In the middle of the Great Depression, when an America in the grips of a devastating economic downturn was nearly brought to its knees, there came along a most unlikely hero who had crowds cheering on their feet - as he proved just how hard a man would fight to win a second chance for his family and himself.

That common-man hero was James J. Braddock - a.k.a. the “Cinderella Man" - who was to become one of the most surprising and inspirational sports legends in history. By the early 1930’s, the impoverished exprizefighter was seemingly as broken-down, beaten-up and out-of-luck as much of the rest of the American populace. Like so many others, Braddock had hit rock bottom. His career appeared to be finished, he was unable to pay the bills, the only thing that really mattered to him – his family - was in danger, and he was even forced to go on Public Relief. But deep inside, Jim Braddock never relinquished his determination. Driven by love, honor and an incredible dose of grit, he willed an impossible dream to come true.

In a last-chance bid to help his family, Braddock returned to the ring. No one thought he had a shot. In bout after bout, the talk was that poor Jim Braddock was criminally out-matched and perilously in over his head. Except that Braddock, fuelled by something beyond mere competition, kept winning. Suddenly, the ordinary working man who couldn't get a job became the mythic athlete who could not lose. Carrying the hopes and dreams of the disenfranchised on his shoulders, Braddock rocketed through the ranks, until this underdog who defied all the odds chose to do the unthinkable: take on the heavyweight champ of the world, the unstoppable Max Baer, renowned for having killed two men in the ring.

With Cinderella Man an Academy Award-winning team - comprised of producer BRIAN GRAZER, director RON HOWARD, screenwriter AKIVA GOLDSMAN and actors RUSSELL CROWE and RENEE ZELLWEGER - comes together to tell the quintessentially American Story of a man who was not so much a great boxer as a great man who boxed his way out of darkness and defeat and into the stuff of immortality. Academy Award winner Russell Crowe stars as Jim Braddock, whose single-minded devotion to family and dignity became just as famous as his tricky feints and killer left hook. The story begins when Braddock – once full of promise – is forced into retirement from boxing after a run of bad luck, just as America itself is sliding into the most frightening hard economic times the nation has ever known. Facing imminent poverty, Jim wants only to do right by the woman who has always been his source of strength – his feisty wife Mae, played by Oscar winner Renée Zellweger. At first, he takes a string of dead-end dock jobs that only seem to leave him poorer. But soon, the tightly-wedded couple are drowning in debt and emotionally devastated to see their children shivering in an unheated apartment amid the dead of a Jersey winter.

Then, as a result of the efforts of Jim’s indefatigable manager, Joe Gould (played by Golden Globe nominee PAUL GIAMATTI), Jim, gets an out-of-the-blue, last-ditch shot to fight in Madison Square Garden – and more importantly, a chance to put some food on the table for those he loves. Despite being too old, too hungry and too injured to be considered a real contender – and in direct opposition to Mae’s strident fears for her husband’s life – Braddock nevertheless steps back into the ring without any training. Stunning the crowd and the media, he knocks out his rising-star opponent…thanks in part to a powerful hook developed during countless hours of dock work. But it doesn’t stop there. His career re-ignited, he starts to dig his family, victory by victory, out of their hole.

And the more he wins, the more Jim Braddock unwittingly becomes a folk hero, until it is as if every time he stands up to an opponent, he is standing up for the millions just like him battling to take care of their families and keep alive their sidelined dreams.

Then, finally, comes the match of Braddock’s life, as he boldly agrees to face off against world heavyweight champ Max Baer, a cocky powerhouse of a fighter with a punch so lethal he has already killed two men in the ring. Some say that Braddock will never even survive the match. Indeed, the odds are ten to one in Baer’s favor as Braddock steps into his corner. But Jim Braddock has a different view: that this time he knows in his heart the incredible stakes for which he is fighting.

Says director Ron Howard: “The story of Jim Braddock continues to be so incredibly stirring because it is a tale that reminds us of just how remarkable human endurance and the power of love can be. Cinderella Man is a true American story about what it’s like to cope in the moment, facing life’s daily hardships, and to continue to passionately strive toward a goal – even a simple one like putting food on the table – no matter what the outcome turns out to be. It’s that kind of story, that kind of cinematic journey that has always intrigued me as a filmmaker.”

Cinderella Man is a Universal Pictures/Miramax Films/Imagine Entertainment presentation of A Brian Grazer Production In Association with Parkway Productions of A Ron Howard Film. The film is directed by Ron Howard and is produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and PENNY MARSHALL. The story is by CLIFF HOLLINGSWORTH and the screenplay is by Hollingsworth and Akiva Goldsman.

Joining Crowe and Zellweger in bringing the story of Braddock’s triumph to the screen are Paul Giamatti ( Sideways, American Splendor ) as Joe Gould, the sharp-tongued trainer who managed one of the greatest comebacks of all time; CRAIG BIERKO (Broadway’s The Music Man, The Long Kiss Goodnight ) as Max Baer, the flamboyant heavyweight champion of the world; BRUCE McGILL ( Collateral, Elizabethtown ) as Jimmy Johnston ‘30’s boxing promoter who engineered bouts with the showmanship and control of a Roman emperor ruling over a gladiator challenge; and PADDY CONSIDINE ( In America ) as Mike Wilson, a fictional character whose story of personal downfall during the Depression serves as a counterpoint to Braddock’s astonishing ascent. Stepping in to portray Braddock’s opponents in the ring are several current boxing stars, including heavyweight fighter Art Binkowski (as Corn Griffin), light heavyweight Troy Amos-Ross (as John Henry Lewis) and heavyweight Mark Simmons (as Art Lasky).

Ron Howard’s accomplished creative team who bring Depression Era America and the visceral thrills of the boxing ring to life include: cinematographer SALVATORE TOTINO ( Any Given Sunday, The Missing ), production designer WYNN THOMAS ( A Beautiful Mind, Analyze That ), Oscar-winning editors and long-time Ron Howard associates MIKE HILL and DAN HANLEY ( Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind ) and costume designer DANIEL ORLANDI ( Meet the Parents, The Alamo ). Music is by THOMAS NEWMAN ( Road to Perdition, Finding Nemo ). Boxing choreographer Nick Powell and boxing/stunt coordinator Steve Lucescu, under the guidance of legendary boxing trainer/consultant Angelo Dundee (noted for his work with Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, among others), coordinated the film’s boxing sequences.

The Cinderella Story Of James Braddock:

A brief history of the life and times that led to a lasting legend

The Jazz Age of the 1920s was a golden time for America, as the nation celebrated peace and booming prosperity on the heels of World War I. It was also a Golden Era for boxing, the brutal yet beautifully balletic sport that had captured the public imagination with its raw, primal struggles for transcendence in the ring. In the melting pot society of the early 20th century, disparate immigrant groups drew pride from their “native” sons who boxed; communities with strong Old World roots found a focus, an expression of their heritage, each time a fighter wearing their national colors or symbol climbed into the ring.

It was during this era that James J. Braddock, a New Jersey-based amateur known for his fierce right hand, turned pro. Like many working-class kids, Braddock saw boxing as his ticket to a decent life. It was the only thing he was ever good at – and for a while he was very, very good.

His career shone with promise in the early years, when he was dubbed “the Bulldog of Bergen” for an unflinching tenacity that seemed to carry him through fights with far larger opponents. But, after sustaining irreparable damage to his badly broken right hand, his career began to slide downhill. In 1929, he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of light heavyweight champ Tommy Loughran, who beat him in a heartrending 15-round decision that touched off a seemingly endless string of bad luck and ugly losses. Braddock was never the same again.

Nor was the nation. That same year, the stock market crashed, wiping out 40 percent of the paper values of common stock. As the shockwave spread, American families from all walks of life and every economic class lost their savings, their businesses, their homes and their farms. By 1932 nearly one in four Americans was unemployed.

The nation was reeling in shock, as throngs of once working families began showing up at Salvation Army shelters. Food lines, work lines and Public Relief lines – something many Americans never thought they would see in their own country – became a commonplace sight. The poorest of the poor were forced to live in “Hoovervilles,” grim cardboard-shack shantytowns that sprang up on the edges of most major cities (named with bitter irony for U.S. President Herbert Hoover, who, prior to losing the 1932 election to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had failed to put into place any federal aid programs for struggling families). Thousands upon thousands of others roamed the country, searching for any job no matter how hard, demeaning or dangerous. For the first time since the nation’s pilgrim beginnings, many Americans faced the very real and haunting prospect of hunger and malnutrition. Suicide rates among men who had lost their jobs soared.

Like so many bankers, butchers, farmers and factory workers, Jim Braddock watched as his life, too, began to fall apart. When the local boxing commission forced him to retire by revoking his license, Braddock searched valiantly for any available jobs, but there weren’t many. He took hard-labor jobs in the shipyards, hauling sacks, or anything else he could get. Yet he was making so little that at one point, Braddock was trying to feed a family of five on just $24 a month. It seemed like a losing battle. When the family could no longer afford the basics – milk, gas, electricity – Braddock applied for Relief. It was a terrible blow to his pride, a secret shame that many who had always worked for their families were experiencing across the country.

But then in 1934, just a Roosevelt’s New Deal began to kick into high gear, Braddock’s luck began to shift as well. Unexpectedly, he was given the chance to fight John “Corn” Griffin in a bout Braddock was, by all accounts, pretty much guaranteed to lose. Instead, he managed to dance and jab his way to a win no one could quite believe – thanks in part to a newly strengthened left hand as a result of his stints working on the docks. Shortly after that, as if to prove it wasn’t a fluke, he won a 10-round decision against Hall of Fame light heavyweight John Henry Lewis. Then, he took on Art Lasky, who had won all but one of his last 15 fights – yet Braddock dispatched him too in a thrilling 15-rounder.

With these remarkable wins, Braddock’s spirit became renewed. Remarkably, on e of the first things he did with his earnings was to pay back his Public Relief debt to the government. This selfless act of honor earned Braddock a new moniker among his growing ranks of American fans: “Gentleman Jim.” Suddenly, with his fame beyond the boxing world increasing every day, he found himself in the unlikely position of being able to make a title shot against heavyweight champion Max Baer.

