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| against the ropes
LADY IN RED
“Boxing is so completely
stripped down. It’s bare
bones, full of very primal
human emotion, which
makes for great drama,”
says Ryan.
“NO ONE COULD FIGURE OUT WHY
A WOMAN WOULD WANT TO BE
AROUND ALL THESE BIG, SWEATY MEN. WHAT I WAS DOING WASN’T WHAT WAS EXPECTED FROM A WHITE JEWISH WOMAN FROM THE SUBURBS”
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Challenge it certainly was: the boxing world didn’t exactly welcome this small, determined woman with open arms. “Initially, it was a big problem of perception,” she admits. “The boxing world was - and still is - a bastion of masculinity and chauvinism full of scotch, cigars, tough guys and tough talk. Nobody quite understood why I was hanging around, and most of them never thought I could possibly manage a fighter. They just assumed I was someone’s girlfriend!
“Meanwhile, I was negotiating contracts, hiring sparring partners, looking for trainers, teaching my fighters how to give interviews and writing press kits. I was doing all the things that managers do without anyone believing in me. Needless to say, I didn’t get much respect… until later, that is.
“It took time, but people just got used to me. Eventually, being a woman - being me - became a great asset. People saw how well I handled my fighters and how polite, articulate and well-liked they were. People saw that I was sticking around and had no plans on leaving.”
In the film - directed by actor Charles S Dutton, here making his big-screen debut after a couple of acclaimed outings behind the camera for HBO - Kallen’s story is rather different. As played by Ryan, the character starts out as executive secretary to Irving Abel (Joe Cortese), director of the Cleveland Coliseum. And she ends up finding her place, not as the manager of a stable of fighters, but as the trainer of one championship contender, Luther Shaw (Omar Epps).
“We all knew this was not going to be a biographical film,” says producer Robert W Cort, an 18-year Hollywood veteran whose first producing credit was on Romancing the Stone. “We didn’t want that. What we wanted was to create a dramatisation of Jackie’s experiences that would specifically focus on her relationship with Luther and highlight her astounding accomplishments in the man-eat-man world of boxing.
“Some of the details of Jackie’s life may have been altered, but certainly none of her spirit has been diminished. I think we definitely captured her most distinct quality - unadulterated bravura.”
Jackie meets Luther almost by chance. Her first client is a no-hoper called Devon Greene (Tory Kittles), whose contract is sold to her for a dollar by a disdainful Midwestern promoter called Sam LaRocca (Tony Shalhoub). LaRocca knows Devon will never amount to anything because of his crack habit. But what he doesn’t know is that the guy who collects bad debts for Devon’s dealer really does have the potential to be a champion. And the rest of Against the Ropes focuses on the improbable connection between these two people: Jackie, the woman determined to prove everyone wrong; and Luther, the former street-kid who sells his muscle to the highest bidder.
“The beauty of the relationship between Jackie and Luther is in their conflict,” says director Dutton, “and the beauty of their conflict is that they are both right when it comes to what they want for themselves and, ultimately, for each other. In fact, they both become intoxicated with the idea of fame and fortune, yet their fears, frailties and flaws put their victory – in and out of the ring – in jeopardy.”
“She’s the heart and he’s the soul of Against the Ropes, and they come from two very different worlds,” adds Cort. “Jackie is a beautiful, 30-something Jewish woman from the suburbs. Luther is a handsome, 20-something black man from the streets. She becomes his mentor; he becomes her protégé. And, through it all, they share one of the deepest connections I’ve ever seen between two characters whose backgrounds couldn’t be more different and whose lives couldn’t be more disparate. They come together and form an intense emotional bond, which makes for terrific drama.”
Both actors had to do some serious groundwork before they tackled their roles. Ryan went on a tour of fight sites with Kallen, gradually picking up the dynamics of a world which remains closed to most middle-class moviegoers, let alone most female movie stars.
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