Michael Chiklis cheerfully acknowledges “The Senior” easily ranks as the most demanding role of his four-decades and counting career.
“The Senior” is such a fantastic story if it wasn’t true, who would believe it. At 59, Mike Flynt returned to his Alpine, Texas, college where he didn’t finish senior year, and with that year of eligibility still valid, played on the football team.
Observed Chiklis, 62, “This is a true story — and Mike was right there, sitting off camera while I did it all.
“That’s daunting. Fortunately, I realized he just wanted to be there because he was wide-eyed about the process. He and his wife Eileen (played by Mary Stuart Masterson) ended up being the greatest asset because I could turn to them and use them as a resource.”
“Senior” establishes at the start that Flynt had issues from his bullying, sadistic father’s childhood abuse.
“That’s something he had to confront,” Chiklis said. “The whole thing is about breaking the chain of abuse and revisiting the sins of the father on your own.
“That’s a major theme in the movie but, really, it’s about regret and coming to terms with the fact that you can’t change the past. But you can change the meaning of the past with your actions.
“Mike saw by becoming a player on this team that he could change. He realized, I can’t do this as a coach, because then I’m a father figure. I have to be a player, a peer in order to become like a brother to these guys. As opposed to a coach or a teacher.”
Usually such a physical role would require months of training. “I had just six weeks. That’s from walking off the set of ‘Winning Time,’ where I’m playing an older Red Auerbach, the retired Boston Celtics coach, and then I’m swinging to play a football player.
“I really threw myself at it. This was very, very hard. It’s the best shape I’ve been in since I did ‘The Shield.’
“What I was worried about is because I was 59 when I made this move — that’s the age Michael was when he did come back — that’s not normal. To play college football when you’re 59?
“And let me tell you: Shooting 12 hours a day and football and doing scenes like jumping and trying to make that interception? We shot it like eight times in a row. Man, I gotta tell you, my eyebrows hurt.
“Like everything hurt me.
“It was the recovery that’s really difficult. That first day trying to sit up in bed just everything hurt.
“It was daunting, it really was. But I fought through it, and it got better.”
“The Senior” is in theaters Sept. 19
