Twenty years later, remembering the film that still makes grown men cry

By Naoko Asano and Shannon Proudfoot

In 1993, a small film about an even smaller athlete hit movie screens. It didn’t burn up any box-office records, but it was destined to be one of the most beloved underdog sports movies of all time. And even better: It was all true. Rudy was filmed at the University of Notre Dame on some of the most hallowed ground in sports, but from the start, the chances of getting the movie made seemed as long as the odds of a “five-foot-nothing” defensive end dressing for the Fighting Irish. But a weird kind of magic pervaded it, and by the time the movie wrapped everyone who worked on the production was head-over-heels in love with it. Twenty years later, they reflect on telling the story of the impossible gridiron dream that came true.

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Cary Woods, producer

There’s a scene in the movie where Rudy comes in and he has his bag, and he’s about to step on the field. And before he steps on the field, he pauses, because it’s holy ground to him. The first time I went to Notre Dame, it was very similar—I had to pause before I could go on the field. It really is that powerful.

David Anspaugh, director

I remember when I was scouting the film, I just thought, “Oh my gosh, they’ve got to let us shoot here.” There’s just no other place to do it—there are other tunnels in other stadiums, but not with Touchdown Jesus behind them. I remember walking in that stadium one night and you could almost feel the ghosts of that place.

Woods David and I were there on one of the pre-movie scouts when the band marched through campus and came in through the tunnel. When they’re done playing, before the team comes out, they’re in the tunnel, and all the music stops except for the drums. It was like some sort of tribal thing. And I said to David, “Oh my God, we’ve gotta start the movie over black, with those drums.” And that’s how it starts.

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GETTING STARTED

Anspaugh Angelo [Pizzo, screenwriter of Rudy] and I have known each other for almost 45 years; we met at Indiana University. One night we’re fantasizing, “Wouldn’t it be great to make movies one day, and if we did, wouldn’t it be great to make a movie about Milan High School and the year they won the state basketball championship?” And, 18 years later, it became Hoosiers.

After Hoosiers, we were working on a project about IndyCar racing. Just as we were about to start pre-production, it got cancelled because Paramount announced they were doing Days of Thunder. It was about that time that we got a phone call from a guy from South Bend.

Angelo Pizzo, screenwriter

Rudy saw Hoosiers, and he made a decision that we were the guys to make his movie. He was living in South Bend, and he found out that one of our good friends had a brother working at some hotel. He ended up calling up the brother, who turned him on to my friend Don Stratigos. Don called and said, “There’s this crazy guy. He has a story for you. It’s actually kinda interesting, just indulge him.” Rudy has an inability to hear the word “no.” So I just let him pitch it. I told him, “I don’t know if it’s a movie or not, but it’s not a movie I would do,” and I gave him the reasons. But Rudy never gave up.

Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger

Angelo didn’t really want to, but Donnie set a meeting up. So I go out to Santa Monica and actually, Angelo didn’t show up for lunch. I thought if I could just get in front of this guy, something good could happen. I walked outside and there’s a mail carrier. I told him why I was out there, that the guy I was supposed to meet lives around here. He said, “I know who you’re talking about. I deliver his mail.” He took me right to his house, and I knocked on the door. Angelo says, “Who is it?” and I said, “It’s Rudy.” He said, “How did you find me?” I said, “Well, never mind, but you’re late for lunch.”

Pizzo After two years of this, David happened to be in an office with a guy named Rob Fried, a producer who had a deal at Columbia. They were talking about sports stories, and David brought up Rudy, and this producer said, “I just had lunch with the president of Columbia Pictures, Frank Price, and he told me that one of the great sorrows of his life was that he never got into Notre Dame. I think we could sell this in a heartbeat.” So David went in and pitched it to Frank Price, and it was the only time I’ve been in an office where they didn’t say, “Thank you, we’ll let you know.” He leaned over the desk and said, “I can’t wait to see this movie.” And of course, I was then stuck.

Anspaugh We never thought for a moment that it was a movie about Notre Dame football. Most of us, whatever we aspire to, we hear from our family or our friends or teachers, “You’re not pretty enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re not athletic enough—you can’t do it.” That’s what we loved about this.

Pizzo I ended up, about a month later, on the campus of Notre Dame, hanging out with Rudy, doing research. I did that for four or five days, but Rudy is so effervescent and ebullient and non-stop that I just found that I needed a break. So I ended up spending another week just trying to get a sense of the atmosphere and uniqueness of that place.

