from all over the world. I stood there alongside Angelo and David, Rob Fried, and Sean Astin, and we basked in all of that applause. In some ways, the whole thing is just a blur to me. I’d never experienced anything quite like it. It’s a strange feeling to walk into a giant, ornate theater like Toronto’s El Capitan, knowing a couple thousand film buffs were about to sit and watch a film based on your life for the very first time. What if they hate it? In my heart I knew they wouldn’t. I had seen it already. I knew what we had. The film moved me to tears. It was everything I ever dreamed it could be. More than I
dreamed it could be. But you can’t help but have those doubts. It didn’t help any that once we took our reserved seats, right down in the middle of the front section, we noticed that Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were sitting in the row right in front of us. Movie critics don’t seem to have quite as much sway today as they did back then, but in 1993, the “two thumbs up” or “two thumbs down” from Siskel & Ebert on their weekly TV show could make or break your movie! It was big. I couldn’t help but be a little nervous.

  On a side note, Dennis Hopper was in the audience, sitting right in front of me, for that Toronto premier. He just happened to be in town and came to check out our movie. He turned around to me after it ended and said, “Boy, you’ve got a hit!”

  Of course, that whole audience loved Rudy. It was a huge hit. There were tears all around. The applause at the end seemed to go on forever. I had goose bumps.

  The same sort of reaction happened at the next three premieres as well. Los Angeles was the biggie, of course, where all the big US press outlets are based. Then we had two full-blown premieres for the film’s hometown crowds: one for Notre Dame, at the very same movie theater in South Bend where I had seen Rocky back in 1976; and another in downtown Joliet, at the grand old Rialto theater where I had gone to movies as an escape while I was growing up in that rough-and-tumble town.

  The Joliet premiere was held the last week of September, and when I got up on stage at the old Rialto to speak to the audience before the start of the film, I said, “There are really only two heroes to this story. That’s my mom and my dad.”

  They stood up on that stage with me, and the audience gave ’em a big round of applause. That’s a magical feeling. I wish everyone could get a chance to do that sort of thing for their parents. In my case, it truly was my parents who stood by me, who put up with me, who raised me in a way that would give me the strength to pursue everything I pursued in life. I wanted them to have all the glory that night. After all, this was their hometown. I had moved on. But this was where they lived and worked and had grown up and raised their fourteen kids. To get that applause from that audience had deep, deep meaning to them.

  Of course, the glory wouldn’t stay focused on them. No matter how hard I tried to deflect it, there was a whole bunch of attention paid to me, which was certainly a turnaround considering how a lot of people in Joliet treated me when I was growing up. The mayor even declared it “Rudy Ruettiger Week,” and they read a whole proclamation after the film was over, pointing out that the movie would serve as “an inspiration to the youth of America.” That was a pretty cool thing to hear, and I sure hoped it would be true.

  I then got up and spoke a little bit more.

  “It is an honor to bring a motion picture to Joliet, because when I was growing up, going to the Rialto, sneaking in to watch The Ten Commandments”—that line got a good laugh—“I never thought I would see the day that Angelo Pizzo would write my story. He hated Notre Dame and didn’t want to do another sports story about Indiana because he had already done Hoosiers, which was a great success. You guys remember Hoosiers?” The audience applauded at that too. Angelo and David were both present, and they each took a bow. We all made the rounds to these various premieres as a team. The whole thing was such a team effort. It was fun to reconnect with those guys and to spend time together again, really enjoying the fruits of our labor.

  I tried to introduce the real D-Bob that night. He had gathered back at the house with my whole family and ridden over in one of the limos we rented for the big occasion. But by the time I introduced him, he had already left the theater. Typical! He and I would be good buddies forever, and by then, we both certainly knew that. The thing was, he had dreams of being a comedian, and seeing my Hollywood dreams come true had sent him on a brand-new path in his own life. He had gone on the road doing stand-up, and found a niche as the guy who opens up on national tours for famous comedic hypnotists, those guys who get audience members to do silly, embarrassing things in front of their friends. I was real proud of him for that. Of course, I always say he’s funnier just being himself than he is telling jokes. I wish he’d go off the cuff rather than write stuff down! But we always give each other guff about everything, and neither one of us will ever really change. I love the guy. I really wished he had stuck around to come up and take a bow.

