Burlington actor gets his big break in Woody Harrelson film 'Champions'

Casey Metcalfe of Burlington wanted to audition for a role in “Champions,” a movie about a basketball team consisting of players with intellectual disabilities.

The problem was, his family had only just gotten rid of its long-neglected sports equipment a week earlier, and the audition video was due almost immediately. Needing something vaguely resembling a basketball, he improvised with the closest thing to a round-ish, orange-y object that he could find at the Brattleboro home where he grew up and where his parents still live.

He picked up a live chicken. A chicken named Cackle.

“Let’s just pretend that Cackle is a basketball,” Metcalfe, who has autism, said in the video as he recited lines and paraded with Cackle under his arm up and down the driveway. He made enough of an impression with producers that he was called back for more virtual auditions, vying with about 1,000 others for 10 or so spots in the film.

Give Cackle a big assist on this one. Metcalfe got the part, and acts in “Champions,” a comedy starring Woody Harrelson that opens nationwide Friday, March 10. Metcalfe, who had plenty of acting experience growing up in Brattleboro and whose family has deep Hollywood ties, had a blast on the set.

“The joy we felt literally comes through the screen,” he said.

His director knew that Metcalfe was the right choice for “Champions.”

“When Casey Metcalfe sent us his (audition), as soon as I saw it I said, ‘We’ve got to find a place for Casey,’” said Bobby Farrelly, best known for films such as “There’s Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber” made with his brother, Peter Farrelly. “He’s just so funny. I think he gets more laughs than any of the characters in the movie.”

Learning from John Travolta’s brother

Metcalfe was born in Los Angeles, where his mother, Prudence Baird, was a publicist and his father, Tim Metcalfe, was a screenwriter for films including “Revenge of the Nerds” and “Kalifornia.” Casey Metcalfe began his acting career at age 9 in 2004, spending time in the Actors for Autism troupe run by John Travolta’s brother, Joey Travolta.

Metcalfe remembers how he would remain on stage even after all the other young actors had left. “I kind of always wanted to be an actor,” he said Wednesday at Nomad Coffee in Burlington. “I enjoy the spotlight.”

His mother said one of Metcalfe’s strengths is memorizing scripts. “Social situations can be a challenge for those on the (autism) spectrum,” Baird said, so while Metcalfe can be intimidated by speaking off the cuff, he’s adept at learning lines.

He moved with his family to southern Vermont in 2007 and attended Putney Central School and Brattleboro Union High School, which he graduated from in 2015. He performed with the New England Youth Theater in Brattleboro in productions including “Playboy of the Western World,” “Little Women” and “The Tempest.”

Acting opportunities have been scarce since Metcalfe moved to Burlington to attend the University of Vermont and then the Community College of Vermont, which he will graduate from this year. That fallow period ended when his parents heard from an old Hollywood friend, Brad Kessell, who was looking for actors with disabilities for a film he was helping to produce, called “Champions.”

Praise from Bobby Farrelly

Metcalfe’s audition in September 2021, thanks to Cackle the chicken, helped him earn the part as Marlon, a nerdy, hypochondriacal, helmet-clad basketball player. Filming started almost immediately, and Metcalfe flew in mid-October that year to be on the set in Selkirk, Manitoba, outside Winnipeg.

The two months of filming were both exciting and grueling, according to Metcalfe. Some days started at 5 a.m. But that joy he said comes across on screen that he shared with his castmates carried him through the cold, dark shoots.

Metcalfe’s character is on the fussy side. When the team’s coach, played by Harrelson, asks Marlon to go in a game, Metcalfe’s character responds, “I would, coach, but I’m having a bit of a thrombosis flare-up.”

Metcalfe, who’s taking part in improv workshops at the Vermont Comedy Club, shows his comic timing in a scene with Harrelson, who asks if a player on the team who keeps trying shots while standing with his back to the basket has ever made one. “In the five years I’ve played with him he’s never even hit the rim,” Marlon deadpans. “But he’s due.”

Farrelly, the film’s director, said Metcalfe’s prior acting gigs and family background in Hollywood gave him a leg up on some of the less-experienced performers. Sometimes, Farrelly said, a scene would be changed on the fly, and he knew certain actors could handle that more easily than others.

“Casey was that guy – we can give it to Casey, he’ll know exactly how to deliver it,” Farrelly said.

Burlington actor in ‘Shallow Hal’

Farrelly, who spoke with the Burlington Free Press last week by video-conferencing call, has worked with actors with disabilities before, and with Vermont actors as well.

The Farrelly Brothers filmed “Me, Myself & Irene” with Jim Carrey and Renee Zellweger in and around Burlington in 1999. While in town they met Rene Kirby, a Burlington man with a spinal condition often seen tooling around in a custom-made three-wheeled bike or walking on all fours. Kirby was cast in a role in the brothers’ next film, “Shallow Hal,” with Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black.

The brothers grew up in Rhode Island with people with disabilities, Bobby Farrelly said, and like featuring such actors in their films.

“They’re underrepresented. They’re just not in enough movies. People tend to overlook them and pretend they’re not there,” Farrelly said.

“Rene’s a guy we met in real life, on our travels, in Burlington,” he said of Kirby, who appeared in “Shallow Hal.” “He’s not the kind of guy you see in a movie. You see him in Burlington but you don’t see him in the movies. There’s a disconnect there.”

“Champions” highlights people with disabilities and does so with a humorous touch.

“They’re human beings and they’re well-rounded and they can take a joke and they can give a joke,” Farrelly said.

Looking up to Woody Harrelson

That’s one of the things Metcalfe appreciates most about “Champions,” that the film champions people with developmental disabilities. He noted that people with disabilities are among the largest minority groups in the U.S.

“You never know, because we are so underrepresented in the media,” Metcalfe said. “I hope this film will be a turning point.”

He is seeking an agent and would love to be cast in other films, including in parts not necessarily intended for actors with disabilities. “I would so be willing to do that,” he said.

Metcalfe will be at a special advance screening Monday of “Champions” in South Burlington. Last weekend he attended the film’s premiere in New York, where he was interviewed by Savannah Guthrie of “Today” and reconnected with cast members including Harrelson.

“He was one of the best guys ever,” Metcalfe said of Harrelson.

“He’s an authentic person,” his mother, Baird, added.

“He’s so kind and humble,” Metcalfe said.

Metcalfe admires Harrelson for another reason. The two actors share a similarly-receding hairline, which inspires Metcalfe to try and follow in Harrelson’s film footsteps.

“If he can do it,” Metcalfe said, “I can do it.”

If you go

WHAT: Advance screening of “Champions”

WHEN: 7 p.m. Monday, March 6

WHERE: Palace 9, South Burlington

INFORMATION: Free on first-come, first-serve basis. Passes available at http://focusfeaturesscreenings.com/BURLINGTONCHAMPIONS

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Woody Harrelson movie 'Champions' includes Burlington actor