Ruettiger Angelo hung out in South Bend, never took a note, just hung around. Our “chalk talks,” we called it. And Angelo got the feeling of what it was like walking into that locker room for the first time. All the people who played, all the tradition, the lore of Notre Dame—it’s like magic.

Anspaugh Angelo and I had agreed that if Notre Dame said no to us filming, we were not gonna do the movie. There’s only one Notre Dame stadium and there’s only one Grotto and there’s only one Golden Dome. We knew, of course, that the odds were against us because they had not allowed a movie to be shot there for more than 50 years. Knute Rockne, All American [1940] with Ronald Reagan—that was the last film to be shot there.

Pizzo The athletic department was not happy that we were on campus. They’re concerned about any disruptions at all to their football team. And if they were gonna make a football movie, why would it be about some schlub who sits on the end of the bench? They had these iconic players and coaches, their pantheon. Why not make a story about Ara Parseghian or Johnny Lujack, or all these great players. They would probably have been more supportive if we did nothing but glorify one of the greats.

Anspaugh Arnold Beauchamp, who was president [of Notre Dame] at the time, by sheer coincidence was at a dinner party the night before he took the script home to read, and they were showing Hoosiers. He had never seen it before, and he was so impressed. And then he read the script to Rudy and he said, “Well, if there’s going to be a movie shot here, then I’m gonna let these guys do it.”

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CASTING

Anspaugh We met a lot of people for the role of Rudy. Angelo called me up one day and said he had just seen a trailer for Encino Man. I hadn’t seen Sean Astin since The Goonies, maybe. We made an appointment to meet at this restaurant for lunch, and I got there first. It was a large dining room, and I saw Sean walk in the door. He had a white T-shirt and Levis on, and I knew as he walked across the room—I just knew—this is the guy to beat.

Pizzo We felt Sean captured so much of who the real Rudy was. It was amazing how much alike the two of them were. But the studio wasn’t crazy about us using him, because Sean wasn’t a name, and they wanted somebody who was hunky—even though the real Rudy wasn’t. They suggested Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon or Chris O’Donnell. They’re just thinking about who the girls are gonna love.

Sharon Bialy, casting director

It was very important to Angelo and David that we didn’t just have the soul of Rudy Ruettiger but also a physical similarity. Matt Damon gave a great audition, he had a lot of the right qualities, but Rudy is like a little hungry dog. When Sean came in, he resembled Rudy physically and in spirit—that kind of hard-driving, small guy who just doesn’t give up. Sean wasn’t considered a leading man at the time. And it was important that it wasn’t a leading man, because by virtue of a leading man’s good looks and resonance, things come easier to him.

Rick Pagano, casting director

When they were training for the movie Memphis Belle, Sean would call out to the trainer, “Permission to do more push-ups, sir?!” He was this guy who had this irrepressible energy and he just always wanted to do more and more and more. That really seemed to define Rudy.

Anspaugh There was a lot of blood in the hallways of TriStar, but ultimately they allowed us to go with Sean.

Bialy For Fortune, the groundskeeper, Charles S. Dutton had that spiritual quality. I think he elicits immediate empathy, and you believe whatever he says.

Pagano We were looking for someone who was believably working-class and who also had an interesting fatherly quality. We thought about Morgan Freeman and we thought about Sam Jackson, but they were busy. There’s a wonderful toughness to Dutton—he defines “tough love.”

Anspaugh For D-Bob, we had a bunch of actors in L.A. Favreau was the last guy to read that part in Chicago, and he just blew us out of the room. The guy we didn’t cast didn’t do too badly for himself—it was Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Woods It was a very low-budget movie—under $13 million, while studios were doing movies that averaged about $30 million—and it had no stars. So your next issue as a producer is how much would the studio push the movie, how much will they support it? We were doing everything we could.
Notre Dame had a huge game against Michigan. We invited the chairman of the studio and a bunch of the heads of Sony and TriStar to come to that game. We flew them on the Sony jet, and sent Notre Dame backpacks with those seat pads, gloves and hats, and had one put on every seat. They landed at the airfield in South Bend, and were met with a police escort to the game. We arranged it so that they got let off at Notre Dame and they were allowed to come in through the tunnel. They had seats on the 50-yard line and we brought them down to the field after the game. We did everything we could to make sure these guys had the greatest experience of their lives. Rudy was an emotional movie, and we wanted the studio that was making it to get into it.

