TORONTO — A few hours before the film about his life, ‘Unstoppable’, was to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Anthony Robles, standing next to the actor who plays him, Jharrel Jerome, reflected on the moment he won the national wrestling title of the NCAA won.
He had done something that was certainly extraordinary. Robles was born without his right leg. Through grit and determination, Robles had become the best 125-pound wrestler in the country. But the last thing on his mind at that moment was Hollywood.
“I was sitting there after the game taking a shower,” Robles said. “I was excited and then I thought, ‘I have to find a job. I need to start putting together my resume.” I’ve never been into this because of the attention.”
“Unstoppable,” which premiered Friday night in Toronto, was one of the festival’s most anticipated premieres, partly because of outside drama. The film is produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and stars Jennifer Lopez as Robles’ mother, Judy. But if all the talk was about who would appear between Affleck and Lopez (Lopez did), the post-film talk was of Robles and Jerome.
The film, directed by Oscar-winning editor William Goldenberg (“Argo,” “Heat”) and which Amazon MGM will release in December, is in many ways a conventional sports drama, with an uplifting message and great supporting performances from Lopez, Don Cheadle, Michael Peña and Bobby Cannavale. But instead of building towards one big challenge, it also chooses a more naturalistic path. Robles, as played by Jerome, doesn’t face any hurdle. He faces constant adversity, at home and on the mat.
“That’s honestly how I felt going through my life,” said Robles, who redshirted as a freshman at Arizona State University. “I was constantly fighting something, whether it was on the mat against a flesh-and-blood opponent or in my family or in the world. There was always something I was fighting against. All those things, that frustration was channeled into me. But wrestling was my outlet.”
While many real-life stories have some subject involvement, “Unstoppable” went several steps further. Robles, a producer on the film, also serves as Jerome’s stunt double. For the wrestling scenes, Jerome and Robles, both in costume, took turns performing the moves on the mat. Goldenberg would later merge the two, using visual effects to remove Jerome’s leg.
“I signed up for the movie and then I thought, how am I going to wrestle?” says Goudenberg. “I watched him wrestle for so many hours. I thought, there’s no way I can do this without him doubling over himself. He moves in a way that I thought no one could ever master.”
Jerome, the talented 26-year-old actor of “Moonlight” and “I’m a Virgo,” first met Robles in 2020. Robles wanted to meet at a gym.
“You can imagine how I feel. I’m barely in the gym and this is the guy I have to play. I think it was a test,” says Jerome, laughing. “I remember the pressure to meet him was so intense for me. But once you meet him and know him, all that pressure goes out the window.
After the two started, the pandemic halted the film’s development, and “Unstoppable” wasn’t put back together until several years later. But that also gave Jerome and Robles more time to get to know each other.
“Because he was missing my leg, he would see how I interact with people,” Robles says. “People just looked at me because I’m a little different, and that motivated me. That was something I couldn’t really explain in words. Just seeing it and being around it, he could feel it after a while.
Jerome trained intensively, not only as a wrestler, but also to match Robles’ poise. After training with Robles, he worked with an exercise coach to document how Robles, who uses crutches to get around, walked and carried himself. When it came time to wrestle in the movie, they were like a tag team, according to Jerome.
“As an actor you always have someone walking around who looks like you, your body double or stunt double,” says Jerome. “But I have the guy I’m playing against, so it was a weird mind bend for me.”
Robles, 36, married with a young son, now coaches wrestling at his old high school in Mesa, Arizona. But it was surreal to step back onto the mat, in gymnasiums decorated just like the ones in which he experienced his greatest triumphs.
“I got this butterfly feeling like I was really struggling,” Robles says. “I liked that, being able to train for something again.”
Robles’ high school coach taught him as a wrestler to focus on his strengths and camouflage his weaknesses. On that mat, that meant dropping to his knee to wrestle from a neutral position so he could use his hands to move. His upper body strength is extreme, as is his grip strength because he is always on crutches. “It’s like I’m training 24/7,” he says.
But much of “Unstoppable” focuses on Robles’ relationship with his mother. Robles’ strength, he says, comes from family and faith.
“My mother has always been my hero from day one. Because I was born without my leg, everyone immediately thinks about what I won’t be able to achieve in my life or how this will hold me back,” says Robles. “I was blessed to have a mother who chose not to have that mentality, and who didn’t allow me to have that mentality growing up. She called it a challenge. She said: don’t let your challenge become an excuse.”
Now Robles considers ‘Unstoppable’ part of his legacy. He will show it to his son when he is older.
“Going through this whole process of filming this movie, meeting Jharrel and talking about things, I feel like I’m at the point now where I’m done fighting,” Robles says. “I’m just blessed to be traveling.”