It might seem like a chance any boxer would jump at – but Braddock had plenty of reasons not to rake the fight. In fact, many in the sports world warned that it was a potentially deadly match-up. Braddock was much smaller than Baer, far less experienced and had to rely mainly on his newfound left hook, favoring his formerly injured right. Baer, on the other hand, had recently been brought up on manslaughter charges when one of his opponents was instantly killed by his powerhouse knockout punch. Though he was later cleared of the charges, there was little doubt that Baer, when riled up, was one of the most dangerous fighters in the sport. (Baer had also subjected opponent Ernie Schaaf to a knockout punch in the tenth round of their 1932 fight, leaving him unconscious: Schaaf later died following a bout with Primo Carnera and his death was attributed in part to the brutal beating at the hands of Baer.) In 1933, Baer fought one of the greatest matches of all time, knocking out Max Schmeling in a ten-round fight that would go down in history. In 1934, the same night that Jim Braddock fought Corn Griffin, he defeated Primo Carnera, knocking him down 11 times in 11 rounds.

Despite critics’ cries that Braddock-Baer would be an unfair bout and his wife Mae’s concerns that she could lose her husband to a boxing match, Braddock persevered and jumped into some of the most challenging training a boxer had ever undertaken. The build-up to the match only increased the tension, with Max Baer publicly predicting an easy knockout and reportedly taunting Braddock by calling him a “bum” – an insult Braddock definitely could not let pass without an answer.

At last, the Braddock-Baer fight took place on June 13, 1935, in front of a packed crowd of 35,000 fans in Madison Square Garden. Millions more huddled around their radios to hear the blow-by-blow commentary. Baer came on strong in the first few rounds, but Braddock was undeterred – fueled as he was, fighting for his family’s survival. Each time one fighter dominated the round, the crowd anticipated and early end to the fight – yet the opponent invariably rallied back. This nearly impossible to cal, give-and-take battle continued for an unbelievable 15 rounds. Braddock, possessed by an unfailing spirit and pounding away with remarkable endurance, lasted all 15…and finally won the fight in a unanimous decision.

Instantly, it was proclaimed the greatest upset in boxing history…if not all sports. In bars and living rooms around the country, ordinary people celebrated Braddock’s championship as if he were one of their own family. The fight seemed to remind a desperate world that sometimes the down-and-out not only manage to stay alive but, in the process, become the greatest on earth. It was incredibly fitting that sports writer Damon Runyon had dubbed Braddock the “Cinderella Man” because his rags-to-riches story so resembled a classic fairy tale.

Braddock continued to fight, losing the heavyweight title to Joe Louis in 1937 in an eigth-round knockout (Louis was then 23 while Braddock was a comparatively ancient 32 – and Louis would later say that Braddock was one of the most courageous fighters he ever fought). He went on to beat the odds one last time, defeating the talented Tommy Farr in 1938, putting him in position to fight for the title again. But instead, he retired, saying to reporters that he was doing so not because he was done fighting but out of fairness to his wife and family.

Over the years, Braddock continued to be a hero to all those who knew his story. He was inducted into the Ring Boxing Hall of Fame in 1964 and International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2001. He served honorably in World War II and went on to own and operate heavy equipment on the same docks where he had labored for a pittance during the Depression. In the 1950’s, he helped build Brooklyn’s famous Varrazano Bridge, which was at the time the largest suspension bridge in the world. He died in 1974 at the age of 68.

Rediscovering America’s Cinderella Man:

How the story of Braddock found its way into the hearts of filmmakers…and two actors

Jim Braddock rose from obscurity to become a household hero in the 1930’s, but by the end of the century, his story of remarkable courage and devotion had nearly been lost. Yet for those working in the world of sports and sports journalism, particularly boxing, the legend he created continued to win fans and devotees among many who happened upon the archival press coverage of the fighter and his rise-to-fame matches.

Longtime sports and boxing fan Cliff Hollingsworth was one of those touched by Braddock’s story and felt the man’s driving battle to provide for his family (and unanticipated fame that resulted from his upset matches) was a great tale deserving of a big screen adaptation. Beyond the simple sports victory lay a larger tale of personal triumphs that become the stuff of dreams.

“The journey began in 1994 when I happened to think about Jim Braddock and his incredible rags-to-riches story and I thought what a great movie that would make,” remembers Hollingsworth. “I was already familiar with the story. As a longtime boxing fan, I’d read about all of the former heavyweight champions and Jim Braddock has always been my favorite.”

Through a fortuitous turn of events, Hollingsworth was able to contact one of Braddock’s nephews, who put him in touch with Braddock’s two sons, Jay and Howard; they then agreed to cooperate with the writer. In subsequent meetings, the Braddock sons shared stories of their famous father and later, an initial draft of the script met with the family’s approval.

“The Jim Braddock story is unusual in more ways than one,” observes Hollingsworth. “He inspired the nation in 1935 and was a national hero, yet he became a largely forgotten figure. Jay told me of how he would mention that his father was once the heavyweight champion of the world and usually the person would never have heard of Jim Braddock - that was very frustrating for him. It's my hope that this forgotten hero will be remembered once again."

Another longtime boxing fan who became committed to telling Braddock's story once he heard the gripping details of the boxer's transformation into the Cinderella Man was actor Russell Crowe. Crowe was so deeply moved by Braddock's journey - from a man on the street trying to keep his beloved family from the clutches of poverty to an invincible sports champion and hero of the common person - that he devoted himself to bringing it to the screen.

Crowe saw Braddock as unique among movie heroes in that he wasn't fighting for a cause or for fame or even for personal victory so much as he was just doing everything in his power to take care of those he loved. It was this "ordinariness” that had made Braddock such a crowd-pleasing hero in the 1930s and Crowe felt today's audiences would be equally riveted by what the athlete had achieved in the name of simply being a husband and a father.

“For me, Cinderella Man is the story of how one family survived the Depression," says Crowe, whose earlier portrait of a Roman general turned arena fighter in Ridley Scott's Gladiator won the Academy Award for Best Actor. "Braddock went on with his life after boxing, bringing up his family, working for a living, loving his wife and watching his children grow and his grandchildren born and in 1974, dying in the house he bought with the winnings from that fight way back in 1935. I took his legacy to heart. I wanted people to hear this true American story.”

Crowe continued to be fascinated by Braddock over the next few years. Then came A Beautiful Mind , in which Crowe starred as the genius Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash, Jr., in a story about both the fragility and the triumphs of the human spirit. That film, which went on to win the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director, among others, was directed by Ron Howard and produced by Brian Grazer and Howard.

After Crowe and Howard got to know each other better while working on A Beautiful Mind , Crowe gave Ron a copy of the script. ..and the director, who had long been interested in a film set during the Great Depression, also felt that the Jim Braddock story addressed a lot of the themes that continue to resonate with him. Like Crowe, Howard was intrigued not only by Braddock's comeback-of-all-sports-comebacks, but even more so by his place in the pantheon of folk heroes who seem to reveal something vital about America's national character.

With films that include A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Backdraft, Parenthood, The Paper, Cocoon, Far and Away and the recent The Missing - films that traverse a broad array of subjects ranging from the mysteries of genius to the courage of space travel, from family chaos to the dark days of the Western frontier -Howard has come at the American experience from any number of different angles. He regularly and deftly jumps from genre to genre. But throughout his career he has always been an American classicist, drawn to exploring the core elements of the American temperament: individualism, heroism, family bonds, devotion to ideals, strength of spirit and the powerful allure (and sometimes heartbreaking realities) of the American Dream. All of these seemed to be at work in Jim Braddock's story.

"I am always most interested in taking audiences and placing them directly into fresh situations, whether it's going deep inside the mind of a mathematician or face-to-face with a raging fire or becoming completely weightless in a space capsule," explains Howard. "This film gave me a chance not only to get into the 1930s boxing ring, but also to take audiences on a ride with a man whose life quite suddenly changed from a nightmare of pure survival to a fairy tale of the most inspiring proportions. Jim Braddock went through an amazing transformation in front of the world. That was something really interesting to me. Because as moving and inspiring as Jim Braddock's story is on the outside, it's only when you get on the inside - inside his love for his wife and the simple desire to take care of his family that he shared with so many people - that you see the real basis for his courage which makes his story so powerful and enduringly relevant."

The filmmaker also saw a grander theme illuminated in the simple quest of Braddock - one that has figured heavily in his previous screen stories. He continues, "There is something inherently tough about Americans. They will not admit defeat. Failure is not an option. The astronauts [of Apollo 13] would not give up. John Nash [of A Beautiful Mind ] would not give up. And Jim Braddock would not surrender to poverty."

For Renée Zellweger, whose third 0scar nomination netted her the statue for her portrayal of Ruby in Anthony Minghella’s Cold Mountain , the integral role of Mae Braddock had long interested her. The actress had indeed been tracking the evolution of the project even before filmmaker participation had been cemented.

The character of Mae had become especially meaningful to Zellweger because she was such a strong, opinionated yet truly devoted wife in a time when many women didn't have a voice at all. "What's beautiful about Mae is that through her strength, she becomes Jim’s purpose. She and the kids are his motivation – they’re what keep him hanging on no matter what," she comments. "Mae is Jim’s support system, but she's also a woman who has an unconventional sense of herself - she's never afraid to tell Jim what's in her heart, even when it's not what he wants to hear. In many ways, she was at the helm of the Braddock household; very progressive for the times and an interesting dynamic to explore."

At the time Howard became aware of the project through Crowe, he was also informed of Zellweger's longstanding attraction to the role of Mae. The intense interest of both accomplished and acclaimed performers only added to the filmmaker’s zeal to take on the film.

Oddly enough, Howard had also long been familiar with Braddock's legend, primarily because his father Rance (who takes a cameo role as announcer AI Fazin in Cinderella Man) had heard the electrifying fight between Braddock and Max Baer on the radio as a child - and often reflected upon its remarkable conclusion.

"The Braddock - Baer fight was the first fight my father even remembers hearing,” notes Howard. "He must have been seven or eight and his father drove him to the pool hall in town to listen to it on the radio. When I was growing up, my dad would always tell the story of Jim Braddock as an example of courage, personal integrity and the willing of oneself to do something not just for personal gain, but to do right by the people around you."

Long influenced by populist American filmmakers who cut their teeth in the Depression Era, including Frank Capra and Howard Hawks, Howard also saw the film as a chance to explore the dramatic roller-coaster shifts in America's fortunes, as the country struggled to find its way through the worst period in history it had ever encountered. He was especially fascinated by the way Braddock's story seemed to illuminate how the nation coped - by hanging tight to the thinnest threads of strength, optimism and commitment.

