“I nearly slapped him”: the 2013 movie that almost caught Ron Howard a beatdown
As incredulous as it may sound, at least one person walking the Earth was so angry at a Ron Howard movie that they seriously considered inflicting physical harm upon him.
No offence to the lad, but he doesn’t seem like someone who’d be very good at defending themselves from violence, so it’s for the best that the two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker didn’t end up catching the beatdown he was ever so close to suffering.
In 99% of cases, you’d be wondering what Ron Howard, of all the folks in Hollywood, could have done to piss somebody off so much that all it took was a brief conversation for them to decide that the nicest man in the business was actually a rampaging dickhead who needed to be served a knuckle sandwich.
On this occasion, it was one of the simplest and easiest ways to stir up a person’s primal instincts: indirectly insult their family. Not that he was running around the set making ‘yer maw’ jokes within earshot, but the content of the director’s 2013 biographical drama, Rush, upset those with skin in the game.
In the film, Chris Hemsworth plays the charismatic, hedonistic driver, James Hunt, with Daniel Brühl as his career-defining frenemy, Nikki Lauda. Like many biopics, Rush wasn’t a completely accurate and authentic portrayal of the men, their rivalry, and their lives outside of the Formula 1 circuit, but the former’s son, Freddie, was indignant.
“Chris Hemsworth’s performance, now I don’t know if I should be upset with Chris or Ron Howard, because he basically played Dad like a twat,” he railed. “And I don’t know if that’s due to his poor acting, or if he was directed to play that way.” Hunt did have praise for Brühl, pointing out that he’d spent some time with Lauda to help inform his characterisation.
By comparison, the other star did not. “What did Hemsworth do in contrast?” Freddie questioned. “Fuck all. He didn’t contact the family once.” Ironically, it’s easily one of the Aussie behemoth’s best dramatic turns, if not the pinnacle of his non-superhero career, but the Hunt clan couldn’t have cared less.
When he came face-to-face with Rush‘s director, he demanded to know why he’d opted to play so fast and loose with the facts. In response, Howard said, “Ahh, the truth was too awesome, man, nobody would believe it,” which only left Hunt’s child more apoplectic than before: “I nearly slapped him,” he revealed.
For most people, it was a solid and occasionally spectacular hybrid of fast-paced racing thriller and a character study. For the Hunt family, especially Freddie, it was tantamount to an insult to their late father’s memory, so much so that he had to hold himself back from assaulting Ron Howard.
