‘The Last Dance’ directors says it was hard to interview Kobe Bryant

Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, left, drives against Boston Celtics guard Ray Allen. | Winslow Townson, Associated Press

Kobe Bryant had a busy schedule

The fifth episode of “The Last Dance” — the ESPN documentary about Michael Jordan — began with an interview with Kobe Bryant, the late Los Angeles Lakers legend.

And apparently it was a hard interview to lock down.

“The Last Dance” director Jason Hehir told Insider on Monday that the interview with Bryant was actually rather short. Hehir only had 25 minutes to talk with Bryant in July 2019.

At the time, Bryant was writing a speech to honor Bill Russell at the ESPY Awards.

Hehir said: “I had to work hard, which was unusual in this process because normally people are ready to sit down and heap praise on Michael.”

Hehir said Bryant wasn’t open to talking about Jordan as much as he hoped. The two circled around the conversation. Eventually, Bryant opened up about the 1998 All-Star Game.

He also opened up about Jordan, as I wrote for the Deseret News.

Bryant said, “What you get from me is from him. I don’t get five championships without him.”

Hehir said his team eventually found the clips of Jordan talking about Bryant behind the scenes at the All-Star Game, which was a powerful moment in the documentary.

Hehir said: “We would rewatch and rewatch these things because someone in the footage could murmur something and you would run it back and realize you’ve struck gold. I knew we had footage of Kobe brushing shoulders with Michael at the beginning of the All-Star Game and them playing each other on the floor, but those little moments, like him saying ‘little Laker boy,’ that’s where the gold is. You really had to have your eyes and your ears open for a lot of this stuff.”

from Deseret News https://ift.tt/3didlhd