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SHOOTING AT NOTRE DAME

Anspaugh Basically, Notre Dame was our backlot, except for some of the story that was shot near Gary [Ind.] in the steel mill and Rudy’s high school. Our production offices were on a lake right in the middle of campus.

Lee R. Mayes, executive producer

There was a moment, for me, after we’d been there for a while and I’d gone to a couple of games and stood on the sidelines. Suddenly I was like, “Do our football players look like football players?” It really swept over me. I was nervous about whether we could live up to Notre Dame football.

Anspaugh I wanted the film to have a sense of grounded reality. I didn’t want to over-glamorize it or sentimentalize it, because there was enough of that just naturally in it. It’s so powerful, the imagery combined with the story, that I had to walk a thin line.

Ruettiger It wasn’t weird at all to see my life played out on film, because I took myself out of the deal. I learned to allow the professionals to do their work and not give my input until they asked me. They would say, “Hey, Rudy, did this happen like this?”

Anspaugh One of my favourite scenes in the movie, if not my very favourite, was the scene at the bus stop with Ned Beatty and Sean, when Sean is getting ready to go to Notre Dame—that speech Ned gives to Sean. Just watch Sean listen and react, in his eyes and his body language. I remember when I was shooting it, I just had goosebumps.

Robert Fried, producer

The day we filmed the scene where Rudy is accepted, we were all standing right behind the camera and Sean was sitting on the bench maybe 10 feet away. There’s no dialogue, it’s just him opening a letter. But when David said, “Cut,” I looked around and we were all crying.

Anspaugh For that sequence outside the stadium when Sean is trying to buy a ticket to get into the game, I’d envisioned this crane shot—the final shot to go up and then come up over the lip of the stadium to see the game inside, with Sean the lonely figure walking away, denied entrance. Well, we couldn’t afford a crane, so we rented a forklift. Sean is trying to get a ticket, and he’s walking away dejected. And just as the camera cleared the lip of the stadium, Notre Dame scored a touchdown, so you see the whole stadium jump up and scream. And Sean stopped and looked in toward the stadium to hear that roar, and you see all these hands go up. I mean, you couldn’t plan that.

John Whitmer, Notre Dame trainer

I tried to get out the back door the night they filmed that scene in the training room, and I just wasn’t quick enough. I’m the guy who tells Rudy to put lots of ice on his shoulder and we’ll see him tomorrow. I said, “Well, what do you want me to say?” They said, “Just talk to him like you did when he was here as an athlete.” And I looked at them and I said, “You sure about that? How’s this film going to be rated?” So I had to change my approach.

Anspaugh The thing that really impressed me—and worried me at the same time—was that [Astin] took about 90 percent of the real hits. Especially in that one scene where he gets hit once and then he starts to get up and gets hit again, gets up and gets hit again. That was all Sean.

Pizzo [The jersey scene] was based on a number of seniors [who] were willing to give up their jersey so Rudy could dress. They didn’t go to coach [Dan] Devine, because he was rather imperious and aloof, and it just wouldn’t have been the right thing to do politically for these kids. But a guy who was much more open and warm was Rudy’s coach, the defensive lines coach, coach [Joe] Yonto. And Yonto went to Devine and told him that there were a number of players wanting to give their jersey up so Rudy could dress.

Ruettiger In real life, Pat and the three seniors went to the coaching staff and explained why a guy like Rudy should dress. Well, this is on a Friday, and the dress list is already out—Thursday you find out who’s dressing. And this is the final home game. I wasn’t gonna go to practice, I was just gonna quit. I had a pity party. Anyhow, I went out, and a good thing I did, because after practice, Devine announces there was one more change to the dress list.

Pizzo I took dramatic licence, and I knew that it might cause some sensitivity with coach Devine, and I called him and told him. I said, “I know this didn’t happen exactly the way I’m laying it out here dramatically, but it captures the spirit of the truth.” And he said, “Well, that’s fine.” And then when the movie came out, apparently his family was very upset that he looked like a disconnected, aloof, resistant hardass. There was a big article after the movie about how he was complaining about that scene, how it never happened.

