The remarkable true-life story of Major League Baseball player Rickey Hill is portrayed in the sports biopic The Hill that was released back in August. Directed by Jeff Celentano with a screenplay by Angelo Pizzo and Scott Marshall Smith, Colin Ford stars in film as Rickey Hill, but the journey to playing the real-life man on screen took some time.
Colin shared with Popternative’s Petey Beats how divine intervention kicked in while preparing for The Hill. “As far as research goes, I mean I had the story, I had the script, so I was able to kind of take a look at the beginning, middle, and end and digest and get into all that. I think to take a step back and to kind of look at okay well when I first got attached to the film it was…I want to say 2019, I only weighed 120 pounds, I was gonna come and play this professional baseball player I didn’t even look like I could play baseball,” Colin shared.
He added, “So, there was all these things that happened. The pandemic hit and two years went by. Financing was lost and then ultimately refunded and found its way back starting in October 2021 and throughout that period of time I actually gained 40, 50, 60 pounds. 180 pounds I was by the time we started filming, so there was a lot of things that had to take place which I felt like was sort of this divine intervention. All these things had to take place in order for the film to be what it is today so there was a lot of behind the scenes preparation that maybe I didn’t even know was going to happen but that took place before the film.”
Watch the full interview with Colin Ford below.
The Hill is currently available for digital purchase.
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