"I always saw the boxing in the film as an extension of Jim Braddock's drive to survive one of the most difficult periods in our nation's history," says Howard. "I wanted to bring this period to life in a new and dramatic way, but I also wanted to emphasize that there's a timeless quality to Braddock's tale. It's very much about redemption and empowerment, which are still driving forces in American culture today, especially when times are tough. It's also about the sacrifices that everyday men continue to make in the service of their families."

Adds Renée Zellweger: "Ron really wanted to bring an authentic portrayal of the Depression to the screen through this story. But most of all it's the emotion that's so palpable. That's Ron's incredible strength, I think. No matter where his stories take you, they are always in large part about what it really means to be human."


It was this humanity that also appealed to Oscar- winning producer Brian Grazer, who was riveted the time he heard the story of Cinderella Man . "When Russell recounted the story of Jim Braddock to me, I found it so heartbreaking and emotional," he recalls. "I saw it as the story of a regular man who faced the hardest of times with remarkable courage. To me, it's a story about all of us and about the hardship America has experienced in its young history. Here you have this man who didn't have money to feed his kids, who had a broken hand, who was never supposed to box again, and he goes on to become the champion of the world, to achieve a greatness no one ever saw coming. That's an amazing fable, even though it's entirely true."

Having just completed a positive creative collaboration with the filmmakers of A Beautiful Mind , it seemed like a perfect fit for the team - that included Grazer, Howard, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and Crowe along with the newly added Zellweger - to tackle the Story of Braddock. HolIingsworth, convinced that director Howard and the team would honor Braddock's saga and treat with care the faith entrusted by his children, turned his screenplay over to the filmmakers. Soon after, Goldsman, Howard and Crowe reunited and dove intensively into working on the script.

"To tell the story of Jim Braddock was an extraordinary opportunity for me," offers Goldsman.

"Here was the amazing architecture of a man's life, existing against the backdrop of our of our country's history. Stories like these, so difficult for those who live them, are gifts to writers. The universe offers them up and I think it is our luxury as well as our obligation to return them in some emotionally understandable form."

But while Goldsman acknowledges the extraordinary nature of the story behind the Cinderella Man, he is quick to point out the possible cinematic: pitfall when adapting such a tale to the motion picture screen. He continues, "Braddock's story is famously uplifting. The title of the movie itself, arguably, makes the outcome clear. All fairy tales end happily ever after. But lives do not have titles. They are not seen through the lens of happy endings but are instead a roiling sea of unpredictability, profound sorrow, heartrending joy. If Jim’s story was God-given, full of grace, the experience of his life needed to be rendered as the opposite. We set out to create a narrative that was blind to future outcomes, one that remembers just how unimaginable the prospect of triumph is before it arrives. We believed that happily-ever-afters do exist. But that getting to them can be pretty awful. We believed that fairy tales are probably no fun at all for those who live inside them. So we set out to tell our story that way, all in hopes of making Jim's triumph at the end all the sweeter."

Grazer offers, "'We felt it is such a human story. You can’t really call Braddock a great boxer, but he had tremendous will - and this was during a time when nearly every American was undergoing some kind of hardship, particularly in the working class. In some ways, Braddock was the embodiment of that class, just trying to keep food in their mouths and a roof over their heads. So when he went into the ring, there was a kind of collective force of all of those he came to represent in America.

"Braddock was a kind, generous man. In many ways, straightforward, simple," closes Grazer. "He bad a lot of humility, and that was something that everybody could grab a hold of and see a little part of themselves in him. In that way, he was almost more of a champion outside of the ring than he was in. His is really a story of everyday heroism. "

It was exactly this kind of heroism that made Crowe such a fan of Braddock's tale. From the get-go, Crowe related to the character's stalwart determination and commitment to do right by his family, no matter the personal costs.

“I read about Braddock, how he did after boxing, how his kids all grew up and had kids and how he loved his wife until the day the day he died – such a simple story, such simple goodness and humor," relates Crowe. "I wanted a man like this to be honored. I wanted his legacy to be relevant Americans today. I also felt it important that Americans be reminded that their abundance has been built on the shoulders of people like Jim and Mae, hardworking parents who put their children as first priority."

But what moved the actor even more was the fact that the story told had been lived. "Every time I read the script I would get goose bumps - it was the idea that this life, this change of fortune, had actually happened. It was real.” Even as Russell Crowe was pursuing the part of Jim Braddock in the late 1990s, Renée Zellweger had become independently intrigued in the story of Jim's wife. Mae Braddock, whose enduring love and belief famously spurred him on to one of the greatest sports upsets in history. When Crowe found out about Zellweger's interest, he couldn't have been happier. He had always wanted to work with the actress whose recent roles have run the gamut from the criminal harlot of the musical Chicago to her Osar-winning turn as the hardscrabble farmer Ruby in Cold Mountain to the iconic modern single woman, the: tide character of Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Zellweger found herself drawn to Cinderella Man because she felt the story had a classic American quality that has become all too rare in today's movie world. “It felt almost like a Frank Capra kind of American movie tale," she says, "and I've never done anything like that before. It's a very simple human story that is also deeply moving and sometimes I think that we just don't make movies like that often enough any more."

She was also thrilled to join the team of Crowe, Howard and Grazer and found that she fit right in. "I think what brought us all together is that we all share a similar appreciation of good stories and we all basically make movies for the same reasons," she explains. "It's a personal thing for each of us and that made this movie very meaningful."

Zellweger sought to bring to Mae the inner fire and spunk that was obviously so key in keeping the Braddock family together during the impossibly hard times of the '30s. She says, "She's a spitfire, she loves her husband and is proud of his achievements, she hates seeing him go off and fight, but she is unconditionally supportive."

Most of all, Zellweger sees Mae as central to one of the film's most poignant themes: me mixture of struggles and passion that bind husbands and wives so closely. "My favorite thing about Cinderella Man is that it always comes back to the connection between Jim and Mae," she says. "No matter what challenges they face, they always make it through because of the strength of their relationship. Their love is foundational in helping them through the harsh realities of the times."

To prepare for the role, Zellweger delved into as much research as she could find about the real Braddock family - especially reading through the more than 200 love letters that Jim Braddock wrote to Mae. "It was such a rare opportunity to have this kind of material," she notes. "I felt very blessed to have it because it gave such wonderful insight into !he dynamic of their relationship. In reading their letters, it was clear how beautiful their love for one another was and how it carried them through the challenges they faced. A classically moving, inspiring love story."

She continues: "One thing I found especially moving is that the Braddock kids weren't ever fully aware of just bow bad things were. Jim and Mae managed to provide this incredible front that everything was okay even though they were just barely surviving. It just reminds you of how lucky we have become. It's hard to imagine how difficult it must have been to sacrifice everything so that your children wouldn't have to go to sleep at night worrying about food and having a roof over their heads."

From watching footage of Mae at press conferences, Zellweger also discerned how painfully camera-shy Mae Braddock became after being thrust into the spotlight through her husband's sudden folk-hero status. "She didn't like the limelight at all," observes Zellweger. "She was so uncomfortable, and in part I think it was because she was so filled with fear that she might lose the man that she loved to fighting.”

Cinderella Man Scores A Knockout Cast:

Paul Giamatti, Craig Bierko, Bruce McGill and Paddy Considine fill the roster

Joining Crowe and Zellweger in bringing the core of Jim Braddock's story to life are a group of lauded actors in key supporting roles, headed by Paul Giamatti, who won over critics and audiences with his performances in American Splendor and Sideways , the actor takes another diverse turn as Jim Braddock's savvy and loyal manager, Joe Gould.

As Braddock's long-time friend and manager, the colorful Gould continued to believe in him when everyone else said be was washed up. He managed the fighter's thrilling comeback with just the right touch to keep Braddock on his feet. The diminutive, fast-talking, Jewish Gould and the strapping, quiet, Irish Braddock made for a notably odd pairing, bur their respect for one another became legendary.

Giamatti found their friendship to be especially fascinating because it was so completely unexpected. "In researching the role, I talked to a number of historians who said that Joe Gould wasn't really all that well-liked in boxing circles. He was known for being abrasive and obnoxious - and yet for some mysterious reason he and Braddock got along famously,” Giamatti explains. "Apparently the one person Joe Gould wasn't gruff with was Jim. It was almost as if they felt like they were brothers way, way beneath the skin, no matter how opposite they were from one another. There was maybe an unspoken understanding between them of what it means to fight hard for what you've got."

Giamatti believes that Gould was almost as devastated by Braddock's descent into poverty as the fighter himself and was determined to help him if he could. "Joe Gould was the man responsible for guiding Jim's career. Here he had this fighter who had been very much on the brink, who was building up to something and then he just crashed, his luck just fell apart at the same time as the nation fell into the Depression." observes Giamatti. "It must have been very hard for him to watch. Gould couldn't be sure if Jim had what it took to win anymore but, under the circumstances, I think he felt he had to give him every last chance."

With Braddock's miraculous rise to champion, Gould would become a minor hero in his own right during the '30s. There were even several dime-store type biographies published about Gould, though Giamatti found them more amusing than revealing. "They were all these old-style popular biographies that were completely glossed over and filled with all kinds of clichés and exaggerations," explains Giamatti. "They weren't really all that helpful, except that they were a clear sign of what an incredible impact this story had on the country and the culture."

Instead, Giamatti, whose own grandfather boxed for a brief period of time, got more mileage out of looking at footage of Braddock's fights and watching Gould's close-to-the-surface emotions and mannerisms unfold in real time. In addition, Giamatti says that working with the world-class boxing trainer Angelo Dundee was invaluable. "If it hadn't been for him, I could never have done this part," he summarizes. "Basically, Angelo supplied me with all the knowledge, the phrases, everything I needed to know about boxing. Just watching and listening to him taught me a lot more about what Joe Gould must have been like, and how he would have helped Jim in the ring, than anything else."

Just as Gould was blown away by Jim Braddock's performances, Giamatti felt equally awed by Russell Crowe's unflagging energy and commitment to the role. "'I don't know how he did it," says Giamatti. "After each of the boxing scenes, which were incredibly intense, I felt like I was going to pass out and all I was doing was standing in the corner screaming at him. Russell has incredible stamina, and I truly believe someone like Angelo could have made him a boxer. Yet, he's also one of the easiest actors I've ever worked with because it seems to make him so happy. You can throw anything at him and Russell just loves it all."

