Inspired by the life of Deaf UFC Fighter, Matt Hamill From Loveland, Ohio...
Hamill Tells the Story of What it Takes to be a Champion, On and Off the Mat
by Ricky Mulvey
Hamill is a coming of age drama depicting the struggles and successes of what it takes to become a champion. Raised among those with the ability to hear, Matt Hamill later finds himself no less an outsider amidst the Deaf Community. But through sheer determination, he uses his 'perceived' disability as an asset, and becomes not only the first deaf wrestler to win a National Collegiate Championship, but an inspirational force to both hearing and deaf alike.Hamill was born deaf, so his grandfather signed him up for the elementary school wrestling team to raise his self-esteem and help him fit in the hearing world. It worked. In fact, Hamill's career has been so compelling that a production company on the campus of Rochester Institute of Technology is filming a movie about his life.
Hamill, who grew up in Loveland, Ohio, won three NCAA Division III national wrestling championships as a student at RIT. Now he's a professional fighter in the UFC — Ultimate Fighting Championship. Hamill is being portrayed by deaf actor Russell Harvard, who played the role of H.W. Plainview as an adult in the movie There Will be Blood. Susan Gibney (Crossing Jordan) has joined the cast to play Matt's Mother.
Hamill's grandfather, Loveland's legendary Stan McCoy, will be played by Raymond J. Barry (Training Day, Walk Hard, Dead Man Walking).
Loveland legend Matt Hamill is going to Hollywood. Hamill is a college champion wrestler and a UFC fighter with a record 8-2. If you are not familiar with the UFC, it is the most internationally renowned MMA (which stands for mixed martial arts) promotional company in existence. MMA is a combination of kickboxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, and other fighting styles which are used to either knockout or "submit" your opponent. Basically the UFC is to MMA, what the NFL is to football.
A biographical film is in the works about Hamill. I found out more about this movie from its director Oren Kaplan, who has directed internet sensations such as “The Lone Wolf,” “Modern Day Jesus,” and “My Alibi.” Kaplan has worked with the likes of Margaret Cho and Alison Brie (featured in Community and Mad Men.) He has also done promotional work for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Question - When will Loveland be able to see the film?
Kaplan - That’s a great question we would like to know the answer to. We are going to try to get the film in the Tribeca Film Festival (in New York, in May), and we’ll see how that goes. Hopefully we will find a distributor, and will be able to show it in Loveland, even if it’s for just a special short term screening of just a weekend.
Q - How accurate the movie’s portrayal of Matt Hamill’s life?
K - Its incredibly accurate, the entire script is based off of multiple hour interviews that we had with him. While we were shooting Matt and some of the other character inspirations visited the set and they are very excited about the footage. Probably one of the best compliments we got was during Matt’s visit. We were shooting the college national championship wrestling scene. Matt said it felt like he was at the championship again, which is cool because we made the set from scratch.
Q - How is Loveland depicted in the movie?
K - We shot in upstate New York, which is lush, pleasant, and suburban, so we felt it was appropriate. The film will show it as a slower paced town, so whether Loveland really was a slower paced town in the 1980’s… well we took some creative license.
Q - The star of the movie Russell Harvard (who plays Matt Hamill) is deaf, what challenges did you face in directing him?
K - Well working with deaf actors was by far the most interesting part of the whole experience. I had never met a deaf person until a month before I started working on the movie. I had to learn sign language since most of our crew was deaf as well. One of the most powerful tools you have as a director is your voice. When you work with the deaf it’s all through visuals, so there is a lot of running around and displaying through actions of what you want.
A funnier moment we had when directing Russell was when we were filming a scene where Matt was running away. In the shot Russell kept on running when I yelled cut, so we had to send about half our crew down to get him to stop.
Q - Are we going to see Matt’s UFC career?
K - We actually have not shot those scenes. We weave through the movie in all the emotional turning points in a UFC fight of his. The framework of the film is the UFC part of his life, but the story is more about Matt coming out of Loveland trying to figure out who he is, and accepting the fact that he is deaf.
(When shooting in Rochester an unseemly citizen, who has yet to be caught, stole some invaluable costumes used in the movie.)
Q - Tell me about how the theft of the costumes affected the shooting
K - We were working 16-18 hour days so by the time we were finished we were too tired to do anything but sleep. Mostly they stole prom dresses and other high school outfits. I don’t believe we were targeted as movie people, because we were in a very accessible lot. My guess is there is some crack addict in Rochester (laughs) that now owns a bunch of prom dresses.
Q - How did you come upon this story?
K - The writers Eben Kostbar and Joe McKeelheer brought me upon the story. Eben saw the Ultimate Fighter and was very excited. Joe saw it as barbaric, but discovered the awesome people behind it and how they viewed it as a sport. A good example of the relationships from in Mixed Martial Arts is Rich Franklin. He is a guy Matt lost to in the UFC octagon, but will make an appearance in the movie. So Eben sent Matt a message on MySpace and the film took off from there.
Q - The original star was supposed to be Eben Kostbar, why did it change to Russell Harvard?
K - Before Eben and Joe had really been exposed to deaf culture they didn’t realize the mistake they had made, but it was a very quick understanding. Deaf audiences are going to be a major fan base for us and we really want to respect them. We found Russell Harvard who’s amazing deaf or not and I do realize that’s cliché but the guy was in “There Will Be Blood”!
Q - Was this created for drama or fight fans?
K - Well I know deaf fans will be happy and for sure Matt Hamill fans will be satisfied. I think will be an equal mix of wrestling, fight, and drama fans though because there is something in the movie for all of them. The real heart of the movie is Matt Hamill’s story.
Q - What would you like the people of Loveland to know?
K - We appreciate that they have the town that made Matt Hamill. I’ve never been to Loveland, but it sounds awesome from what I have read and heard about it. Plus it’s got a great name!
Q - Are you a Mixed Martial Arts fan yourself?
K - I wasn’t that familiar with it before this project. I think it’s cool that that Matt brings the non-traditional fans to the sport.
Q - When will we get a preview?
K - May 2010.
OREN KAPLANOren Kaplan grew up in Israel and California. After graduating from UCLA with a degree in Computer Science and Engineering, Oren decided to take his technical skills and apply them to the arts. He began self-distributing his short films online, and quickly became a leading director in the world of New Media. He was commissioned to direct the series "Sourced Out" for Turner's SuperDeluxe network. Based on the success of that series, he was asked to direct two additional series for Turner, a series for Comcast's Ziddio website, and another series for Fremantle Media.
After several of his online videos generated millions of views and media attention, Oren was offered a full-time directing position at Disney. His first project was the ABC Family dramedy, 'My Alibi'. At Disney, he won a Telly award for a video he directed for publisher Simon & Schuster and guest-directed a Webby-nominated episode of Take180.com's 'The Juice Box' called 'The Twilight Before Christmas.' His feature film credits include 2nd Unit Directing the Lionsgate film, 'The Hamiltons', and serving as Executive Producer on the philosophical thriller, 'Godspeed'.
