Matt Smith: After you got the phone call for the movie, did you work on your b-ball game?

Mehcad Brooks: ...the game was a little rusty.

Al Shearer: I hadn't touched a ball in 12 years. Now—I can play. I played in high school and ran track so I can play, I just hadn't played in 12 years. So when I got the call, I was like, "tomorrow morning, basketball court." I got a ball, got a bottle of water, gonna have to stretch out a little bit, gonna run the lines, do some lay-ups and do some jump shots. I ran two feet and was like "whew [out of breath noises]." I called my girl at that time and was like, "Yeah, bring me eight more bottles of water, I'ma be (sic) out here all night." She said "What's wrong?" I was like, "I can't breathe." It was craziness. (Everyone laughs.)

Fellow interviewer: Were the [basketball] plays scripted? If they were, did this present any problems for you all?

MB: Well, ours was about 50-50 in that we had a bunch of set plays that had to be executed correctly, very 1960's Jerry West style. But, we also had a lot of free play, and a lot of that free play made it into the movie. So it's kind of like we got to be ourselves a lot, and that sometimes you see a little inkling of 2004 in there, a little bit, because you can't show a whole basketball film to kids with chest passes and bounce passes, and you can't even be accurate to the [Texas Western] Miners, because the Miners were actually one of the first teams that was accepted in doing flashy moves. Haskins understood that, okay, I can't get all these guys who are used to playing playground ball and dispel the reason I got them." They're individuals.

Actor Al Shearer as Texas Western's center Nevil Shed

AS: We had a rigorous training camp for two weeks where we were coached by Tim Floyd who had coached underneath Haskins.

MB: He's Diet Don Haskins

AS: Diet Don Haskins. So he trained us for two weeks straight, and made us play that, we went from stylized play to fundamental basketball but ran us nonstop. Run, run, run, run. Run to get your water. If you're walking to get your water, not only did you not get your water, but you have to run back to the line and then start running the line. Lay if off the glass, don't smack it off the glass, and he was just out of control insane, so much so that two days before we started shooting, I broke my foot in practice. Like we just came down, they were like "Take it easy, guys, we start shooting the movie in two days, we've had a crazy camp, it's been really hard.

He [points to Mehcad Brooks] sprained a finger, we had people just... little minor injuries, just cuts and bruises, bumps and bruises... I came down the court, first play, throw it to my man on the wing, gives it back to me in the center, go off the glass, come down on somebody's foot, flip my foot over and break it, and tear a tendon. And it was such a tremendous movie and a tremendous opportunity I wanted to be a part of recreating history and working with these phenomenal guys, Mehcad Brooks, Josh Lucas, Oscar Winner Jon Voight, Derek Luke, that I just had to stay on rock on 'em with a broken foot.

MB: The whole movie, all the basketball scenes you see, everything you see, every scene you see with him he's got a broken foot [points to Al Shearer].

AS: So kids, if you got it, you dream it, believe it, achieve it, you can do it.

M@: When I was on “The Real World”, we were all chosen and put into a social experiment not quite like the real world. You guys kind of went back in time in a lot of ways, and although you may not have experienced racism to the intensity that the original players would have, what was it like to walk into those hotel rooms smeared with blood, what did that do for you as a black man today?

Actor Mehcad Brooks as Texas Western's forward Harry Flournoy Jr.

MB: Well, more so than just those hotel rooms, the entire process of the film, all the racism littered through it, kind of woke me up. Because you know the stories about Civil Rights, but you don't know the day-to-day nitty gritty details.

AS: You actually get a chance to live it. We saw pictures, watched documentaries, and spoke to people who lived during that era, but very seldom do you get a chance to experience, like you said, with that intensity.

MB: And for instance, there's one picture I saw that's burned into my mind forever. It's an older gentleman who's at a march, and he's holding a sign that says "I am a man." And I thought that was kind of strange. Then I started thinking, what kind of world do you live in that you have to remind people that you are a man, a world that does not reciprocate your existence, a world that doesn't appreciate you, or even consider you a taxpaying law-abiding citizen even if you are? It says I'm gonna disrespect you from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep no matter what your character's like. I could not imagine living in a world that lopsided.

M@: In the movie, as a team you all prayed. Is prayer a part of your life in how you prepare professionally and personally?

AS: Prayer? Every day, all day. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the one big man upstairs so I commend Him on every blessing He gives me, day in day out, big ones, small ones, everything.

MB: I was raised with prayer, and I don't pray enough. I pray for... I never really pray for myself, which is, which is the thing. I think it's a day-to-day thing.

Fellow Interviewer: What are some keywords you would share with up-and-coming actors?

AS: Lotta faith in God, faith in yourself, persistence. If you can dream it, you can believe it, you can achieve it. It sounds like a cliché but it's true, dreams do come true. We are out the gate in a Jerry Bruckheimer Disney film.