By Chrissy Iley
Break Point was an unexpected delight. A tennis movie. Yes, a tennis movie. There has never really been one. It deals with 2 brothers – one squeaky clean school teacher brother who get hauled back in to play doubles tennis with his past his prime tennis pro bro who has a temper and attitude problem and likes to drink. A lot.
It is as much about rebuilding the brothers’ relationship as about winning or losing on the court. I laughed and cried hard. Jeremy Sisto plays Jimmy Price, the cracking up tennis player, who has been dumped by his partner and determined to make one last grand slam he decides his brother, Darren played by David Walton, is his last chance. Jeremy who is scarily hot in the flesh is best known for playing Billy Chenowith on Six Feet Under, is also the co-writer and producer. It has been a passion project for a long time.
Jeremy: It has been quite a journey. It took a long time and a lot of hassle. And after 4 years when we got to the set we were pinching ourselves. It was exciting.
Chrissy: Are you a better tennis player then when you started production?
J: Yes. Gene (co-writer Gene Hong) and I started playing tennis casually, many years ago; we weren’t very good. I was paying a lot of money for lessons and I got a lot better but I also hate the game now.
C: You never want to play tennis again?
J: It makes you hate yourself. That kind of frustration is good for the role. This is not just a tennis movie; it is a relationship movie.
C: Would you say your character is based on John McEnroe?
J: Yes in some ways. There are a lot of manners and boundaries to the game that you can’t cross and respect the game because it is an old game and everyone is whispering in the stands because they cant speak. There is a certain amount of handshaking and back patting that if you are not willing to do or don’t feel obligated to then people are shocked, like McEnroe, in his case emotions got the best of him, but in Jimmy’s case it was that he likes to buck the system; when he see’s a boundary he is like ‘oh, I can’t cross that? Well what if I do?’
C: You spend a bit of time trying to hook your brother up with his childhood crush. Did you have a childhood crush?
J: Yes a couple of them. There is one in particular, that I had a brief moment with 10 years ago in NYC I almost connected with her but she was engaged and it did not happen. Some things have to be left pure.
C: How did you choose tennis to be the sport you base your movie around?
J: We love sports movies, dramady sports movies , like Tin Cup. There has never been anything like that in Tennis, perhaps because they were sort of basing it on a singles game and it is too internal. To me that is not comedy, it is more Black Swan.
C: I have a friend who is a tennis coach and he says how you play tennis is how you play life.
J: I think if you play tennis every day you can probably tell some really personal things about a person and how they are in a relationship. For instance in the beginning I don’t think my character values intimacy and companionship. He lives for the moment; he is a frustrating guy to be with, he just exists in the moment. But that changes throughout the story.
C: what was it like to be the writer, producer and actor in Break Point?
J: A big part of producing was trying to get people to get me money to make it. Just thinking about that makes me sweat. The writing of it I definitely had a great partnership. It was challenging for me but it was interesting to see that some of my instincts were right and some were wrong. When I finished I was like “I am never doing this again”. But after a while I thought it was a great experience, I would do it again.
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Watch the trailer for Break Point here;
Break Point is out now.
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