“Every physical change my body could possibly go through, I went through. I got shin splints, my wrist was hurting because I was hitting the wrong way and at first I couldn’t go more than 45 seconds in the ring,” he admits. “But that all changed fast and I was truly able to understand the confidence that comes with being a great boxer like Lt. Cole.”
When things start to go awry for Jake Huard at Annapolis he finds help in a most unusual place—in his attractive and tough military superior, Ali. As a freshman plebe, Jake is forbidden to date, but that doesn’t stop Ali from getting under his skin in the most profound way possible, by pushing him harder than he knew he could be pushed as she helps him train for the Brigade Championships.
Justin Lin saw Ali as bringing much more to the story than just a romantic spark and he sought an actress who could bring multiple dimensions to his strong female role. He found what he was looking for in Jordana Brewster, a 2003 graduate of Yale who is best known for her co-starring role in the hit thriller “The Fast and the Furious.” Says Lin of his first impression: “When Jordana first came in, I immediately loved her presence. I mean, aside from the fact that she is incredibly gorgeous, she is also impressively smart and gives off this sense of someone who is always trying to better herself. She just seemed so much like Ali, and we quickly developed a trust in one another from which we were able to really explore the subtext of the character.”
He continues: “It was a very exciting process working with Jordana on Ali, who I think is someone who could be defined as a beautiful girl who, inside herself, feels that’s not enough.
She’s really looking for who she is and there are a lot of parallels between her and Jake.” After reading the screenplay, Brewster instantly wanted to go all out for the role. “Ali is a strong, diligent, smart girl who, in her second year at the Academy, is really coming into her own. I knew that would be a lot of fun to play,” says the actress.
It was also a considerable challenge, as Brewster was dropped into a highly regimented and demanding world unlike anything she had previously known. She notes: “I went to an all-girl high school and then I started working at age 15, so I never had that much interaction with guys, and all of a sudden, I was thrown in with them in this setting of military boxing!”
Brewster rose to the occasion, taking field trips to Annapolis like her fellow cast members—where she concentrated on talking to young women about their experiences—and training every day in the boxing gym. The Naval Academy was a revelation to her. “They’re so meticulous at the Academy in terms of how you sit, how you eat, how you walk, how you stand, how you respond, that you can’t really ever relax,” she says. “But it’s also amazing to see how devoted people are to what they are doing.”
Brewster also had a chance to see women taking on commanding roles. “I learned that you have to be really tough, but you also don’t want to seem like a girl who’s trying to overcompensate. To be a leader, you have to learn to make it feel very authentic,” she comments.
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