Craig Bierko, who continues to successfully transition back and forth from Hollywood to Broadway, brings panache and flair to the role of heavyweight champ Max Baer. For Bierko, playing the heavyweight champion provided an opportunity to gain insight into a fascinating chapter in the sport of boxing, as well as get a glimpse of a more showy and less obvious side of a dark period in American history.

Bierko recalls, "When I heard through my agent that Ron Howard was interested in me for Max Baer. I had to admit that I didn't know anything about the guy. Then I read the script and was totally hooked. In doing research I then found out that they had tried to make a movie star out of Baer at the height of his career - he was a song and dance man as well. So here was this guy, funny, light, with this big personality who's also a killer with a Howitzer for a right arm. I knew doing the part would involve a great deal of training and research – every once in a while I like to take things that scare the hell out of me. But boy was it worth it."

Bierko's physical training to transform into Baer involved workouts and boxing that eventually shaved 15 pounds off his frame. (The actor's Straight hair was also permed to resemble the champ's curly locks.) He comments: "I had never boxed before and I wasn't that big of a fan, either. Boxing for me was the visual equivalent of jazz music - while I could appreciate what they were doing, I couldn't really comprehend what was behind it. Working with [boxing trainer] Hector Roca was the key to my learning about the sport - we had to do a super accelerated course, because it takes about two years to train a boxer and I had three months. I had a lot of fear to overcome, but after this one major day, where I was taking hits in the face, and this after a month of Hector trying to break my spirit so that he could build me again – I felt like I had conquered something. And from then on, at the end of every day, Hector'd look me in the eye and say, 'You're gonna be great, come in tomorrow...you stupid mama's boy.’ It was hilarious and fantastic."

Prolific actor Bruce McGill portrays Jimmy Johnston, the boxing promoter who wielded his power to make and break boxing careers while lording over the sport’s high cathedral, Madison Square Garden. With more than 60 motion picture acting credits, McGill's familiar blend of gravitas and sardonic humor seemed a perfect fit for the promoter and McGill embraced playing the "heavyweight" figure of the Depression Era boxing world. McGill observes: "Jimmy bad a great job. Nothing really happened in American boxing - and to some extent, Canadian boxing - during that period unless it came through his domain. Madison Square Garden was the venue and Johnston was the matchmaker. If you didn't meet with his approval, you didn't fight, period."

What also intrigued this actor about his character was a striking similarity he shared with most of the boxers under his aegis. "Johnston was born in the British Isles and he came to the States when he was 12, so he was an immigrant – basically, at the bottom rung of society. This was the same for many of the boxers, who were able to fight their way out of their class to obtain a better life. You didn't need a degree, you don't even have to be able to talk - it was a way for anyone to take aim at the American Dream. Jimmy did the same thing, only as It promoter instead of It fighter."

Unlike Crowe, Zellweger, Giamatti, Bierko and McGill, Paddy Considine plays the one character in Cinderella Man who never really existed. Rising star Considine, who came to the fore in Jim Sheridan's In America , plays Mike, the fictional former stockbroker who meets up with Jim Braddock in a work line only to become his biggest fan.

The character of Mike was crafted during the screenwriting process in order to represent the many down-and-out Americans who looked to Jim Braddock for a glimmer of hope. Considine was drawn to the role because it seemed to deepen the humanity of Braddock's journey up from the very bottom.

Says Considine: “I think Mike becomes important to the story because he's the character who takes the biggest fall of all in Cinderella Man . He was a Wall Street stockbroker and, in an instant, he went from having pretty much everything in the world to having nothing at all. Unfortunately, he's really the opposite of Jim Braddock. Mike's not a natural-born fighter, in any sense of the word, so he doesn't know how to cope with these extreme changes in his world. Instead of getting back up when he's knocked down, he becomes bitter. He feels personally wronged by the Depression and he loses faith in the country. Yet, he forms an allegiance with Jim, because he sees that this is an incredible guy to have on side when you're down, he sees that Jim has the strength he’s looking for:”

Considine particularly looked forward to working with Ron Howard, whose work he has long admired.

"Mike struck me as the kind of very human, very relatable character who is so much a part of Ron Howard's filmmaking style," he says. "Ron is always most interested in human relationships and I think the way he approaches the friendship between Mike and Jim Braddock is very indicative: of this.”

Researching the Great Depression left Considine with a sobering view of how many men there were like Mike - who searched for a path that would allow them to sustain their self-respect, each in their own way. "I heard stories of guys who couldn't tell their wives that they lost their jobs, so they'd leave the house every morning with briefcases and go sit in Central Park all day. In those days, I think men really felt like they had to be the provider and without that they felt shamed and as if they were nothing," he reflects. "'There was just this tremendous loss of personal pride that can have a devastating effect on a society. You see that if someone like Braddock hadn't existed, they would have had to invent him."

Finally, completing the main cast of Cinderella Man are the trio of young actors chosen to portray Jim and Mae Braddock's three children, who were his mainstay and his inspiration to never give in. Because the family’s unyielding bonds were so integral to the story, Ron Howard invited Crowe and Zellweger to witness the auditions for the Braddock children and participate in the final selection process.

Ultimately, Patrick Louis was cast as Howard Braddock, Connor Price as Jay Braddock and Ariel Waller as little Rosemarie. "The way the kids coalesced as a family was one of the most wonderful surprises of the movie for me," says Ran Howard. "It was exciting to see them fill up their moments in ways that were unexpected and true and entertaining. It is also through them that you really see what drives Jim and Mae."

Turning into Cinderella Man:

How Russell Crowe approached the role of a quiet man who became an unwitting hero

In addition to the research and preparation for embodying the character of Braddock, Crowe would need to undergo a great deal of physical training to portray a man who possessed not only the courage but the physical prowess and pugilistic skills to take on the greatest fighters of his time. Crowe began the process by immersing himself in the archives of photographs and film reels that still exist of Braddock in his fighting heyday. He spent hours meticulously analyzing the fighter's every movement and facial expression in the ring, discussing his character's uncanny drive and persistence from the outside in.

At the same time, Crowe also began to study the art of boxing - the sport known as "the sweet science'" for its multifaceted mix of grace, grit and strategy - with trainer Angelo Dundee, who for 21 years trained the greatest champion of them all, Muhammad AIi.

The next task was to whip Crowe into the highly conditioned shape of a hungry pro boxer. But because Crowe was devoted to absolute authenticity, he didn't want to use today's far more sophisticated methods; rather, he wanted to use the same bare-bones methods Jim Braddock would have used. From research, Crowe learned that boxers in the 1930s rarely trained with weights, giving them a less cut physique than current boxers, so his program studiously avoided pumping iron. Instead, the emphasis was put on cardio and endless days and nights of sparring, sparring and more sparring in the ring - which eventually transformed the actor from 228 pounds of Master and Commander’s Captain Jack Aubrey to Braddock's fighting weight of 178.

Taking advantage of the actor's natural athleticism, Dundee brought in trainer Wayne Gordon, himself a former Olympic boxer, to design a regimen that included kayaking, swimming, running, biking, hiking mountains, skipping rope and working a bag - all designed to build a naturally strong (but not overly muscular) body built for power and endurance. Crowe trained with typical intensity, dropping numerous pounds to better emulate Braddock's physique - the physique some said was too light and too battered to ever even hope for a regional win, let alone a heavyweight championship.

To better capture Braddock's unique pugilistic style, Crowe also worked on choreography with Angelo Dundee, who was lucky enough to have witnessed Braddock fight in person on several occasions. The trainer taught Russell to use the left hook that Braddock developed to overcome the weakness of his right hand and even how to carry his body as if he were several inches taller, as Braddock was.

As the details came together, Crowe's complete transformation took Dundee aback. "I think I would have to go so far as to say Russell is Jim Braddock,” says the venerable trainer. "I'm amazed the way Russell picked up his mannerisms, his smoothness, the legs, the way he slides, that slip, slide, block, slide, jab - boom! Like Jim, he has just about the greatest left hook I've ever seen. He's got the speed, the rhythm, the determination and especially the will. Best of all, he has learned to think like a fighter. One thing about Braddock is that he was a smart fighter, and Russell uses his noodle just like Braddock did. I do think if he wasn't an actor, Russell could have been a great fighter."

Despite having worked with Crowe before, Ron Howard was also surprised by how Crowe used his physical changes to demonstrate Braddock's transformation as a man. "What Russell has done so well is to let Braddock evolve during the course of the movie - as both a fighter and as a person. Russell draws from what he discerns and then reflects that back in a very detailed way. It's the root of his immense talent. He has great instincts about what makes his character tick and how to express it. The fights needed to be a reflection of Braddock's character and Russell was able to do that. Once again as an artist he proved himself to be superb.”

Adds producer Brian Grazer: "I’ve simply never seen anyone dedicate themselves to a part with more intensity than Russell Crowe."

Boxing also tends to reveal human frailty, like Jim Braddock, Crowe was not Immune from injury. Just one week before shooting was to begin, Crowe dislocated his shoulder while sparring aggressively. The shoulder would require surgery, necessitating a seven-week delay in production.

Undeterred, Crowe used his recuperation time to devote himself to further refining his footwork and ring craft. He was back in the gym just a week out of the operating room, working to strengthen the injured shoulder back to fighting level. Meanwhile, the production team also used the period to design more complex ring choreography. Ultimately, Crowe saw the delay as a blessing in disguise, providing him, the filmmakers, everyone involved more time to ensure an authentic portrayal.

The accident even gave Crowe new insight Into Braddock's inner world, as the boxer himself so often fought while mentally steeling himself against considerable bodily agony. Still, Crowe's injury did make for high tension for the rest of the production.

"We were told that Russell could easily re-injure his shoulder, and it wouldn't even take much to do it,” recalls Ron Howard. "So we had to constantly find a balance between striving for the best possible take without increasing the chances that Russell could get hurt. It meant that everyone, Russell included, had to bring even more care to his scenes.”

A Cinderella Dream Unfolds Inside An American Nightmare:

How Ron Howard and his design team approached transporting modern audiences into the boxing ring and back to the reality of America’s Great Depression

Telling the story of a man who really existed in a time most Americans think they know posed challenges to Howard and his team. Yet for the director and director of photography, Salvatore Totino, there lay a simple dictum. Totino relates, "Ron wanted the film to have real grit to it and real sense of life. So we were very focused on making the audience feel they are part of the fights, as well as immersed in the New York City of the 1920s and '30s.”

For the boxing, this meant shooting the fights utilizing an array of cameras and angles, in order to capture the intimate nature of the sport - which is essentially a two-man challenge.

