These
Gals Make Soccer Look Easy in Bend It Like Beckham
by
Carole J. Brandi
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| Parminder
and Keira cheer each other on... on screen
and off! |
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For
those of you who love soccer star DAVID BECKHAM, this
is not a movie about his life. Instead, the inspirational
film Bend It Like Beckham, proves that female
sports players can be girly and tough as nails
on the field. Film newcomers PARMINDER NAGRA and KEIRA
KNIGHTLEY play characters who idolize Beckham and MIA
HAMM, respectively, and share a strong desire to play
soccer professionally. It puts them in a battle with
their parents; the plot thickens when their passion
for play proves stronger.
Much
of the movie takes place on the soccer field. Joe (JONATHAN
RHYS MEYERS), their coach, constantly pushes them to
be the best girls team ever. Ironically, both Parminder
and Keira had very little soccer training prior to the
filming. And, their training on screen was nothing compared
to what they went through when the cameras weren't rolling.
"I
had to bend the ball in the movie and I hurt my foot
because I was toe punting the ball initially,"
Parminder says. "Eventually, Simon Clifford (our
trainer) broke it down for me very technically and said
you need to slice the ball here, make it kind of go
in this direction, this is how you get a lift on a ball.
He chalked my foot exactly where I had to kick the ball.
He built my confidence up slowly, but the pressure was
still on."
The
girls had only two months to get their acts together
to look like real soccer players. To keep up the training,
Parminder gave up her downtime to participate in daily
practices with wacky soccer ball imitations. "They
came into my trailer and said we have various vegetables
for you," she laughs. "They brought in a pepper,
then a tomato, and onions -- which were quite hard.
The lettuce kept disintegrating. It was hard enough
kneeing a soccer ball, never mind an entire salad."
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| Parminder
with JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS. who plays her love interest. |
Even
though Keira had more experience on the field -- she
was captain of the girls football [soccer] team when
she was 11 -- she wasn't much better than Parminder.
"I never actually touched the ball and we never
scored a goal," she confides. No wonder she found
those first 20 weeks
of training "very intense."
Since
Jules, Keira's character, was supposed to be great at
heading the ball, after fours hours of training, she'd
go home and practice up against a wall. She even once
knocked herself out once while practicing. "I woke
up an hour later with two huge black eyes and a headache.
We ended up only doing one header in the film, says
Keira, "because I [wouldn't have] remembered my
lines if I were heading the ball all the time."
There
were times when Keira and Parminder were training so
hard they had trouble seeing the fruits of their labor.
That is until the completed film made them forget all
about the pain. They got to know each other so well,
they explain, that they didn't even have to act anymore.
"We
really supported each other through the training,"
Keira says. "By the time we started filming, you
could see our relationship come through in our characters.
We became a team."
Read
more about Bend It Like Beckham now!
Photos
by Christine Parry |