Jay Achterhoff, Notre Dame defensive lineman
The movie came across more like a documentary than a movie. It was just like flashbacks. I was worried that the movie was going to depict this guy who tried real hard, made the Notre Dame football team and overcame his lack of athletic ability or whatever. [Ruettiger] was the first person to admit that there weren’t a whole lot of people on that football field that he could stand toe-to-toe with.

Anspaugh I’ve always said off the top of my head that 80 to 85 percent of the scenes in that movie are based on actual events.

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HALFTIME SHOOTING

Woods We needed somebody to coach the football players, who were all different from the actors—a football wrangler. I had a friend who knew a guy called A.C. Cowlings. He later became famous, sadly, for driving the white Bronco for O.J. Simpson.

Mayes We were going to film at halftime of a game. This was critical for the final moment of the film—we needed to have Rudy being carried off in front of 66,000 fans. [But] halftime was committed to other activities. So the Notre Dame band, out of nowhere, volunteered their five and a half minutes on the field for us to go out and run some plays. They probably have four home games in the course of a season, so to give up one of them was extraordinarily generous.

Chelcie Ross, actor who played coach Devine

One brilliant thing they did was to hire NFL Films to shoot that footage at halftime, in addition to our camera people. I think there were 12 cameras rolling.

Mayes When you actually got out onto the field, into the huddle and that kind of thing, it had a whole different feel. It seemed awkward. We’re so used to seeing it covered on TV, so that’s what we opted for and of course they were the guys who could give us what we needed.

Anspaugh We had two home games to shoot this sequence—a Boston College game and then Penn State. We figured if we didn’t get all we needed the first time around, we had a second shot. So for about two weeks prior to that Boston College game, after we would finish shooting, we would go to this practice field and we’d get the Georgia Tech team and the Notre Dame team. We rehearsed it, literally down to the split second. It was like a Rockette routine.

Mayes We passed out a brochure at game time so everybody knew there was going to be filming at halftime. The first assistant director Michael Waxman had one of those microphone systems that hooked up to the PA system, like the referees used. He was going to step out on the edge of the field and give the crowd a clue as to what we were doing and what we’d like of them. So we have our Notre Dame team gathered in the tunnel, and we’re at the opposite end of the field.

Anspaugh But the connection didn’t work—the AD couldn’t explain to people what we were doing. I said, “How long will it take you to get to the press box?” He said, “Five minutes.” I said, “Not enough time. Let’s just go with it and see what happens.”

Mayes We just told all the cameramen on walkie-talkie to turn on their cameras and we called to the tunnel and said, “Bring out Notre Dame.” Our team rushed out onto the field and the crowd went crazy. It was extraordinary. They were sitting there in anticipation, and there’s 66,000 people there and probably all of ’em are Notre Dame fans.

Ross The team’s in the tunnel, and David says, “Okay, Chelc, as soon as you see the cheerleaders go, just try to stay behind them.” [When] they come roaring out of the tunnel, you may note that there’s a gap of ten yards or so between those happy, healthy young cheerleaders and Mr. Ross and the Notre Dame football squad. We were waiting for them to get the signal, and Sean Astin slapped me on the back and said, “Go get ’em coach!” I said, “Okay man,” and I slapped him on the shoulder pads. And I turned back around and the cheerleaders were gone. So we ran as fast as we could to get out there.

Mayes Later, there’s a moment where the coach is supposed to put Rudy in the game. So we’re all lined up for the kickoff, and the coach is pacing the sidelines, and he’s not putting Rudy in. In the process, he focuses the attention of every person in that stadium. It was just absolutely silent and everybody was watching him.

Anspaugh When we cued our period cheerleaders and the players to start turning around and getting the crowd to chant “Rudy!” the student body already knew it, so they started chanting. But the rest of the stadium didn’t know what the hell was going on—just like what happened on the real day. It started on the bench, and then it went to the student body, and then it started spreading around the stadium, until the whole stadium was chanting, “Rudy!”

Mayes And then the coach walks away from Rudy and turns back, just looks over his shoulder and flicks his finger to indicate Rudy should go on. And he runs out there and the crowd goes crazy again.

Pizzo That was easy to write, because that’s all documented. We actually have game film of him going out there and doing what he did. If you look at the film, it’s an exact recreation of what happened.