The filmmakers' commitment to reality came at a price, though. The close-up intimacy of the cinematography meant that the actors and fighters had to go to the very edge of physical contact…and sometimes over it. The danger level was quite high as boxing choreographer Nick Powell notes. "When you’re trying to really sell a no-holds-barred punch for multiple cameras the only way to do it is to get within a hair's breadth of the other person. Which means that sometimes actual contact was made," admits Powell. "Ron called them 'happy accidents,’ because it made for such tremendous realism. It was very exciting visually - unless you were the guy on the receiving end of the punch!"

The man mostly on the receiving end turned out to be Crowe himself, whose intense commitment to the verisimilitude of the boxing sequences meant that the actor took a number of jarring blows to the head - and suffered repeated concussions and multiple cracked teeth in the process. During the fight where Braddock faces Lasky (as played by Mark Simmons), Crowe was subjected to such a powerful, direct hit that Giamatti's reaction - a look of pure horror - was reality itself. Giamatti offers, "Everyone could hear the glove connect with Russell's head and quite honestly I don't know how he continued with the fight. I fully expected him to go down." [Both of these shots are in the final cut of the film.]

Even the camera operators, especially those doing handheld work in close proximity to punches, could be in peril. The multi-camera approach also meant there were days when Howard handed his astonished editors – long-time collaborators Dan Hanley and Mike Hill - as much as 30,000 feet of footage. "They were a bit freaked out at first," admits the director. "We were giving them far more footage then they'd ever imagined we'd shoot, and also far more options. But they quickly developed a system for evaluating the fights and compiling the greatest moments, building the scenes from the exchanges they most loved."

Meanwhile, as Russell Crowe was learning to box, a group of professional fighters who had been cast as his opponents - including Art Binkowski as Corn Griffin, Troy Ross as John Henry Lewis and Simmons as Art Lasky - had to Iearn to pull their punches. "We forbade them from doing any full contact training while we were filming," explains boxing/stunt coordinator Steve Lucescu. "We knew that one slip could have devastating results."

Still, says Troy Ross: "Real boxers are not used to throwing fake punches so it was quite a learning process for us. You worry that if you learn to hold back too well, you might never win in the ring again!"

Perhaps the biggest difficulty in training the pro boxers in the film was getting them to simulate knockouts by Jim Braddock. No boxer wants to hit the ground willingly. "Some of these guys have never been knocked out in the ring so they sure didn't like the idea of it," notes Lucescu. "Sometimes we had to remind them, 'Read the script, you're going down!'"

Whether it was the willingness to stand in the way of a rocketing glove or to fall to the rubber, it all added up to the authenticity Howard was seeking. Summarizes the director: "We spent an enormous amount of time analyzing, designing and choreographing each of the fights so that they would be illuminated in a unique way on the screen. What we really did was to re-create Braddock's fights just as you can see them in the archives, but we took them to a new dramatic level."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Outside the boxing arena, Cinderella Man's visuals traverse an urban world that has been turned upside down by the tremendous economic and emotional chaos of the Great Depression. By re-creating the era with an authentic grittiness, Howard aimed to plunge today's audiences right into the stark reality of Braddock's times – a reality that those who didn't live through those incredibly tough times are often astonished to see.

Says Howard: "One of the biggest surprises to me in making this movie was learning how few people today realize just how desperate regular Americans were during the Depression and how dire the entire national condition was just 70 years ago. It's a story that maybe we haven't told enough, but it's such an important one. We forget how much we have to be grateful for and how far we've come."

Howard first learned about the Great Depression in his own childhood, when he became acutely aware that the period had been extremely formative in many American lives, including those of his parents. Even then the stories inspired him to make a boyhood film.

"My parents were deeply shaped by their experiences is children surviving the Depression," explains Howard. "So the very first film I ever made - which was for a history class in my junior year of high school - was about the period. For that film, I interviewed seven or eight people who had lived through the Depression, then with my little Bauer Super 8 and some macro lenses, I photographed the faces of the Depression. I really lost myself in that project and I continued to be fascinated by the era."

Now, Howard had a chance to revisit the Depression with a far wider array of storytelling tools at his disposal. He continues: "It was very important to me to show a kind of true picture of the everyday reality of the Depression, not in an iconographic way, but as something very real that put enormous pressure on American families. There were many who truly felt they would never again get out from under, which is why Jim Braddock’s beating the odds was so meaningful across the country."

Howard collaborated closely with director of photography Salvatore Totino to imbue the film's visual atmosphere with that visceral sense of uncertainty, desperation and struggle. "Ron wanted to draw out the grittiness of the period, so we decided to bring a strong feeling of the street to the photography," comments Totino. "We tried something more raw than what you usually see in depictions of the '’30s. It's very easy to go slick and beautiful and backlit with the Depression Era - and make it kind of idealized and poetic, as we have seen before - but we went the opposite way, keeping the lighting and the handheld camera work very rough, and much more on the side of uncompromised reality."

Also working closely with Howard and Totino was production designer Wynn Thomas, who previously worked with Howard on A Beautiful Mind . Thomas was intrigued by the evolution that Jim Braddock's world goes through six-year period that takes him from boom to bust to rebirth.

To capture Braddock's shifting fortunes, designed the film in distinct phases. He explains, "My job is to enhance the storytelling with a complete visual framework. So we start in 1928 and the world is good. Everything is bright and colourful, the cars are all shiny and there’s lots of gold and floral colors. Then, with the start of the Depression, the look changes. The color shifts dramatically and is almost removed from the movie. In this way, the film sort of evokes those stark 1930s photographs that we've all seen and are always so powerful. But by the end of the film, the look takes another shift as Braddock begins to regain his sense of possibility and a promising future."

For Thomas to most authentically re-create the boxing scene of 1930s New York, he realized the production
would have to journey to Canada, where the Maple Leaf Gardens remains one of the few existing examples of the grand sports arenas of the era left in the world. The now-defunct Canadian hockey arena, which was built in 1931, made the perfect stand-in for the Madison Square Garden of Braddock's day, which was long ago torn down and replaced anew – today’s modern structure barely resembles the arena where Braddock faced Baer. On top of providing historically authentic architecture, the Maple Leaf Gardens was vast enough to shoot the technically demanding fight scenes, especially the climactic Braddock-Baer fight with its audience of 35,000. Additionally, the arena was available for an unlimited length of time, so that filming could take place for the duration of the production. All of this rendered the Maple Leaf Gardens the only choice for Howard and the filmmakers.

For the exteriors, Thomas discovered that the back of Toronto's Hudson's Bay Company Store shared a number of architectural elements in common with the famous building. But finding the location was just a start. Relying on painstaking, old school physical design and craftsmanship, Thomas had his crew re-work the entire outside of the building, including adding a replica of the infamous Garden marquee with its 10,000 light bulbs, designed by set designer Michael Madden.

For the exteriors of the Braddock family's neighbourhood, Thomas brought several streets into the Depression Era, filling the avenues with scores of lonely, abandoned, closed-down shops. He brought only a butcher's shop, a bakery a Rexall Drug and the ubiquitous pawn shop to life. Meanwhile, the store windows were filled with exact reproductions of best-selling items of the day, from the stylish straw Adam Hats to Majestic All-Purpose Tonic. The designs were inspired by some unusual reading: '30s issues of The Sears Roebuck Catalog , which set the mood and helped the designer to familiarize himself with the everyday appliances and objects found in typical households of the period.

One of his most important designs he felt would be that of Jim and Mae's apartment, which though small and dank and woefully imperfect, becomes their refuge from an increasingly tough and unfriendly world outside.

"There's a real story inside that apartment that we wanted to tell with the design." Thomas explains. "Jim and Mae have moved into what is essentially a very harsh and grim environment and Mae has fixed it up as best as she possibly can to keep their minds off of their troubles. It's very much reflective of who she is and what their family is all about…never giving up and never letting life get the best of you.”

Thomas especially enjoyed working with Renée Zellweger in creating the design of the Braddock home and surroundings. I took Renee through an early version of the apartment and it was just incredible, because as we went from room to room, she would suddenly pick up different objects and give them each a history in the family," he recalls. "It all became very meaningful and alive, and we felt we were creating a true home."

Wynn Thomas' meticulous attention to detail became an inspiration to cast and crew, helping to transport them even further into Jim Braddock's reality. “The sets blew everyone away," says Salvatore Totino. "There were times I felt I had stepped completely out of our time and right into 1933. The impeccable detail really made a huge difference in telling the story. It gave both the actors and the crew more freedom, because there was so much there to work with creatively. "

Meanwhile costume designer Daniel Orlandi, who previously collaborated with Howard on Apollo 13 , was diving into photo archives to familiarize himself with the typical outfits worn by such disparate 1930s groups as dockworkers, boxers and families on relief. He came away from the research with a new vision of what America was really like in the 1930s. Instead of a nation in tattered rags, he discovered a country that continued to aim for elegant appearances even in the toughest of times.

"I think our immediate impression of the Depression is usually something out of Grapes of Wrath ," says Orlandi, "but it was actually very different in New York City, which was hit just as hard. It seems everyone still put their suits on even though they didn't have any money or even if they lived on the street. There was this great book from 1933 with a picture of men looking at the want ads, and they're all in suits and ties and hats. It was said that a man’s spirit breaks before his suit."

Still, Orlandi notes that as the Depression went on, even the finest clothing became more and more threadbare, so he took the film's vintage costumes and "aged" them as the story progresses, adding wear and tear, as well as dust and grime.

In designing clothes for Russell Crowe, Orlandi relied on the available pictures of Jim Braddock, who often cut a striking figure in his boxer's robe. "We created Russell’s look largely from the historical reality," he says. "But we also wanted to use the costumes to give a more dramatic sense of his character's fall and rise. When we fist see him, and he's still a successful boxer, he’s in a beautiful 1920s pinstripe suit with two-tone shoes and a sharp watch. But as time goes on, he obviously doesn't have as many expensive clothes. His look becomes simpler, more basic. You see him becoming more a man of the people."

As for Crowe's boxing apparel, Orlandi collaborated with the actor to find the most authentic pieces, right down to the 1930s-style boxing boots. "With Russell, everything had to be absolutely right," he notes. We scoured boxing archives and museums to make sure that it was."

Orlandi also had the challenge of dressing Renee Zellweger down. "Renee was wonderful in that she had no vanity and really embraced her sad little sweaters with holes and shapeless dresses of the Depression," he says. "Fortunately, we also had some chances to have her looking sweet and pretty in some of that fashion of the times when she goes out to see her husband fight."

