Like the champion boxer that is its subject, The Fire Inside‘s story is one of resilience. First announced in 2019, the boxing drama about Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, an Olympic gold medal winner and arguably the greatest female fighter ever, got knocked down multiple times but kept getting back up. Renowned cinematographer Rachel Morrison, known for her work with Ryan Coogler and Dee Rees, was set to make it her directorial debut and with a script by Barry Jenkins it was poised to be an awards season favorite. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic; then came co-lead Ice Cube dropping out over vaccination concerns; then came the writer and actor strikes of 2023. It looked as if The Fire Inside had been put down for the count.
Fortunately, Morrison and star Ryan Destiny never gave up. Brian Tyree Henry, coming off his recent Oscar nomination for Causeway, boarded the film and they just kept plugging away until its eventual world premiere at TIFF earlier this year.
The journey has been a long, difficult one, but well worth it. The film is about Shields fight from a hard-scrabble life in Flint, MI all the way to the Olympic gold medal. But it’s about so much more than that. Winning the gold isn’t the destination, just a stop on the journey that is life. The Fire Inside is about what life looks like after the goal is achieved. How does an amateur athlete build a future when most people don’t want to see women fighting in the first place? How is it that one can go from the Olympics to being stuck in the same impoverished city they have been trying to escape from since the beginning?
I had the pleasure to speak with director Rachel Morrison and stars Ryan Destiny and Brian Tyree Henry about The Fire Inside. Morrison talked about the wealth of experience she’s gained throughout her cinematography career and how it informed her feature directing debut. Destiny and Heny talked about the challenge of portraying real-life people as well as the grueling training regiment to prepare for their roles.
It was a great conversation, and I hope you’ll check it out! The Fire Inside opens in theaters on December 25th.
