Jimmy Price (Jeremy Sisto) is a reckless man-child on the last leg of his career as a doubles tennis player. When his latest partner drops him, he realizes he’s officially burned all of his bridges on the pro circuit. He decides to make one last ditch effort to revive his career, reaching outside of the tennis world and convincing his childhood partner — his estranged brother Darren (David Walton), now an apathetic substitute teacher — to team up with him. The mismatched pair, with the help of a unique 11-year-old named Barry (Joshua Rush), make an unlikely run at a grand slam tournament and are forced to re-discover their game, and their brotherhood. Break Point, directed by Jay Karas and written by Gene Hong, also features Oscar winner J.K. Simmons as the pair’s father and Amy Smart, Chris Parnell, Vincent Ventresca, and Adam Devine.
I’ve admired Jeremy Sisto as an actor in movies and on television, including recent stints in Law & Order, Suburgatory, and The Returned. But it was his role as Brenda’s odd brother, Billy Chenowith, in the groundbreaking series Six Feet Under that really cemented him in my consciousness. I sat down with Sisto in Los Angeles to discuss Break Point, a film he’s been trying to get to the screen for years.
Danny Miller: Going into this movie, I thought it was going to be more broad, probably because I had just seen 7 Days in Hell on HBO with Andy Samberg and Kit Harington. I was surprised at what a moving film this was in addition to being very funny.
Jeremy Sisto: We’ve been working on this film for so long it was kind or ironic that the HBO movie came out just before our film is released! But, as you say, that one was really a parody.
I have to say that I never watch tennis but I’m totally interested in the sport after seeing this movie!
For me, to make any sport interesting, you have to get invested in the people. That’s why people watch tennis, especially singles, because they are watching a person going through emotional hell — they are fighting for their lives out there on their own with no lifeboat. Doubles is also fun to watch, especially if you have partners who don’t get along!
I know you’ve played tennis for years but were you worried about playing in the film?
Oh my God, I’ve been busting my ass on the tennis courts for years trying to get ready for this film. Then we hired David (Walton) who hasn’t played in a while but he beat me every time, it was so irritating! It’s a very difficult sport — you have to have every muscle working together in a very specific way, I just don’t have that kind of body awareness. But it can be a frustrating game even for the most talented players in the world. You can have just one bad moment and you’re screwed.
You definitely pulled it off in the film. And it looks like you were getting better as your character was getting more serious about the game.
It was very stressful for me playing in front of people, much less the camera. I never played team sports when I was a kid so I never really played for an audience. I was very self-conscious when we started filming. All of the emotions that you see are very real — the sweat, too!
Were there any moments of your tennis playing that were too embarrassing to even put on the blooper reel?
Oh God, too many to count! But shooting all of those scenes was weird and counter-instinctual since, if we were supposed to be winning in a scene, we celebrated no matter where the ball went. We’d be like, “Yes!” and doing high-fives even when we were playing horribly. The extras must have thought that we were insane.
I really believed you and David as brothers and J.K. Simmons as your dad. Did you worry about having to create a believable family bond?
David came to us fairly late in the game and he was a real boon. J.K. was the first to sign on. I’ve known him for years — he’s a real stand-up dude. A lot of people that I sent the script to didn’t even read it or it took a really long time and J.K. read it immediately and dug it and said, “I’m in.” That’s a rare person who doesn’t analyze every move in terms of how it affects his career but just says, “I like, it, let’s do it.”
He’s always so great. And Joshua Rush, the kid who played Barry, was so damn good. That part could have easily slipped into creepy-land with this kid hanging out with these adult men but it never did, it was handled so well.
More than that I was worried about having a kid who felt like he was reading the lines — that could have sunk the entire film. I can’t stand movies where you see kids saying stuff that you just know they would never actually say, but with Josh Rush, every single line reading was amazing. He’s so weird and funny and smart and unapologetic about who he is. He’s a solid kid and a natural-born actor.
Speaking of which, why the R rating, because there was one too many “fucks” in the script?
Yeah, exactly, and it’s unfortunate. We considered looping some of the “fucks” to get a different rating but we never did. I think it’s ridiculous — what 14-year-old kid today doesn’t hear that word all the time? And yet you can have crazy violence in a movie and still get a PG rating.
Is it true that you came up with the idea for the film?
Me and our writer, Gene Hong, have played tennis together for years as friends. We came up with this idea a long time ago. A few years later, I was in this place where I was very frustrated about not getting the roles that I wanted to get so I started making some moves to develop some things on my own. So I went to Gene and said, “Remember that idea? Let’s do it!” I really admire him as a writer — he has a really solid sensibility and a great handle on structure and tone.
Forgive me, but I can’t sit in front of you for this long without mentioning the best and most traumatic 10 minutes in the history of television — the series finale of Six Feet Under. I’ve probably rewatched it once every few months since it first aired just to torture myself. Then I walk around and see birth and death dates superimposed in front of all my loved ones.
Oh, God.
Do you ever find yourself watching it?
I haven’t in a while, but you know, when that first came out, I had a Prius, too, just like Claire. I used to ride around listening to Sia’s “Believe Me” and just cry my eyes out!