“An Underdog Story We Can All Get Behind”: Joel Edgerton Stars in The Boys in the Boat, a Film for the Times

Joel Edgerton knows well the risks of taking a much-loved book and adapting it for the screen. He was the writer-director of Boy Erased, the screen adaptation of Garrard Conley’s memoir about being sent to a Christian anti-gay conversion camp for teenagers, in which Edgerton also starred alongside Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe.

Next month the adaptation of Trent Dalton’s multi-award-winning book Boy Swallows Universe debuts on Netflix, co-produced by Edgerton. Dalton’s semi-autobiographic work explores the unconventional life of 12-year-old Eli Bell growing up in 1980s Brisbane surrounded by drug dealers, ex-cons and various other colourful characters. The 2018 novel became an international best-seller and has since been turned into a successful theatre production. The focus on the book being successfully adapted to the screen is intense.

“The moment you read a book you’ve seen the characters in your imagination, so making a film is very tricky once a book is well loved because you’ve got that many people going, ‘How are you going to mess this up?’” Edgerton tells Broadsheet with a laugh. “There’s a responsibility to it, but I do believe it’s worth trying.”

Edgerton is about to feature in the screen adaptation of another spectacularly popular book, the number-one New York Times best-seller The Boys in the Boat. Only this time he’s on screen.

Directed and produced by George Clooney, The Boys in the Boat details the true story of the University of Washington’s junior rowing team, who overcame extraordinary financial and societal hurdles to not only contest the 1936 Berlin Olympics but claim gold. The story follows the group of young underdogs who competed against their elite rivals at the height of the Depression, many of them driven to make the team as it provided food and lodging. Edgerton plays Coach Al Ulbrickson, a gruff man of few words whose love and belief in his team nevertheless shines through.

Edgerton admits he was unfamiliar with the book and the story before being approached by Clooney, but on reading it felt it was apt for the times.

“Coming out of Covid it felt like the right thing to do a movie that’s inspirational, an underdog story we can all get behind,” he says. “No single film is going to solve the problems of the world but it isn’t bad to get a reminder we all hope the best for each other, despite our differences.”

It is the first time Edgerton has been directed by Clooney and he says it took him a little while to adjust to the Hollywood A-list star being behind, not in front, of the camera. Edgerton compares Clooney’s directing style to his Boys in the Boat character coach Al, a reserved character whose passion is still clear.

“I know what it takes to make a movie, the time you’ve got to put aside is at least a year of your life, and the fact that George was that keen on this story to spend a year not being in front of a camera, not doing other things, meant he really cared about bringing this to the screen. He’s very efficient, very well researched and has a really nice shorthand with how to guide actors to what he wants, and he kept the set fun.”

Edgerton is no stranger to famous directors, having been directed by Oscar-nominated Baz Luhrmann in The Great Gatsby in 2013 opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, and by Ron Howard in the 2022 thriller Thirteen Lives, which also starred Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell and detailed the Thai cave rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach. Edgerton has performed alongside a raft of other respected Hollywood actors, from Benedict Cumberbatch and Dakota Johnson to Jennifer Lawrence, while his directorial debut The Gift, in 2015, starred Jason Bateman.

In addition to raising his twin toddlers with partner Christine Centenera, Vogue Australia ’s editor-in-chief, and working on Boy Swallows Universe, Edgerton has been filming TV series Dark Matter alongside Jennifer Connelly. Based on Blake Crouch’s sci-fi novel, it premieres in 2024 on AppleTV+. Edgerton has also co-written the new US-Australia comedy Wizards! with his The King and Animal Kingdom writer-director David Michôd; it stars US comedian Pete Davidson and Orlando Bloom.

“There’s something quite terrifying about putting yourself in the vulnerable position of going, ‘These are my ideas, I made this thing’. You can put a year or two of your life into something and people might go, ‘Well that’s a piece of shit’,” Edgerton says. “But there’s a compulsion to do it. And I think it’s a wonderful thing to be able to stand back and orchestrate the whole thing, rather than work out how you fit into the machine.”

The Boys in the Boat opens in cinemas nationally on January 4.