We spoke with actor Patrick Renna leading up to the release of his new sports film You Gotta Believe, which is based on a heartbreaking but inspiring true story of a youth baseball team whose journey to the Little League World Series was ultimately chronicled on ESPN back in 2002. Renna has aged gracefully and still has the youthful air that stole the show in throwback kids’ flicks like The Big Green and The Sandlot, the latter of which remains a classic and still holds up. And Renna recently told us why.
“I think it’s great for this day and age. One of the main plot points is, ‘Get out there and get in a little bit of trouble, you know, not too much trouble,” Renna told MovieWeb. “So I think it’s a good message with all the screens and A.I. and all this stuff taking over the world. I have shown my 7-year-old. My 4-year-old, I think he gets a little confused because, you know, seeing Dad younger, I think it’s a little confusing for him. So it’s not the number-one thing playing in my house; it doesn’t beat Ninja Turtles.”
Renna continued:
“I like to think I was the [
Sandlot
star] James Earl Jones of this movie, kind of the veteran actor coming in. Yeah, it was very full circle. You know, a lot of people ask me about
Sandlot
, my experience on it and what I remember the most. And most of the time, the answer is not necessarily what’s on the screen because I remember filming the movie, and I haven’t seen the movie that much.”
He continued, discussing his love of being on a baseball set, “So to be on a set with nine or 10 kids playing baseball [for You Gotta Believe], that was very nostalgic for me. It was kind of the first time that that’s happened for me, where I’ve been on a baseball set. I’ve done plenty of movies since, but this is sort of the first baseball one.”
Appreciating Greg Kinnear and Mel Gibson
Decades later, Renna has returned to the sports realm of cinema with the Luke Wilson starrer You Gotta Believe, in a fun little role where his league official type of persona is often interacting and butting heads with the main team’s head coach, played by Oscar nominee Greg Kinnear. “It was really cool to see Luke Wilson because we did X-Files years ago, a fun episode together, kind of one of the humorous ones they did. So I hadn’t seen him in a while, and it was great to get reunited with him. And then I’ve always been a huge Greg Kinnear fan; most of my scenes are with him. And he’s just so talented. You know, it’s funny — you work with these actors that have been doing it for a while, and you see why they’re just really good. So that was a very cool experience.”
Looking ahead, Renna is co-starring in yet another baseball-tinged film, coming in October called Monster Summer, which also features Mel Gibson in a key role. “Watching Mel Gibson work, you realize why he is one of the greatest actors that’s ever been,” says Renna. “They do these small things and, you know, it’s just small, internal moments that kind of happen, and when you’re on the other side of that like I was with Greg Kinnear — I worked with him more, I think, than I did Mel Gibson, in You Gotta Believe — it’s just really fun to watch, and you start to learn a bit. But yeah, that was a great experience.” From Well Go USA, You Gotta Believe is now playing in theaters.
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