GOAL 2: aka GOAL!: THE DREAM BEGINS (USA) aka GOAL! 2: LIVING THE DREAM (UK) Q&A with Steve McManaman, Kuno Becker, Mike Jefferies and Anna Friel

GOAL 2: aka GOAL!: THE DREAM BEGINS (USA) aka GOAL! 2: LIVING THE DREAM (UK) Q&A with Steve McManaman, Kuno Becker, Mike Jefferies and Anna Friel


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Being nude in the hotel lobby – challenging?

BECKER: No, that was just funny, a funny moment that we had with Rutger who did a fantastic job in the film. He has this amazing presence. It’s one of the funny moments that we have in this second film.

It was actually easy to shoot. The emotional sequences that we had with Elizabeth Pena for example, it was just amazing to work with her. When we meet for the first time at the bar, it was like a dream to work with her.

There was actually a lot of improv for about 50 or 60 minutes. They cut it down to five or six minutes in the end, and it was very pleasant.

Steve, will your acting career continue?

McMANAMAN: No, definitely not. I enjoyed it but that’s as far as it goes. I’ll leave it to the experts. For me, in between takes and lighting changes, there was a lot of hanging around for me to be honest. Footballers lives are very dynamic, you’re out there for 90 minutes and it’s concentration for about two hours, you do your job and then leave. Whereas the actors, you know, certain nights we were there for 12 hours... I’ve never worked for 12 hours on the run in my life. I certainly don’t want to start doing it now.

JEFFERIES: think he’s being a bit modest. Jaume would tell you if he was here today that he’s never shot anybody that sits down as well as Steve. Standing up is pretty good, but sitting down is fantastic.

How difficult is it making a film with a lot of non-actors?

JEFFERIES: We played to their strengths where we could. Most of the representation of the footballers is on the training pitch or on the football pitch playing football. Quite often in that situation, particularly on the training ground scenes, we just let the cameras roll. We gave nobody gave anyone any brief.

We just asked Kuno and Alessandro to get in there and just become part of the team. And because the players loved Kuno and Alessandro so much they were just very happy to embrace them very warmly and include them. Some of the footage we have of Kuno in the locker room kicking the ball around with Zidane and Roberto Carlos and David is just mind blowingly incredible to me on a production value level, inasmuch as we managed to pull it off.

But there’s a few scenes where Salgado’s on the phone and Guti and Helguera are in the bath with Casillas. Then we have Gravesen in the lift, but again I guess the main trick when they’re doing lines is to do them in a responsive, driven fashion so they’re waiting for a cue which is basically a question. They were all tremendous.

Gravesen a bit of a ham?

JEFFERIES: He was a big fan of Kuno, Thomas, I think they did a bit of work together.

BECKER: It was fun to work with him, and everybody. They were just nice, all of them.

Your friendship with a lot of Real Madrid players presumably helped facilitate things?

McMANAMAN: Working with the players was great. I went back to Madrid, saw them for a couple of months. When David came down, or Casillas came down, I was always looking to see them. We all went to see numerous games while we were over there so I caught up with them after the games and went out with them later on for meals and drinks and stuff. So that was fantastic to do.

Got the taste to produce movies?

McMANAMAN: I don’t think so. I’m still only a baby in this game and if I wanted to get involved I’d certainly bend Mike’s ear for advice. But at the moment this was just a one off.

Not going to become a movie mogul?

McMANAMAN: The new Harvey Weinstein? I don’t think so.

Do you ever think you stopped playing too early?

McMANAMAN: No, because to be honest I stopped of my own accord. I could have carried on and had plenty of offers to carry on but I wanted to stop. I had a recurring injury which was a problem. But I only wanted to play at the highest level really. I got offers from here, there and everywhere and I decided to stop of my own accord.

I think it’s easier to come to terms with when you stop like that rather than when you’re told to stop. I was never the typical footballer where football was the be all and end all. It wasn’t for me. I’ve got lots of other interests and lots of other business interests I can now get fully involved with.

It seemed like the ink was barely dry on David Beckham’s new contract when a press release came round informing us that Santiago was going to be following in his footsteps... How fluid was that of the situation? And how easy was it to secure that deal?

JEFFERIES: We were very lucky. The plan was to have GOAL 3 begin – certainly the first act – in the US, set against the backdrop of the MLS, and LA Galaxy was the team that we decided to go with because the landscape upon which the drama of GOAL 3 flows is basically moving from Los Angeles to the World Cup in Germany.

So it was like manna from heaven when we found out that David was going to be joining the LA Galaxy and he was going to be there playing for the LA Galaxy when we’d be filming. I’m trying to not give too much away of the plotline for GOAL 3, it was just very fortuitous, great timing and a lots of luck.

Didn’t influence his decision at all?

JEFFERIES: No, not at all. I think his reasons for going there are on record, and the main thing is to make a difference in Los Angeles and in America. To really help promote the game and to inspire kids continue playing soccer – as they call it – as they get into college, and not migrate to the other sports that are more traditionally popular.

Did you feel the need to do any research for playing a nurse?

FRIEL: Well, I think I’d look like a bit of an idiot if I went into the local hospital and said: ‘excuse me, nurses can you show me how you run down a corridor?’ All I did in the first one was take a blood pressure and in this one I didn’t really examine my hospital skills, apart from not being to stop playing with the bed that keeps going up and down.

She doesn’t demonstrate herself as being a particularly good nurse, apart from she studies a lot. So to be perfectly honest, no. If there was anything we did that involved nursing skills, we’d have someone on set. You can learn really quite quickly if you’re only pretending.