Rowan Athale & Amir El-Masry Talk Cultural Significance Of Prince Naseem Boxing Pic ‘Giant’ — Red Sea Studio

Rowan Athale always knew he wanted to make a film about boxing but admits that the notion of making a biopic on legendary British-Yemeni boxer Prince Naseem “Naz” Hamed felt like “pie in the sky” to him when he was a young, aspiring filmmaker. 

The British-writer director stepped into Deadline’s Red Sea Studios this week with actor Amir El-Masry to discuss their latest project Giant, which opened the Red Sea Film Festival on Thursday. 

“I’m a product of a mixed-race marriage with an immigrant father from India and Naz has immigrant parents from Yemen,” Athale said. “We had a lot of the same experiences and same background and for someone like Naz to be the superstar in a sport I love was really inspiring to me.” 

British-Egyptian actor El-Masry, who plays the 1990s boxing legend in the film, credited Ahtale with being the driving force for the indie project as he was “really passionate about the subject matter.” 

“Everyone kind of got their hands stuck in because we just didn’t have the luxury of time to try and test things,” he said. 

El-Masry, who also stars as an aspiring Egyptian concert pianist in The Stories, which is also playing at Red Sea this week, said he “grew up watching Naz.” 

“I was a massive fan of his,” he said. “I love watching public figures that you can relate to on a cultural level and to see him become a champion was incredibly inspiring.” 

El-Masry added that fellow actor Pierce Brosnan, who plays the crucial role of Naz’s trainer Brendan Ingle, was “a constant professional” and “incredibly generous on set.” 

“He gave me some of his best takes off camera,” he said. “Honestly, he’d be crying on my close up just so that I could have my performance elevated.” 

Athale said that he has “several projects with several entities” that he couldn’t speak of yet but hinted that his long-gestating Little America project with Sylvester Stallone (who is an exec producer on Giant) might come back to the table. The project, which launched at EFM nearly six years ago, is set in a dystopian future where America has become bankrupt and turned into a war zone, sees Stallone play a former Army Ranger hired by an Asian billionaire to find his daughter. “It’s an incredibly exciting project,” he said. 

Check out the video above.