DEADLINE: It seems an odd one for motivation, with all those action sequences in the ring to choose from…
COOGLER: It wasn’t until later on I learned why it always made my dad cry. My dad was this big strong athletic dude from East Oakland, the toughest part of Oakland. He was one tough guy, and he would cry like a baby in these movies. I would say hey man, what is it? Again, with the questions, me being curious. Then I found out. I never met my grandmother. My father’s mom died when he was 18 years old. She initially got sick when my father was like nine, diagnosed her with Stage 4 breast cancer. They told her she wouldn’t make it through the year but she lived 10 more years in this long drawn out battle with the disease. By the end, by the time she was essentially on her deathbed, she only could lay in bed at home, and my father would help with her medicine and would sit with her. And the only activity that they could do together was watch TV, whatever was being broadcast at the time. At that time it was
Rocky II, repeated on TV all the time.
The emotions that my dad was going through was really recalling his relationship with his mom. It was extremely personal to him, and I only found that out later as I got older and he shared it with me. For whatever reason, he made that tradition the same for me and my brother. And then when I was finishing up film school and gearing up to make
Fruitvale, my father, this big strong tough guy, he got sick. The doctors didn’t know what the deal was. He was basically dealing with a neuro-muscular condition where he was losing the use of his skeletal muscles. They were atrophied. They didn’t know if it was ALS, or if it was PMA, if was MS, all very serious diseases.
DEADLINE: How serious was his decline?
COOGLER: At the rate it was progressing, they were saying he wasn’t going to live too long. I was in this process of finishing school and getting
Fruitvale going, so I would go home to work sometimes, but I couldn’t spend as much time around him as I would have liked. Every time I would go back to see him, the disease was progressing more and more.
It was crazy to see this guy, who I knew as being so strong, lose his strength. Sometimes he would need help, to get from the car to the house, or to the restroom. He was too proud to use a cane. What he would do is, he would put his hand on the shoulder of me or my little brother, to walk around. It really messed my head up, but it raised questions. What makes you a man? What’s the definition of masculinity? Is it the strength that my father had when I was a kid and I ran to him and he would pick me up with one arm? When that strength goes away, is he still that same person? What is the relationship between a father and a son? For so many years, he took care of me, but now, the tides turned and I’m the one helping him. And if we go out, I’m the one that’s got to watch his back. Isn’t time something strange? These are the questions I had when I came up with this idea of something similar happening to a hero in a relationship that mirrored the one I have with my dad. I looked at myself and I said, what if my dad had never been there, and what it he was this myth that I was chasing? What type of person would I be then? What if what’s happening to my dad now happened to a hero? That was kind of how I came up with this idea for Creed.
DEADLINE: Did you ever find the answer to what makes a man?
COOGLER: Yeah. It’s here [he pounds his chest where his heart beats beneath]. That was the answer that I found in making this. This is a
Rockymovie where Rocky doesn’t throw a punch, but real
Rocky fans will recognize him and see that he is still the same. He still has the same strength.
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