  Then I got the chance to introduce Sean Astin, and Sean got up and spoke, wearing a bright red sport jacket: “It seems to me that the more I’m involved in this movie, big institutions and families and schools and universities keep welcoming me into their homes and into their hearts. I appreciate you for letting me come and be in this wonderful, wonderful theater. We’re obviously very proud of the movie, and we appreciate your support coming out here today. Hopefully we can get everybody else to go out there and, you know, fight for the Irish.”

  That got big applause. He was so humble in his whole presentation; the audience just ate it up. What Sean was talking about there, what he was busy finding out, what we were all finding out, is just how much this film was being embraced. It was more than just entertainment. There was something to this whole thing. There was something to the message. That feeling we all had about the power of the story, the inspiration behind it, was real. And it would only become more real as the film continued to roll out, with a preview audience screening in New York City, the opening slot in the Chicago Film Festival on October 8, and the wide opening, in theaters all across America, on October 13, 1993.

  The press was astounding. I remember Connie Chung introducing a segment on CBS that included interviews with me and Ara Parseghian, and basically teed up the whole story by calling me a great underdog, like Rocky, except for the fact that Rudy was real. It was six or seven minutes long, which is really long for a TV news segment. That was awesome! And it was just one of many. I wound up going to New York City to sit for an interview with Charles Gibson on ABC’s Good Morning America more than a week after the opening. I did Montel Williams’s show. Regis Philbin, a fellow Notre Dame alumnus, went on and on about the movie. We all know how fast the world moves. The film continuing to get prime press attention weeks after it opened showed what a phenomenon it was becoming.

  It was great to see other Notre Dame heroes talking about the movie too. Dan Devine was on one show where he was quoted saying, “Teams can’t exist without people like Rudy.” Joe Montana, who was a freshman when I was a senior, and who of course became one of the most famous quarterbacks in the world through the 1980s, showed up in an interview on another show describing the moment when I sacked the quarterback in 1975, saying, “All the guys just went crazy on the sidelines. It was like we had won the national championship almost. That’s how excited everybody was for him.”

  I barely knew Montana, so it was great to hear him share that kind of enthusiastic memory of my moment. The whole thing just grew and grew, and the phenomenon never stopped. Rudy only grew more popular as it went to video and started showing up on cable in regular rotation.

  The fact is, I knew we were on to something big in those first few days. Really big. And the biggest realization of all came to me just two days after Rudy’s nationwide release.

  There I was: October 15, 1993. My hands were stuffed in my pockets against a cool fall breeze as the sun dropped down and gold leaves shimmied across the sidewalks of our nation’s capital. I could see the tip of the Washington Monument over the treetops as I hurried along the perimeter of the black wrought-iron fence.

  For some reason, it never occurred to me just how big a deal this was.

  I was about to screen my film for the president of the United States. Okay, it’s a big deal to meet the president. I understood that. But I hadn’t gotten here from nowhere. I got here one step at a time, the same way I managed to get to every accomplishment in my life. It had been a long road! I had already been through all of those big red-carpet premieres. I had welcomed Julia Roberts in my condo back in the day. I had worked with the best writer-director team in Hollywood. This
is what my life was now. So as I left the hotel that late afternoon, this thing that I was about to do didn’t feel far-fetched or unreal to me. It just felt sort of natural. Like one more step along the path.

  The reason the screening came about was pretty straightforward: California senator Barbara Boxer’s daughter, Nicole, had worked as an assistant on the Rudy set when we shot the film in the fall of 1992. She was there firsthand to see my story unfold, and she felt that the inspirational message of the movie might be something her mom would enjoy. She was right. So her mom, the senator, like any proud mom with those kind of connections might, made the arrangements to screen the film for the president and first lady—and lo and behold, they invited me to come along.

  The White House held a dinner first, but I couldn’t make it. I had a prior commitment that day, and I was running so late I didn’t even have time to put on a tie. I just threw on a white shirt and a blazer and left the hotel with a few minutes to spare, thinking it would be fine. It only occurred to me that this might be a bigger deal than I anticipated when a Secret Service agent at the East Gate handed me a laminated pass to clip on my lapel.

  “What’s the A stand for?” I asked him.

  “All-access,” he said.

  I gave him a funny look.

  “You’re allowed to go anywhere on the grounds or inside that you choose. Just make sure that pass is visible at all times.”

  An all-access pass? To the White House?

  A United States marine in full dress, white gloves and all, opened the door for me as I approached the building. Inside, an assistant greeted me right away with a big handshake and “welcome.” They ushered me down a magnificent hallway toward the Blue Room, where they said everyone was gathering before the film.