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The upcoming biopic, The Fire Inside, tells the story of legendary boxer Claressa Shields.
She is no stranger to the spotlight, having been a boxing prodigy since her teens. Shields spoke to ClutchPoints over the phone about The Fire Inside and some of her favorite boxing movies.
Shields specifically name-dropped Million Dollar Baby, Rocky, and Ali as her favorite boxing movies. Will Smith's portrayal of Muhammad Ali was so convincing that Shields thought he was the icon in real life. “I believed that Will Smith was Muhammad Ali,” Shields confessed. “To find out in my older years that Will Smith [was just] playing Ali shows how well he portrayed him.”
In The Fire Inside, Ryan Destiny plays Shields. Similar to her experience seeing Smith as Ali, Shields thinks Destiny”absolutely” resembles her in her performance. She specifically pointed out Destiny's attire and mannerisms, which were on point.
Brian Tyree Henry plays Shields' coach, Jason Crutchfield, in the biopic. Shields is a big fan of him. “I love Brian,” she told me when discussing the Oscar-nominated actor.
Did Claressa Shields give tips to The Fire Inside biopic star Ryan Destiny?
You would think if Destiny was nailing Shields' mannerisms, the real-life boxer would have had to give her tips. However, this was not the cast.
Shields detailed that she and Destiny had an “open line of communication,” but she didn't hand her tips. Destiny would keep Shields posted on her progress while training for the role, but she did ask for advice once.
“She called me one day and was like, ‘Hey, I've been working really hard — what do you do when you get sore?” Shields recalled. “I said, ‘You rest.' And she was like, ‘You do that?' I'm like, ‘Yes, absolutely. You rest, you go and get a massage, you take a hot bath, you take a little recovery time.'”
Destiny also asked Shields about her relationship with her mom. The Fire Inside shows the challenges that they had. Luckily, the two are on better terms nowadays — “My mom and I have a great relationship now,” Shields said. “And [we] definitely grew closer as I got older.”
But The Fire Inside is about Claressa Shields' rise. So, their relationship isn't as good as it is nowadays. Even her mom is aware of this. Shields had a “real' conversation with Destiny about their complex relationship.
“That was something I was able to have a real conversation with her about because my mom is very much still here on this earth, and I'm used to people writing things or putting out videos and making me look a certain way. I didn't want my mom to experience that and her to feel like she was portrayed wrong or our relationship was portrayed wrong,” Shields explained.
Was having a biopic made about her scary?
For some, having a movie made about your life would be intimidating. There are going to be things shown or said that haven't been told to anyone. The Fire Inside does feature some intimate details about Shields' life, but she wasn't scared by it.
It probably helps that Shields is not a stranger to the camera. Having a movie made about her was only the next natural step of progression.
“Life, to me, has been in front of cameras. I have a whole documentary about my life, so it's like my whole life has already been followed and recorded,” said Shields. “So, a lot of highlights in my life, I can go back and look at. To have a movie that actually gets into the details of what I went through, I don't think it's scary — I think it's very inspiring for people to see what I went through.
“This is how it turned out. Even though it doesn't look good and it wasn't easy, this is what it looks like now. I think everybody needs to see that,” she continued.
Entrusting her story to Barry Jenkins
If anyone was going to understand Shields' story and handle it with care, it was Barry Jenkins. The Moonlight director is coming off his foray into blockbuster filmmaking, directing Mufasa: The Lion King for Disney, but he still has his magic touch.
Shields was admittedly “skeptical” when the idea of The Fire Inside was first brought up. Before signing off on the biopic being made, Claressa Shields wanted to meet with the person writing the script.
Enter Jenkins, who sold Shields during a four-to-five-hour chat. Shields enforced that she didn't want to be depicted as a “victim, but rather a “victor.”
“Don't look at me like my story is a sad story; it's not a sad story,” she said. “I don't want [anybody] feeling sorry for me because God made a way for me, and he's going to continue to make ways, and he's never given up on me. God says he knows the desires of your heart, and he knows that my life story can change the world.”
One of the “best” things Shields could have done was get the script from Jenkins. After their heart-to-heart, Shields received a finished script and gave it the green light.
If Claressa Shields didn't get that level of involvement in her biopic, it doesn't sound like The Fire Inside would've gotten her approval to be made. She wanted to make sure it was a fair depiction of her story since she will still be boxing and has “a life to live” after it comes out.
Recreating her childhood home in The Fire Inside
Earlier in our chat, Shields praised Destiny for her portrayal of her. Having just seen A Complete Unknown before The Fire Inside, I was amazed at how they recreated Bob Dylan's old apartment.
A similar approach was taken with The Fire Inside. Shields said that “everything was pretty spot on,” down to the types of beds she and her siblings have in the movie.
Most importantly, the scene where the kids are digging for scraps for breakfast is authentic. “We didn't have a lot of food at home,” Shields said. “My mom did her best — she was fighting through addiction at the time. I just remember all we had was each other, and all I really had was boxing.
This resulted in added motivation for Shields, who was eager to become more than a one-hit wonder to provide for her family. “I was like, I have to figure this out for us, so I put all my time and energy into boxing,” Shields concluded.
The Fire Inside is in theaters.
