But Nolte had misgivings about the role. People magazine had just put him on the cover, declaring him the “Sexiest Man Alive!” Nolte wanted to do more independent films, more serious films. “He had no vanity, and he did not want to be considered a ‘pretty boy,’ as an actor,” Friedkin recalled, “and he was looking for more complex roles.”
Friedkin told Nolte they would be plumbing the depths of the coach’s personality and character. In Friedkin’s mind, the Blue Chips coach was modeled after Bob Knight, the bombastic coach at Indiana University. “It wasn’t going to be the way coaches have been played in the past—you know, usually as the wise father figure,” Friedkin said. “This guy was a deeply troubled man. That’s how I looked at Bobby, and that’s how I looked at this character. He had this overwhelming desire to win at any cost.”
That sealed it; Nolte signed on. To prep for the role, Nolte and Friedkin actually went to Bloomington, Indiana, and shadowed Knight for a few weeks, going to all his practices and games. “I wanted Nick to absorb everything that Bobby did both on the floor and off,” Friedkin said. “[Knight] was an absolute split personality. He could be the greatest, [most] giving man in the world, and he could turn on a dime and be quite caustic and be just brutal to the players.”
Friedkin’s friend Red Auerbach had called Knight and put in a good word. It helped, too, that “Bob was a movie buff,” Friedkin said. “He was a fan of The French Connection.” Friedkin also let Knight read the script, this story of coaches giving prospective recruits enticements like money, cars, and women. “He thought the script was real,” Friedkin said. “Bobby Knight had very strong feelings about that, because he didn’t do that.”
With Blue Chips, Friedkin wanted to make a realistic, true-to-life basketball movie—with basketball that looked real, rather than played by actors. Around Nolte, Friedkin wanted to cast real basketball players and coaches.
For one of the leads, Friedkin wanted Shaquille O’Neal, the muscular big man from LSU, who’d been first overall pick in the 1992 NBA Draft. One day, Friedkin happened to bump into O’Neal at the Four Seasons in LA. This is how Shaq remembered the encounter: “He said, ‘I’m Billy Friedkin,’” Shaq recalled. “And I was like, ‘Oh, shit, The Exorcist? I love you. That’s me and my mom’s favorite movie.’” Friedkin also remembered O’Neal coming over his house around that time and doing a number on his pantry: “Once he ate 32 Wonder Bread-and-swiss-cheese sandwiches. We didn’t have Wonder Bread, and we didn’t have that processed cheese, so we had to go out and buy it, because that’s what he ate.”
Friedkin said Shaq confirmed the movie’s general storyline, too. “We had a scene that I don’t believe we ever shot, of girls being recruited for these guys,” Friedkin recalled. “I remember when we had a casting call, and some very attractive young women showed up, and Shaq said to me, ‘Yo, bro … this is not the kind of women that they used to get for us. The kind of women they used to get were out-and-out hoes.’ And I had some very pretty young women there. And Shaq said, ‘No, no, this isn’t it. These were hoes.’ This was real to those guys. They understood it.” (When I asked Shaq about the script, he said, “It was all true. It never happened to me, but I’ve seen it before.”)
Tim Rohan
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