Emmy-winning actor Jharrel Jerome and motivational speaker/retired wrestler Anthony Robles went to the mat for one another while working on “Unstoppable,” the inspirational sports-themed drama, now streaming on Amazon Prime, based on Robles’ extraordinary against-all-odds life and career as a three-time All American college wrestler at Arizona State University.
Born with one leg, the determined Robles proved to be a beast on the mat and is one of the nicest guys off it. Jerome certainly felt that way after getting to know Robles on the set.
“Anthony was my body double,” Jerome revealed during an interview last fall in San Francisco before an appearance at October’s Mill Valley Film Festival. “He wasn’t just on the side (saying) ‘hey, tell my story.’ He was hands-on. He taught me how to wrestle. He taught me how to move like him…. Usually, you know, actors are used to this. At least one other guy looks like you on the set. The guy who looked like me (in this case) was the guy I’m actually portraying. It was just special.”
In turn, Robles considered it special to observe Jerome flinging himself fully into the part, not only for the wrestling scenes but the emotional ones.
“He dialed it in and he nailed it,” Robles said during a Zoom interview. “He went for hours learning how to adjust and move around on the crutches the way I do. His dedication to pushing himself to go upstairs, to go up rocks, to maneuver without his hands. All these little details about me, which I spent my whole life learning, and being able to learn them in such a short amount of time. I was just in awe of that.”
Robles detailed his awe-inspiring journey in the memoir, “Unstoppable: From Underdog to Undefeated: How I Became a Champion,” and the bestseller serves as the basis for director William Goldenberg’s rousing debut feature.
“Unstoppable” costars Jennifer Lopez as Robles’ supportive mom Judy and Don Cheadle as his Arizona State Sun Devil wrestling coach Shawn Charles who, at least initially, possessed some doubts about the athlete’s abilities but was happy to be proven wrong.
Since Robles’ mom Judy is such an integral force in his life, she, along with Robles, frequented the set and consulted with both Jerome and Lopez, who excels at playing a loving mother stuck in a toxic relationship with a brutish man (Bobby Cannavale), Robles’ abusive step-father.
To fashion an authentic portrait of Robles, Jerome — who received a BAFTA Rising Star nomination this year — met and hung out with the relatively new dad and athlete who defied odds and skeptics and went on to win a 2011 NCAA National Wrestling Championship — a climatic moment in “Unstoppable” that’ll get you all teary-eyed.
Jerome said he felt a responsibility to embody Robles in every way — athletically, emotionally and physically. Preparation required a barrage of chest presses, deadlifts and weigh-ins to make the 27-year-old star of Boots Riley’s quirky Oakland-set series “I’m a Virgo” Robles-ready.
Having never wrestled before, the actor and singer and basketball lover says the role proved to be his most physically demanding yet. The part called for emulating someone who wrestled in the lean-mean 125-pound weight division.
To get in shape, he trained five days a week for five to six months straight. He would meet with his trainer Jason Walsh at the gym from 9 to 11 a.m. and then hit the mat with Robles and assistant Sun Devil wrestling coach Brian Stith from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., learning the techniques of a new sport.
He also practiced how to move like Robles on crutches and focused on movement and balance in general, tapping the expertise of movement coach Allison Diftler, who is also director Goldenberg’s wife. She showed Jerome how to hop on one leg and how to walk and run on crutches so he could approximate Robles’ daily routine. (One of the film’s most inspiring scenes finds Robles, with hands bleeding, racing up a mountain trail on crutches to prove he had the “right stuff” to his coach, teammates and even himself). Jerome also worked on putting his New York accent on hiatus so he could capture Robles’ Southwest dialect.
The hard work and strict regimen paid off with Jerome packing on muscle mass and, in the process, amassing huge respect for wrestlers and athletes, especially Robles.
“This man has gone through 10-times-harder things,” he said. “And there’s not a production (company) called Amazon paying him money to do it.”
He realized he never would approximate Robles’ physical dominance. “I think it would have taken four more years and for me to take steroids to meet this man exactly where he was.”
He did experience the after-effects from all those vigorous workouts. He also got obsessed with his goals.
“I was sore every day and could barely get out of bed,” Jerome recalls. “I’m in the gym, throwing up at the end of my sessions. I’m getting on the scale and I needed to lose 3 percent body fat, but I gained 1 (percent) instead. So now it’s a mental body dysmorphia problem. I’d look in the mirror and people around me were like, ‘Oh, Jharrel, you’re so in shape. You’re getting there.’ And I’m like, ‘no I’m not even close. I’ve got more work to do.’ It was a mental, a physical and an exhausting process.”
That was all prep work, the main event came right after.
“The last day of training was then followed by the first day of shooting.”
But Jerome’s performance goes beyond the physical and into the emotional, as well as reflecting how major an influence Robles’ mom is the wrestler.
“He wasn’t the one alone doing it,” Jerome said. “His mother was there. So I wanted to show his heart beyond the mat.”
Robles agrees it was of the utmost importance to make his unstoppable mom a major part of the film.
“It was so important to me that her story was also shared in this film, about what she had to wrestle and go through and the pain she dealt with but overcame, ultimately.”
Jerome relates he’s drawn to projects that demand a lot from him and also have something to say.
His first major role put him on the map, playing the 16-year-old Kevin in Barry Jenkins’ Oscar winner “Moonlight.” The performance paved his way for future roles, including an explosive turn in the powerhouse 2019 Netflix miniseries “When They See Us,” from director Ava DuVernay. Jerome received an Emmy for his portrayal of real-life activist Korey Wise, one of five teens of color known as the Central Park Five, all suspects falsely accused of sexually assaulting a white female jogger in Central Park in 1989. He was 21 when he received the honor.
Other roles included voicing Miles Morales in the animated hit “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (he reprises that role for the upcoming “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse”) and the 13-foot-tall Oakland resident Cootie in Oakland filmmaker Riley’s stand-alone comedic series “I’m a Virgo.”
Both Jerome and Robles hope that by watching “Unstoppable,” others will be inspired.
“I don’t think it’s crazy to say the world is at a very fragile place right now,” Jerome said. “It almost feels like this kind of black cloud is over the world, not even over a group of people anymore. It’s kind of over us all. And so I think this is one of those films that you can just take two hours away from the black cloud and remember that you’re not alone in that intense struggle.”
“We all are on a wrestling mat in some shape or form,” he added. “You know, we all have an opponent that we have to face, whether it’s yourself or a job or a vice or something you’re trying to get rid of. And so it’s one of those movies that by the end, hopefully there’s a tear you wipe off your eye and you kind of pick your head up, and dust your shoulders off and go, ‘OK, if Anthony could do it, I sure can do it too.’”
That was a primary goal for Robles, who recalls watching the film with an audience for the first time and experiencing a mix of emotions since it is such a personal story. He noticed how key scenes moved the audience.
“It reminded me why we chose to share our story in the first place,” he said. “Because we wanted to inspire people out there who are wrestling through similar challenges in their life. We’re dealing with obstacles. We’re dealing with pain”, he said.
“We wanted them to know that they too could be unstoppable.”