The message came in a couple of years ago through some track-coaching back channel. Would Nat Page be interested in helping an actor who needs to learn to run like Jesse Owens?
For Page, a 20-year assistant track-and-field coach at Georgia Tech, what could be so hard about that? A former U.S. Olympian, Page had been around Owens long before his death in 1980. He understood the Buckeye Bullet’s unorthodox sprinting style. He had even competed in the Olympiastadion, the Berlin stadium where Owens claimed his four medals in 1936. Why not?
“They sent me his email address, and I took it from there,” Page said.
It wasn’t that simple. The actor in question, Stephan James, was Canadian. He had played some basketball and volleyball in school, but had no track training. Moreover, while he recognized Owens’ name, he had no idea of his historical significance.
Moviegoers who see “Race,” the Owens biopic that opened last month, have Page to thank for the authenticity of James’ performance in the sprint scenes. In a four-week crash course in the summer of 2014, Page ran James around Tech’s George C. Griffin Track and Field Complex until Owens’ gait became ingrained.
“We started out at the beginning,” Page said. “How to warm up, how to stretch, how to start.”
That was a particularly essential element. Sprinters weren’t using starting blocks in 1936. They dug small holes in the cinders to provide a toe-hold, and Page explained the process.
Owens had an unusual gait, very upright and very tight. James, who was in town filming “Selma” in which he played a young John Lewis, joined Page for video sessions, breaking down Owens’ stride, his facial expressions. They even reviewed Leni Riefenstahl’s propagandist masterpiece “Olympia.
“We took one-and-a-half weeks to do warm-up, do the little things that sprinters might do,” Page said. ‘We’d get one arm in the right position and then the other arm in the right position, get the upper body in the right position.”
“(Page) helped me run not only fast, but to run like Jesse, from his start to his stride to all his facial details,” James told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last month.”
No sooner was James done with “Selma” than he was off to Montreal, where the principal photography was shot before the production traveled to Berlin and the Olympic scenes were shot at the old Olympiastadion. Page had little further contact with the actor, but was a more-than-curious movie fan when he finally saw the film last month.
He recognized the contours of the stadium, watched carefully how James carried himself and then took special note when the actor began digging the holes for the start.
“I said, OK,” he said. “They did some good work right there.”
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