Day 15

Winnipeg, Manitoba - It's Day 15 in Winnipeg, as we roll into the final day of our third week of production.

Today, we went to suburban Bloomington, Indiana (being played by an inviting little hamlet in Winnipeg) to recreate the Knight home. We were there to shoot a number of scenes between Bobby and Patrick Knight. This was a far cry from the high-intensity Knight seen in Assembly Hall and the locker room. This is not the aggressively contentious Coach from press conferences and IU sidelines. This is The General at home. After the long days of scrimmages and games, this is the reflective Knight.

It is 1985, and Patrick is in high school. He plays guard for his school's hoops squad. According to Feinstein's book, Knight's wife, Nancy, was gone during the basketball season of 1985-'86. She had left to enroll in the Duke weight-loss program. She never returned. It was just Bobby and Patrick in the house. These were quiet moments for this father and son.

Patrick Knight is being played in A SEASON ON THE BRINK by a young actor from Vancouver named James Kirk (yes, that's his real name). He is a gifted and expressive performer. I really enjoyed working with him, creating the moments between a son and his dad. Remember that name. I think we'll be seeing a lot of this talented actor in the future.

In today's scenes, Bobby and Patrick shared a dinner together. We see a compassionate father, who isn't totally comfortable talking about his feelings with his son. They are very close, but not very open. You can tell that Bobby is a caring father, and you see that Patrick is a devoted son.

Patrick is the one person in our story who can hold up a mirror to his father -- albeit a small mirror. Earlier, in the first week of production, we shot a locker room scene after an IU victory. It was following a Saturday night game in January and Coach Knight calls for a team meeting and practice the next afternoon. When the team is too intimidated to tell Knight that the Super Bowl is Sunday evening, it is Patrick who stands up to his Dad and gets him to change the time.

We saw that side to their relationship again in today's work. Screenwriter David Rintels created an intimate scene when Bobby comes home from a tough day at practice. Patrick is in bed and Knight pokes his head in the door. He shares with his son his frustrations and fears about this team and this season. For a fleeting moment we get a glimpse of Knight's vulnerability and his self-awareness. Patrick even confronts his father about his infamous temper. Knight tells Patrick a story about another basketball coach who influenced him and warned him that being a head basketball coach is not a job for someone who wants to make friends. It's a simple little bedtime story, but it gives The General a chance to justify his outbursts to his son (and to us in the audience). He then kisses Patrick on the forehead and says, "Good night."

The scenes with Patrick are some of the favorite moments I have played in this film. One of the goals we set for ourselves, before we started shooting, was to try and find the humanity in Bobby Knight. I think we went a long way towards accomplishing that today.

Past Diaries

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14