Jamie Bowman meets the American director behind the new movie, Will
THESE are good times for theatrical Liverpool Football Club fans.
Over at the Royal Court, Anfield supporters can watch Nicky Allt’s You’ll Never Walk Alone, while coming next month to cinemas nationwide is Will, a Boy’s Own adventure based around the legendary 2005 Champions League Final in Istanbul.
Telling the story of 11-year-old Will Brennan, the film depicts the schoolboy’s amazing journey across Europe to watch the game in memory of his dead father. Featuring cameo appearances from players Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher and manager Kenny Dalglish, Will is the debut film from Los Angeles director Ellen Perry, whose experience of working with the Anfield club has left her hopelessly infatuated with the team.
“Football is the greatest sport in the world!” laughs Perry. “I came into it late, but, boy, do I love it now, and the main reason has been the beautiful experience of working with Liverpool Football Club.”
Although the script of Will was written with the Champions League Final in mind, it was a moment of musical inspiration that finally made Perry and co-writer Zack Anderson decide on Liverpool as the team that inspired the young boy’s devotion.
“I was doing some research into LFC in popular culture and I put on the Pink Floyd album, Meddle,” explains Perry.
“The song, Fearless, which features a sample of You’ll Never Walk Alone just hit me and I listened to it over and over and couldn’t sleep. The next day we met Ian Ayre (LFC’s Managing Director) and started talking about how special Liverpool is to people all over the world, and he told us a story about how Pink Floyd had used the song, and it all just clicked.”
Video: trailer for Will
As the American writers began to learn more about Liverpool’s history, it became clear that the cinematic scope that surrounded the 2005 final could be the perfect backdrop for a film that Perry was determined would not be “a typical sports movie”.
“The match at Ataturk Stadium was epic, operatic, impossible but also true.
“The more we learned about it, the more it seemed the perfect setting for, and culmination of, Will’s journey. Emotional, exotic and watched by hundreds of millions worldwide, it was a massive stage on which we wanted to tell an intimate story of one boy’s loss and redemption.”
As well as starring newcomer Perry Eggleton as Will, the film also features British acting legend Bob Hoskins, and Golden Globe-nominated Damian Lewis as Will’s father.
For Lewis, especially, the film was impossible for an LFC fan to turn down: “I’m a Liverpool fan and was drawn to the film for different reasons – one of them being that I’d get to meet Steven Gerrard,” says Lewis.