Mayes Of course, the money moment was Rudy being carried off the field in front of 66,000 people. He tackles the guy, he jumps up, the team rushes out and celebrates, and he’s lifted up and carried off the field—that was all continuous action. It was almost documentary, except we knew where to place the cameras to get the best perspective.

Ross The real football team I don’t think was really excited about us being out there. We were late getting off the field, chased by assistant coaches, yelling at us, “Get outta here! We’ve got a game to play! This is on national television!”

Anspaugh Thank goodness it worked, because on the day of the Penn State game, there was a snowstorm. We had all our teams dressed, ready to do it again, with new camera angles and everything, but we had to scrub it because none of the footage would have matched.

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LEGACY

Mayes It’s such a sweet movie. I thought, “Ah, how is this gonna come across?” It was this extraordinarily earnest film. What they succeeded in doing was incredible, given that it could have been just too Hallmark.

Ruettiger I remember sitting at the Toronto International Film Festival—1,500 people, a beautiful old theatre, and right in front of me are Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. They don’t know I’m right in back of them. And when they liked the movie and they started talking to each other and said they liked it, it was like, “Oh wow, this is cool.”

Woods My assistant on the movie was a girl called Nicole Boxer. Nicole goes back to Washington, D.C., and marries Hillary Clinton’s brother, so she became a part of the White House family. Bill Clinton is a huge college football fan, an Arkansas Razorbacks guy. He asked if we could have a screening in the White House. We come out afterward and me, Rudy, my wife at the time, a couple of other guys are talking to the president. And he’s going on and on—he was a little bit teary-eyed. He says, “You know what? This movie really had an effect on me, because I have been an underdog my entire political career.” And Rudy looks up at him—Clinton’s about six-foot-three, Rudy is five-foot-six—and he says to him, “Mr. President, you are a very impressive individual.” He says this to the most powerful man in the world! It was such a Rudy moment.

Anspaugh I can’t think of any details I would change. I really mean that. I’ve been doing this for 30 years, but I’ve never enjoyed myself more than I did making this film.

Woods I was just so proud to have anything to do with that movie. There wasn’t a false note in it. You’re lucky if you have one of those in your life.

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THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW…

Fact No.1

For legal reasons, the filmmakers couldn’t use the names of real players in their game scenes, so the players wear the names of crew members on their jerseys.

Fact No.2

When they filmed at halftime, the filmmakers swarmed the field with about 220 people: two full Notre Dame and Georgia Tech teams dressed in vintage uniforms, plus coaches, cheerleaders, crew members and cameramen.

Fact No.3

Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn met and became friends on the set of Rudy. Three years later, they made Swingers together.

Fact No.4

In the final scene, the player who was to kick off was a high school football star, but he was wearing glasses that were from the wrong time period. The crew made him take them off and, unable to see the ball properly, he flubbed the kick.

Fact No.5

One of the few inaccuracies is the scene where Rudy walks across campus on his first morning and sees the Golden Dome and then the stadium right in front of him; the stadium is actually halfway across campus.

Fact No.6

The movie captures Notre Dame Stadium and the locker rooms frozen in time as they were when Rudy played there— everything was renovated a few years after they filmed.

Fact No.7

Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger has a cameo in the film— in the final stadium scene, he’s the man in a hat and fur-collared coat behind Ned Beatty, who plays his father.

Fact No.8

The real Rudy was five-foot-six and weighed 165 pounds when he played for Notre Dame. He regularly faced off against 300-pound offensive linemen.

Fact No.9

In real life, Rudy spent time in the U.S. Navy before going to college. He also competed in the Bengal Bouts, an amateur boxing tournament at Notre Dame.

Fact No.10

The character Fortune, played by Charles S. Dutton, is a composite. According to screenwriter Angelo Pizzo, “there was a groundskeeper who befriended [Rudy] and accepted him. And there was a janitor who let him sleep in the janitor’s room in the basketball arena.”

Fact No.11

According to Rudy’s real-life teammate Jay Achterhoff, “there was a lot of animosity [toward Rudy] because there were a lot of four-year scholarship players who never set foot on the field.”

Fact No.12

Coach Devine’s on-field speech was ad-libbed. “No excuses, do the work” is actor Chelcie Ross’s own personal motto.

Fact No.13

Sean Astin, Charles S. Dutton and Chelcie Ross reunited in 2007 to film a Rudy-parody episode of the TV show My Name is Earl.