How Ben Affleck got Michael Jordan to say yes to the movie ‘Air’

When Ben Affleck approached Michael Jordan about wanting to make the movie “Air,” he was prepared for the basketball legend to pass because it wasn’t Michael Jordan’s story — although it involves him — yet getting the approval of the greatest basketball player of all time was of utmost importance to Affleck.

“The stupidest thing in the world would be to go make a movie that — he doesn’t appear in, but nonetheless invokes his name and tells a part of his story — that he was opposed to. So if he said don’t do it, I just was going to not do it,” Affleck said during a news conference.

“Air” follows the game-changing partnership between then rookie Jordan and Nike’s emerging basketball division, which revolutionized sports and contemporary culture with the Air Jordan brand.

Affleck, who directed and produced the film, assembled a fierce, top-notch cast who all delivered, including Matt Damon as Nike basketball expert Sonny Vaccaro; Jason Bateman as Rob Strasser, Nike’s VP of marketing; Chris Tucker as Nike VP Howard White; Chris Messina as David Falk, Jordan’s agent; Marlon Wayans as George Raveling, one of Jordan’s coaches at the 1984 Olympics; Viola Davis as Michael’s mother, Deloris, and Julius Tennon as Michael’s father, James.

Affleck also stars in the film, playing Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight.

It’s hard to believe that, despite their 40-year-friendship, Affleck had never directed Damon in a movie until now, with the latter also serving as a producer on this film. The duo earned an Oscar in 1998 for co-writing the “Good Will Hunting” screenplay.

Damon and Affleck both described Michael Jordan as “a very intimidating guy,” with Damon adding that he “is an icon and he’s all of these things, and he has all this meaning for all of us.”

Affleck found the basketball legend gracious in his response to the pitch as the director explained that he was going to take liberties with the story. Affleck also said, “I don’t want to violate anything that’s fundamentally important or true to you. So if you would please tell me what those things are, I promise you, they’ll be sacrosanct.”

Jordan wanted to make sure that three key people who were meaningful to him were included in the story: George Raveling, Howard White and his mother.

“When I saw how he talked about his mother, and the regard and esteem in which he held her … this is a very intimidating and powerful man. You’re around somebody who is as close to a deity as you’re going to find and, yet, there was this moment where I saw reverence and respect and adoration and love when he talked about his mother,” said Affleck, who won an Oscar for Best Picture for “Argo” in 2013. “It just shocked me and shame on me for not assuming this was the case. When I heard it, I realized right away, ‘This is the story’ and it’s a beautiful story.”

Deloris was made more central to the film.

“She’s emblematic of what so many mothers must have meant to so many athletes and entertainers, and people in this business, who are oftentimes very young and thrust into a world of fame and money,” Affleck added. “It can be confusing and we see people take different roads all the time (that) must require enormous amounts of guidance.”

When Affleck asked Jordan who should play his mom, the latter responded, “It has to be Viola Davis.”

“So I knew that it was incumbent on us to create a role that was worthy of Viola,” Affleck continued. “I thought I really would have made it as a director if I had Viola Davis in my movie. And she said yes.”

Davis found the request “flattering because I do go in with a sense of ‘Do I belong?’ impostor syndrome, so it’s nice to feel wanted. But then the next thought is, ‘Now I got to step into the role.’ And if you watch videos on Deloris Jordan, she is a study in Zen neutrality. The woman is very, very steady and quiet. I would imagine that even when she gets mad, she’s probably very, very, very steady,” Davis laughed.

“Everything was a challenge for me, because I’m the woman who always has a chip on her shoulder. I go in bombastic, so it was both flattering, challenging and then just a joy to work with Matt and Ben, all these terrific actors. Me and Julius still talk about it to this day. One of the greatest experiences.”

Damon added that one of the great things about this cast is that everybody is a filmmaker. Davis and Tennon are both producers; Messina and Wayans are writers; Bateman a director.

It’s perhaps why the film is compelling in its character-driven and dialogue-heavy plot. Each one of the ensemble actors carries their weight.

For Davis, it was about trusting Affleck completely as a director. “There are a lot of times you go on set, you don’t trust anyone. Because truth be known, there are a lot of people in our profession who don’t know what they’re doing. I’m not saying that from any kind of place of condescension or giving anyone shade …

“I trusted him,” she said of Affleck. “I trusted what he saw, I trusted his process, I trusted his choice … and then you have to ultimately trust that he chose you for a reason, because that’s the one thing that training school beats out of you is any sense of confidence,” she laughed.

Damon said they were just hoping to “capture the spirit of these people” by telling the incredible underdog story of Nike.

“All of these people on the Nike side, independent of one another, have talked about this time with such nostalgia, and that’s what we were trying to create and remind people they were the underdog, which is such a weird way to think of Nike now.

“But before this incredible deal, they really were these kind of renegades, kind of outsiders and so that was really what we were trying to get.”

Marriska Fernandes is a Toronto-based entertainment reporter and film critic. She is a freelance contributor for the Star’s Culture section. Follow her on Twitter: @marrs_fers

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