Perhaps most fun for Orlandi was dressing the famously showy heavyweight champion, Max Baer, as played by Bierko. "Max was extremely flamboyant, especially for a boxer, and was noted for his fur coats and dapper tuxedos, so we really played these up to contrast the differences in personality between Max and Jim," explains Orlandi.

The coup de grace for Orlandi was working closely with Ron Howard and production designer Wynn Thomas to bring back to life one of the ramshackle "Hoovervilles" that sprung up around major U.S cities. Just designing the look of the camps was a moving experience for Orlandi.

"It's a really powerful thing to be pulled back into that time," comments Orlandi. "We had to mostly sew the clothes for the homeless from scratch because of course little of it survived. We fit each extra individually for their outfits and by the time they were standing on Wynn's incredible set, it was like looking at a photograph from the '30s. It was almost as if you could tell a story about each of the people there. Each one of them had clearly gone through something similar to Jim Braddock.”

For the cast, stepping back into the Depression through the film's richly detailed designs was an awe-inspiring journey. Sums up Renee Zellweger: "Ron and all the crew brought an incredible amount of detail to every single element - from the food on the table to the authenticity in the boxing ring - and it just felt so real. It's been a joy to work on such an inspiring, resonant story - and to know that it is being told in such a beautiful, finely wrought way. It's been the best kind of project you can imagine."

Crowe saw a natural evolution to his and Howard's ongoing professional relationship: "The easy version of this is our collaboration just got better and better. You couldn't get more dissimilar subjects - a schizophrenic mathematician and a '30’s-era boxer. Everything about this experience was different, except for my relationship with Ron. We like to do a day's work - that, I think, is our main common goal. And we see filmmaking as a privilege."

Universal Pictures I Miramax Films I Imagine Entertainment Presents A Brian Grazer Production In Association with Parkway Productions of A Ron Howard Film: Russell Crowe and Renee ZeIlweger in Cinderella Man , starring Paul Giamatti, Craig Bierko, Bruce McGilI, Paddy Considine. The music is by Thomas Newman. The costume designer is Daniel Orlandi. The co-executive producer is James Whitaker. The associate producers are Louis Velis and Kathleen McGilI. The film is edited by Mike Hill and Dan Hanley. The production designer is Wynn Thomas; the director of photography is Salvatore Totino. The executive producer is Todd HalIowell. It is produced by Brian Grazer, Ran Howard and Penny Marshall. The story is by Cliff Hollingsworth; the screenplay is by Cliff Hollingsworth and Akiva Goldsman. Cinderella Man is directed by Ron Howard.

© 2005 Universal Studios. www.cinderellamanmovie.com

About The Cast

Russell Crowe (Jim Braddock), who was most recently seen as Lucky Jack Aubrey in Peter Weir's historical action/adventure, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World , has received three consecutive Academy Award Best Actor nominations for his performance in: The Insider (2000), Gladiator (2001) and A Beautiful Mind (2002). He won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Maximus, the Roman general-turned-gladiator; in Ridley Scott's blockbuster Gladiator . This role also earned him Best Actor honors from several critics' organizations including the Broadcast Film Critics. In addition, he received nominations from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Screen Actors Guild and BAFTA.

In Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind , Crowe’s masterful portrayal of Nobel Prize-winning John Forbes Nash, Jr. earned him his third Academy Award nomination and garnered him Best Actor awards from the Golden Globes, Broadcast Film Critics Association, Screen Actors Guild and BAFTA, among other critics groups.

Crowe received his first Academy Award nomination for his work in MichaeI Mann’s non-fiction drama The Insider , as tobacco company whistleblower, Dr. Jeffrey Wigand. He also earned Best Actor Awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics, Broadcast Film Critics, National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review and nominations for a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Before his award-winning acclaim, Crowe made his mark in Curtis Hanson's crime drama, L.A. Confidential , as vice cop Bud White. He later starred in Jay Roach’s Mystery, Alaska , and in Taylor Hackford's Proof of Life , opposite Meg Ryan.

In 1995 be made his American film debut in the Western The Quick and the Dead , with Gene Hackman and Sharon Stone, and then starred as the cyber-villian Sid 6.7 in Virtuosity opposite Denzel Washington. Additional film credits include Heaven’s Burning, Breaking Up, Rough Magic, The Sum of Us, For the Moment, Love in Limbo, The Silver Brumby (based on the classic Australian children’s novel), The Efficiency Expert and Prisoners of the Sun .

Born in New Zealand, Crowe was raised in Australia where he has also been honored for his work on the screen. He was recognized for three consecutive years by the Australian Film Institute (AFI), beginning in 1991, when he was nominated for Best Actor for The Crossing . The following year, he won the Best Supporting Actor Award for Proof and in 1992, he received Best Actor Awards from the AFI and the Australian Film Critics for his performance in the controversial Romper Stomper . In 1993, the Seattle Film Festival named Crowe Best Actor for his work in both Romper Stomper and Hammers Over the Anvil .
Crowe currently resides in Australia.

Renee Zellweger (Mae Braddock) won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in the role of the rough-hewn Ruby in Anthony Minghella’s Civil War epic Cold Mountain . In 2003, her outstanding portrayal of Roxie Hart in the smash bit musical Chicaqo garnered her widespread critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. In addition, she won the 2003 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Lead Role as well as a 2003 Golden Globe Award for Lead Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Zellweger was also nominated for a BAFTA Award for Lead Actress.

Zellweger recently again starred as the heroine of singletons everywhere in the international hit Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason . The role of Bridget Jones began for Zellweger with 2001's runaway hit Bridget Jones's Diary , for which Renee was nominated for a 2002 Academy Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actor's Guild Award, among many others. Her recent films also include the Dream Works animated comedy Shark Tale , joining an all-star cast including Jack Black, James Gandolfini, Angelina Jolie, Martin Scorsese and Will Smith; and Down with Love , a satirical homage to the 1960s sex comedies that starred Rock Hudson and Doris Day, alongside Ewan McGregor.

Considering that she took her first acting class to ensure graduating from the University of Texas with a literature degree, Zellweger's rise to leading lady status has been rapid and continually met with praise. After appearing in such television projects as the USA Network telefilm A Taste for Killing and the Showtime Drive-In Classics series Shake, Rattle and Rock , she made her film debut while still in Austin in Richard Linklater's coming-of-age film Dazed and Confused . This was followed by Ben Stiller’s Reality Bites , Love and a .45 (for which she received best first Independent Spirit Award nomination), 8 Seconds, The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Empire Records and My Boyfriend’s Back .

Her other film credits include 20th Century Fox's comedy Me, Myself and Irene , directed by the Farrelly brothers starring opposite Jim Carrey; The Bachelor , a romantic comedy in which me stars opposite Chris O'Donnell; and director Neil LaBute’s dark comedy Nurse Betty , with Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman, for which she won a 2000 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical. Renee also starred in Universal’s critically acclaimed One True Thing , with William Hurt and Meryl Streep, and opposite Robin Wright-Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer in White Oleander .

She received acclaim for her vulnerable performance opposite Tom Cruise in Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire , which also earned her Best Breakthrough Performer of 1996 by the National Board of Review, a Blockbuster Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy and a SAG Award nomination.

With a diverse roster of finely etched, critically acclaimed performances, Paul Giamatti (Joe Gould) has established himself as one of the most versatile actors of his generation.

Giamatti most recently starred in Alexander Payne’s critically-lauded Sideways , a comedy about two men on a wayward wine-tasting trip in California’s Santa Ynez Valley. Co-starring Thomas Baden Church, Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh, Sideways is the story of Miles (Giamatti), a failed novelist, and his soon-to-be married friend Jack (Church), a washed-up actor. To salute the remains of their youth, the two men take one last road trip in the week before Jack's wedding. Giamatti earned several accolades for his performance, including Best Actor from the Independent Spirit Awards, New York Film Critics Circle and a Golden Globe nomination.

Presently, Giamatti is slated to begin production on The Illusionist, directed by Neil Burger. Giamatti stars opposite Edward Norton in the story of a magician in turn-of-the-century Vienna who falls in love with a woman who is engaged to a prince. The magician uses his powers to win her over and undermine the stability of the royal house of Vienna.

Giamatti has also completed work on the independent feature The Hawk is Dying , co-starring Michelle Williams and Michael Pitt. He plays George Gatling, a Gainsville, Florida auto upholsterer attempting to subvert his mundane life by training a wild, red-tailed hawk.

Giamatti also lent his voice talents to the recent animated feature Robots and the upcoming Ant Bully , slated for release in 2006.

Last year, Giamatti garnered outstanding reviews and commendations (Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actor, National Board of Review Breakthrough performance of the Year) for his portrayal of Harvey Pekar in Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini’s American Splendor .

Giamatti first captured the eyes of America in Betty Thomas' hit comedy Private Parts . His extensive list of film credits also includes Milos Forman’s Man on the Moon , Tim Robbins' The Cradle Will Rock , F. Gary Gray's The Negotiator , Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan , Peter Weir's The Truman Show ; Mike Newell’s Donnie Brasco , Todd Solondz's Storytelling , Tm Burton’s Planet of the Apes, Duets , opposite Gwyneth Paltrow; and Big Momma’s House , co-starring Martin Lawrence. Giamatti also appeared in James FoIey's Confidence and John Woo's Paycheck .

As an accomplished stage actor, Giamatti received a Drama Desk nomination for Best Supporting Actor as Jimmy Tomorrow in Kevin Spacey's Broadway revival of The Iceman Cometh . His other Broadway credits include Chekov’s The Three Sisters , directed by Scott Elliot; Racing Demon , directed by Richard Eyre; and Arcadia , directed by Trevor Nunn. He was also seen off-Broadway in the ensemble cast of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Uri with Al Pacino.

For television, Giamatti appeared in The Pentagon Papers with James Spader; HBO’s Winchell , opposite Stanley Tucci; and Jane Anderson’s If These Walls Could Talk 2 .

Craig Bierko (Max Baer) is remembered for his successful Broadway run starring in Meredith Wilson's The Music Man . Craig's debut on Broadway as the legendary Harold Hill garnered critical acclaim and attention; he was nominated for the prestigious Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, The Drama League Award and was the recipient of The Theater World Award. Just prior, Bierko appeared in a staged workshop of The Boys from Syracuse at The Roundabout Theatre.

