When Matthew Modine was cast as Hall of Famer Honus Wagner in the TNT original movie The Winning Season, one of the first things he did was arrange to train with a minor-league baseball team. His two weeks with the Aberdeen IronBirds, a Class A farm club owned by former Orioles great Cal Ripken Jr., was "my own personal fantasy baseball camp."
But the experience was also a reality check. "They're professional baseball players, but I wasn't going to let them get the best of me," Matthew says. "I ran as hard as I could. I swung as hard as I could. One time, we were doing a base-stealing exercise. I stole home and, when I got up, I looked at the base-stealing coach and said, 'Did I look as slow as I felt?' And he said, 'Yep. Absolutely.' I've always been a pretty good athlete, but there comes a time when you lose a step to younger, fitter guys -- and I've reached that point in my life."
Matthew -- who starred in such films as Birdy, Full Metal Jacket and Married to the Mob -- might not have what it takes to play professional ball, but he's appealing and convincing as Wagner, a gentleman ballplayer who became one of the game's first superstars.
Matthew's crash course helped his performance in many subtle ways, from honing his baseball fundamentals to understanding the mental aspect of the game. But when it came to capturing Wagner's integrity and class, no research was required. As executive producer David Rosemont puts it, "The decency that you sense in almost all of Matthew's characters is completely genuine."
"That's a great compliment," Matthew says. "I hope that's true about me. I do want to be a good person. My father always told me that, when you go someplace, when you go to somebody's house, for example, try to leave it in better shape than when you came. Try to contribute something, even if it's something simple, like helping to do dishes if you're a guest for dinner. Try to leave the place a little bit better."
Matthew took that lesson and has tried to apply it to virtually every aspect of his life, from his acting choices to a commitment to public service. "When I come to the end of my life, when I've got my head on that pillow and I'm getting ready to take that big nap, if I know I've done something to make the world a little bit better place, I can close my eyes with a smile on my face and no regrets."
Matthew's favorite baseball movie is Field of Dreams, the Kevin Costner fantasy flick that, when boiled down to its essence, is about a father and son playing a game of catch. So it should come as no surprise that his most cherished memory from The Winning Season was the way the work allowed him to bond with his own son, 17-year-old Bowman.
"After Cal said I could come out and get in shape with the team, I told my son, 'I don't know if I'm going to be able to play with them.' Because they may be so serious about their baseball that they might not want to play catch with me. So I went with my son. But the coaches said, 'No, no, you're going to play with the athletes. And Bowman can suit up and he'll play too.' It was just absolutely fantastic. To have the opportunity to go away for a couple of weeks with your son and play baseball and see him grow as a young man while spending time with these professional athletes, well, it was just an absolute gift."
Matthew fell in love with movie make-believe in large part because his father was a drive-in movie theater manager. But it was always the creative/expressive aspect of acting and filmmaking that interested him, not the "show biz"/celebrity side, and that's what he finds rewarding about his work to this day.
"The wonderful thing about being a movie actor is all the places it's allowed me to go and experiences it's allowed me to have," he says. "My uncle was a B-17 pilot in the Second World War and I got to go learn something about his life before I did Memphis Belle. And having grown up in Utah, I was fascinated with the seas. So to be able to go out and sail in that movie Wind was wonderful. In Vision Quest, I learned how to wrestle. With Birdy, I got to investigate some things about my personal life. It's like every movie has been like a little step understanding who I am. And sometimes, when everything works out really well, I'm able to share some of that understanding with other people."
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by David Martindale