Born in Westchester, New York, he made his stage debut at the age of 10 as a newsboy in Gypsy , in a local community theater run by his parents. Bierko later went on to study at Northwestern University.

Bierko has enjoyed a diverse group of film roles, ranging from the villian in Renny Harlin's The Long Kiss Goodnight , opposite Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson, to the comedic turn in Larry David's Sour Grapes and in the virtual reality thriller The Thirteenth Floor . Additional film credits include Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Suburbans and Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star , written by Fred Wolf and David Spade, directed by Sam Weisman.

Television credits include memorable guest appearances on Sex and the City, Ally McBeal and as Paul Reiser's prospective agent on Mad About You .

Bierko most recently starred on Broadway in Daniel Goldfarb's comedy Modern Orthodox , also starring Molly Ringwald and Jason Biggs.

Since driving his motorcycle up the Delta House stairs as Daniel "D-Day" Simpson in National Lampoon’s Animal House , Bruce McGill (Jimmy Johnston) has been a constant and memorable screen presence. Throughout his career he consistently receives rave reviews for his stand-out performances, showing no sign of slowing down. Most recently, McGill appeared in Michael Mann's Collateral , alongside. Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx and Mark Ruffalo, and will next be seen opposite Orlando Bloom in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown .

McGill has appeared in more than 60 motion pictures, including Runaway Jury, Matchstick Men and Legally Blonde 2 . His appearance as southern attorney Ron Motley in Michael Mann's The Insider garnered high praise from critics and audiences alike. Other film work includes The Sum of All Fears, Shallow Hal, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Courage Under Fire, My Cousin Vinny, The Last Boy Scout and Silkwood .

McGill's list of television credits is equally impressive. He has starred in some of HBO's most critically acclaimed productions: portraying controversial journalist Peter Arnet in Live From Baghdad ; painting a chilling portrait of Johnson-era cabinet member George Ball in Path to war , and playing legendary Yankees manager Ralph Houk in 61 . He has made memorable guest appearances on CSI, The Practice, Gideon's Crossing, Home Improvements, Star Trek: Voyager, The Commish, Quantum Leap, MacGyver and Miami \lice , among others. McGill also starred with Glenn Close in The Ballad of Lucy Whipple on CBS and as family patriarch George Osmond in ABC's Inside the Osmonds .

Originally from San Antonio, Texas, McGill began his acting career on stage in elementary school. After earning his BFA in acting from the University of Texas at Austin, he made his professional debut as a member of Rhode Island's Trinity Square Repertory Company, acting in productions of Tom Jones, Peer Gynt, Sherlock Holmes and The Tooth of Crime . After relocating to New York City, he began a long association with the New York Shakespeare Festival, appearing in Hamlet (produced by the legendary Joseph Papp), Henry V and Othello , playing Iago to Raul Julia’s Othello for the NYSF's Shakespeare in the Park series. Other theatrical affiliations include the Ensemble Studio Theater in New York, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and National Shakespeare Company in Washington D.C.

McGill currently lives with his wife in Ojai, California where he indulges in his passion for golfing, sailing and music whenever possible.

Paddy Considine (Mike Wilson) has received much critical acclaim in the last year for his roles in the successful British films Dead Man’s Shoes and My Summer of Love .

Directed by Shane Meadows, and co-written by Meadows and Considine, Paddy played the lead role as the tormented Richard in Dead Man’s Shoes . lt was for this performance that he was awarded Best British Actor at the 2005 Evening Standard Film Awards and Empire Film Awards, and nominated for Best British Actor at the London Film Critics Circle and British independent Film Awards. The film also won Best British Film at this year's South Bank Awards and received a nomination for the Alexander Korda Award at the 2005 BAFTA film Awards.

Also released in Summer 2004, Paddy played the character of Phil (alongside newcomers Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt) in My Summer of Love , directed by Phil Pavlikovksy. The BAFTA Award-winning drama about the lives of two young women who spend the summer together in the same village earned Considine a nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the British Independent Film Awards this year.

In 2002, Paddy played and the male lead of Johnny in In America , alongside Samantha Morton and directed by Jim Sheridan. In addition, he played Him in the BAFTA Award-winning short film My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117 . Other film credits include 24 Hour Party People, The Last Resort (for which he won Best Actor at the Thessaloniki Film Festival) and A Room for Romeo Brass , also directed by Shane Meadows.

Later this year, following Cinderella Man , Paddy will be seen starring as the character of Frank Thoroughgood in Stephen Woolley's directorial debut Stoned , about the events leading up to me death of the ex-Rolling Stone Brian Jones.

About The Filmmakers

The Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard (Directed by / Produced by) is one of his generation's most popular directors. From the critically acclaimed dramas A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13 to the hit comedies Parenthood and Splash , he has created some of Hollywood's most memorable films. He recently earned an Oscar for Best Director for A Beautiful Mind , which also won awards for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress. The film garnered four Golden Globes as well, including the award for Best Motion Picture Drama, and Howard won Best Director of the Year from the Directors Guild of America.

Howard and producer Brian Grazer received the first annual Awareness Award from the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign for their work on the film.

Howard's skill as a director has long been recognized. In 1995, he received his first Best Director of the Year award from the DGA for Apollo 13 . The true-life drama also garnered nine Academy Award nominations, winning Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Sound. It also received Best Cast and Best Supporting Actor awards from the Screen Actor's Guild. Many of Howard's past films have also received Academy Award nods, including the popular hits Backdraft, Parenthood and Cocoon , the last of which took home two Oscars. Howard has served as an executive producer as well on a number of award-winning films and television shows, such as the HBO mini-series From the Earth to the Moon .

Howard’s portfolio includes some of the most popular films of the past 20 years. In 1991, Howard created the acclaimed drama Backdraft , starring Robert DeNiro, Kurt RusseIl and William Baldwin. He followed it with the historical epic Far and Away , starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Howard directed Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise and Delroy Lindo in the 1996 suspense thriller Ransom . Howard worked with Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and Kathleen Quinlan on Apollo 13 , which was re-released recently in the IMAX format. Howard's other films include the blockbuster Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas , starring Jim Carrey; Parenthood , starring Steve Martin; the fantasy epic Willow ; and Night Shift , starring Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton and Shelley Long. Most recently, Howard directed Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones In the suspenseful western, The Missing .

Howard and long-time producing partner Brian Grazer first collaborated on the hit comedies Night Shift and Splash . The pair co-founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986 to create independently produced feature films. The company has since produced a variety of popular feature films, including the hits The Nutty Professor, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. Bowfinger, The Paper, Inventing the Abbotts and Liar, Liar . Howard made his directorial debut in 1978 with the comedy Grand Theft Auto .

He began his career in film, though, as an actor. He first appeared in The Journey and The Music Man , then as 'Opie' on the long running television series The Andy Griffith Show . During the 1970’s, Howard starred in the popular series Happy Days and drew favourable reviews for his performances in American Graffiti and The Shootist .

Born in Augusta, Georgia, Cliff Hollingsworth (Story by / Screenplay by) grew up in the nearby town of Barnwell, South Carolina. After high school, Hollingsworth studied undergraduate journalism at the University of South Carolina and then earned a Master of Arts in teaching, also from USC. Intent on pursuing his dream of becoming a screenwriter, Hollingsworth moved to Los Angeles; however, in order to fulfill a family commitment, he could only remain in LA six months out of every year. This hopscotching curtailed the amount of time Hollingsworth was able to commit to his writing, but his dream never faltered. Between his part-time jobs in Los Angeles (including stints as a security guard and a substitute teacher) and his commitment in South Carolina, the writer managed to slowly build a portfolio of treatments and script ideas.

After a few near-miss projects over the years, it was his story idea and screenplay about 1930s boxer Jim Braddock, the "Cinderella Man." that was eventually optioned by Universal. "For me, there is no other story like it not just in boxing, but in the world of sports," the writer notes. Cinderella Man marks Hollingsworth's feature film screenwriting debut. He continues to reside in South Carolina.

Akiva GoIdsman (Screenplay by) received the highest honors in the film industry, the 2001 Academy Award, Golden Globe and Writers Guild Award, for his groundbreaking portrayal of schizophrenia in his adaptation of A Beautiful Mind .

Goldsman's writing credits include The Client; Batman Forever; A Time to Kill; Practical Magic ; and I, Robot . He recently adapted the runaway bestseller Memoirs of a Geisha for producer Steven Spielberg and is currently working on an adaptation of the blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code , to be directed by Ron Howard.

In addition to his writing credits, Goldsman's Warner Bros-based Weed Road Pictures has produced Deep Blue Sea, Lost in Space, Starsky & Hutch, Constantine (starring Keanu Reeves) and the upcoming Mr. and Mrs. Smith (starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.)

Born in Brooklyn Heights, New York, Goldsman graduated from Wesleyan University and attended the graduate program in creative writing at New York University. He lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife Rebecca.

Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer (Produced by) has been making movies and television programs for more than 20 years. As both a writer and producer, he has been personally nominated for three Academy Awards, and in 2002 he won the Best Picture Oscar for A Beautiful Mind . In addition to wining three other Academy Awards, A Beautiful Mind won four Golden Globe Awards (including Best Motion Picture Drama) and earned Grazer the first annual Awareness Award from the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign.

Over the years, Grazer's films and TV shows have been nominated for a total of 39 Oscars and 42 Emmys. At the same time, his movies have generated more than $11.2 billion in worldwide theatrical, music and video grosses. Reflecting this combination of commercial and artistic achievement, the Producers Guild of America honoured Grazer with the David O. Selznick Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. His accomplishments have also been recognized by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which in 1998 added Grazer to the short list of producers with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In addition to A Beautiful Mind , Grazer's films include Apollo 13 , for which Grazer won the Producers Guild's Daryl F. Zanuck Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Picture of 1995; and Splash , which he co-wrote as well as produced and for which he received an Osar nomination for Best Original Screenplay of 1986.

Grazer's list of upcoming projects includes the big screen adaptation of the international bestseller The Da Vinci Code , directed by Oscar-winner Ron Howard; the tense drama. The Inside Man for director Spike Lee, starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster; the comedy Fun With Dick and Jane , starring Jim Carrey; the thriller Flightplan , with Jodie Foster in the lead; and the animated Curious George , with the voice of Will Ferrell.

Other feature film credits include the recent Sundance acclaimed documentary INSIDE Deep Throat; Friday Night Lights; 8 Mile; Blue Crush; The Missing; Intolerable Cruelty; Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas; The Nutty Professor; Liar, Liar: Ransom; My Girl; Backdraft; Kindergarten Cop; Parenthood; Clean & Sober ; and Spies Like Us .

Grazer’s television productions include fox's 24 (receiving 8 Emmy nominations this year), Fox's Arrested Development (which won Best Comedy and garnered 7 Emmy nominations), Fox's Quints , NBC's Miss Match and ABC's The Big House . His additional television credits include the WB's Felicity , ABC's Sportsnight ; as well as HBO's From the Earth to the Moon , for which he won the Emmy for Outstanding Mini-Series.

Grazer began his career as a producer developing television projects. It was while he was executive-producing TV pilots for Paramount Pictures in the early 1980s that Grazer first met his longtime friend and business partner Ron Howard. Their collaboration began in 1985 with the hit comedies Night Shift and Splash , and in 1986 the two founded Imagine Entertainment, which they continue to run together as co-chairmen.

Penny Marshall (Produced by) made her feature film directorial debut with Jumpin' Jack Flash , starring Whoopi Goldberg. Tom Hanks starred in her production of Big , which garnered him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and the film earned nearly $115 million in box office receipts. She then directed Awakening , which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture and starred Robert De Niro (who earned an Oscar nomination for his performance) and Robin Williams.

Inspired by the little-known story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the '40s, Marshall directed and executive-produced A League of Their Own , which starred Tom Hanks,. Geena Davis and Madonna. It was a major box office hit and the second Marshall-directed film to surpass the $100 million mark. (It was later turned into a TV series for TriStar Television with Marshall as executive producer and director of the pilot episode.)

Under the banner of her production company, Parkway Productions, along with partner Elliot Abbott, Marshall executive-produced the comedy Calendar Girl , starring Jason Priestley.

Marshall also directed Renaissance Man , starring Danny DeVito, Gregory Hines and Mark Wahlberg. She subsequently directed The Preacher’s Wife , starring Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington. Her most recent directorial effort was Columbia Pictures' Riding in Cars with Boys , starring Drew Barrymore. She also developed the Russell Crowe boxing drama Cinderella Man for Universal Pictures, which Ron Howard directed and on which she serves as producer. Up next for Marshall is the big screen version of Bewitched , starring Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell, on which she serves as producer.

Marshall was born and raised in the Bronx. She attended the University of New Mexico, majoring in math and psychology. She dropped out when she got married and had a child. She then moved to Hollywood and made her debut in The Danny Thomas Hour , a drama anthology series.

During the next several years, Marshall appeared in several small feature film and television roles. She had recurring roles on Paul Sand's Friends and Lovers and The Odd Couple . An appearance with Cindy Williams in a segment of the series Happy Days introduced the characters of Laverne and Shirley, which spun off into their own landmark, long-running series.

Marshall's other television credits included various roles on Mork & Mindy, Taxi, The Bob Newhart Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show . She also starred in three television movies: More Than Friends, Love Thy Neighbor and Challenge of a Lifetime . Marshall directed two episodes of Laverne & Shirley ; a pilot called Working Stiffs , starring Jim Belushi and Michael Keaton; and two episodes of The Tracey Ullman Show .

Marshall's off-Broadway experience includes the starring role in a production of Eden Court with Ellen Barkin. She occasionally takes cameo roles in other directors' feature films, such as opposite her brother Garry in Hocus Pocus and playing a director herself in Get Shorty , as well as the upcoming as-yet-untitled Albert Brooks film.

Todd Hallowell (Executive Producer) most recently served as executive producer on both The Alamo and The Missing and executive producer and second-unit director on Ron Howard's Academy Award-winning A Beautiful Mind .

Hallowell started his career as assistant art director (and Ron Howard's photo double) on Roger Carman's Grand Theft Auto , Howard's 1978 directorial debut. He subsequently served as art director on Back to the Future, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Fletch and the pilot for Michael Mann's groundbreaking TV series Miami Vice .

Hallowell moved up to production designer on Adventures in Babysitting, Burglar, Vital Signs, The Dream Team, Class Action and Howard's Parenthood . He directed the second-unit sequences in Striking Distance, Adventures in Babysitting and Money Train .

Continuing his collaboration with Howard, Hallowell served as associate producer/second-unit director on Backdraft, Far and Away and on The Paper he multi-tasked as executive producer, production designer and second-unit director.

For Howard's award-winning Apollo 13 , he repeated his duties as executive producer/second-unit director and received, along with producer Brian Grazer, Producer or the Year honors from the Producers Guild of America. He also worked as executive producer/second-unit director on Howard's, projects Ransom, EDtv and the box office hit Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas .

Salvatore Totino (Director of Photography) made his feature bow as director of photography on Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday , and lensed Changing Lanes , starring Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson. His most recent work as director of photography was seen in Ron Howard's suspenseful western, The Missing , starring Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones.

A Clio winner, he has shot well over 300 TV commercials and music videos, working with such artists as Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, REM, Radiohead and many others.

A native of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, the son of Italian immigrants was interested in photography at an early age. He began his career as a production assistant on commercials and worked his way through the ranks of the camera department on television and film projects before becoming a director of photography. Among his credits during this period was the New York portion of Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth , on which he served as a focus puller.

Wynn Thomas (production Designer) previously collaborated with Ron Howard on the multiple Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind , designing that film's production. He most recently served as production designer on the hit comedy sequel Analyze That , starring Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal, having served in the same capacity on the original Analyze This .

Among Thomas’ numerous credits are the recent telefilm The Huey P. Newton Story; The Original Kings of Comedy; Keeping the Faith; Witness to the Mob ; Tim Button's Mars Attacks ; Barry Levinson's Wag The Dog; To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar; A Bronx Tale ; and The Five Heartbeats .

Beginning with the 1986 feature She’s Gotta Have It , Thomas began a steady creative collaboration with director Spike Lee that includes He Got Game, Crooklyn , the Oscar nominated and critically acclaimed Malcolm X, Jungle Fever, Mo' Better Blues, Do the Right Thing and School Daze . Additionally he was the production designer on the 1987 concert film Eddie Murphy Raw .

Mike Hill, A.C.E. and Dan Hanley, A.C.E. (Edited by) continue their longstanding association with Ron Howard, which began when they edited Howard's 1982 comedy Night Shift . The duo has edited Howard's successive pictures, including the Academy Award-winning A Beautiful Mind , for which they received an Eddie nomination from the American Cinema Editors, Dr. Suess' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, EDtv, Ransom, Far and Away, The Paper, Bactkdraft, Parenthood, Willow, Gung Ho, Cocoon, Splash, Apollo 13 (for which the pair won the 1995 Academy Award for Best Editing) and most recently, The Missing . Other shared feature credits include Armed and Dangerous, Pet Semetary and Problem Child . HanIey also co-edited the movies In & Out and Cop and a Half while Hill served as co-editor on What’s Love Got to Do With It?

The partners come from decidedly different backgrounds. Hanley is a third generation editor. His grandfather cut trailers at RKO and his father was an ADR editor at Paramount Studios. Hanley joined Paramount as an apprentice in 1975, working on his first feature, Marathon Man . He subsequently formed an alliance with Bob Kern, who worked with Howard on his TV features. This led to Hanley's work on Night Shift and his association with Hill.

Hill hails from Omaha, Nebraska, where he attended the University of Nebraska. He relocated to California following college and applied for membership industry guilds, eventually joining the editors' union. He also began his career working at Paramount, as an apprentice editor on Elia Kazan's final picture The Last Tycoon . He met Hanley on the studio lot and joined his colleague under Kern's tutelage.

Emmy Award-winner Daniel Orlandi's (Costume Designer) recent costume designing work could been seen in a variety of motion picture and television projects, including the historical epic film The Alamo and the big screen screwball comedy Kangaroo Jack . He also recently designed for Down with Love , directed by Peyton Reed and starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor as well as Tribeca's Flawless , starring Robert De Niro, and Phone Booth , starring Colin Farrell, both directed by Joel Schumacher. He also designed the charming hit NBC series Ed .

His additional feature film credits as costume designer include Meet the Parents , directed by Jay Roach and starring Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro; Rocket Man , and Tony Scott's thriller The Fan , starring Robert De Niro. He served as associate designer on Apollo 13 and Mr. Jones . His numerous credits as an assistant designer include Only You, Sister Act, Class Action, An Innocent Man, Max Dugan Returns and Pennies From Heaven .

Orlandi won the Emmy for costume design in 1989 for his work on The Magic of David Copperfield and subsequently designed the next four Copperfield specials. His many television credits include Tribeca's mini-series for NBC, Witness to the Mob , as well as the telefiIms Marilyn and Me, Fatal Friendship, Crazy from the Heart and Cab to Canada , starring Maureen O'Hara. He also designed costumes for the pilots Putting It Together , directed by Nora Ephron, Courthouse, Texarkana and Knight Life .

From 1982 through 1988, Orlandi served as an executive with Bob Mackie Originals, having started with the company at its inception. He holds a BFA in drama from Pittsburgh's esteemed Carnegie Mellon University.

Moving effortlessly from drama ( The Road to Perdition, The Shawshank Redemption ) to sharp satire ( The Player ) to period classics ( Little Women ) and animation ( Finding Nemo ), composer Thomas Newman (Music by) is building on an amazing family tradition in Hollywood with a varied and award-winning body of work. Newman has received a total of seven Oscar nominations for his film work; he was the only double nominee in 1994's Oscar race, receiving two nominations -for Little Women and The Shawshank Redemption . He received his third nomination the following year for his score in Diane Keaton's offbeat comedy Unstrung Heroes .

Newman received his most recent Academy Award nomination for his deliciously evil score for director Brad Silberling's Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events . Prior to that, he was nominated for his work for the blockbuster animated hit Finding Nemo and the acclaimed drama from director Sam Mendes, Road to Perdition . In 2001 his work was featured in the Oscar-nominated Best Picture In the Bedroom .

In 1999, Newman created two memorable and unique scores for very different films: The Green Mile (his second collaboration with director Frank Darabont), a thriller based on the Stephen King novel; and the Oscar-winning American Beauty , which earned him his fourth Academy nomination for Best Score. He won both the Grammy (Best Soundtrack) and the BAFTA (Anthony Asquith Award for Achievement in Film Music) for his work on that film.

His list of past projects also includes the critically acclaimed HBO production of the: Pullitzer Prize-winning Angels in America , directed by Mike