This one’s a unique conversation as Asis Sethi sits down with filmmaker and showrunner Anthony Q. Farrell alongside directors Cory Bowles and R.T. Thorne to talk about ‘Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story’. The satirical sports mockumentary reimagines one of the most infamous moments in Canadian sports history – Ben Johnson’s rise, Olympic gold medal win, and the fallout from the 1988 doping scandal. We dive into the creative decisions behind blending comedy, satire, and real-world history, while exploring the challenges and unique perspectives that shaped the Paramount+ and GameTV series.
Asis Sethi: First of all, I have to compliment you. What an amazing show! I’m only on Episode 3, so don’t tell me what happens after that.
RT Thorne: He took steroids.
Anthony Farrell: RT, no!
Asis Sethi: It was so funny! Every shot is very well done – and Shamier really got into the skin of Ben Johnson’s character. What inspired you to make this into a mockumentary and not follow the formula for every biopic?
Anthony Farrell: New Metric Media had the life rights for Ben, and I think they tried to develop a drama which wasn’t working for them. Mark reached out to me and said do you think there’s a comedy here? And I always find comedy, silliness and joy in anything. And this story had a lot of it. This story had a lot of nonsense, and you’ll see as you go through the rest of the episodes, you’re like, oh my gosh, this is bananas.
It was more about telling the story from Ben’s point of view. I wanted Ben to have his side of things. That was my goal, for it to be a little bit more redemptive. This show will have people see Ben in a different light, and it made sense for me to have the story be told from his point of view. And with Ben being a part of the show, talking to the writer’s room, being on set, and talking with all of us, we had a great source for all the material, but then that also meant that we had to have certain disclaimers.
Asis Sethi: Yeah. Did your lawyer approve of all the scripts? What was that process like?
Anthony Farrell: The reason there’s a lawyer in the scripts is because that was a response to legal notes saying we couldn’t do this show. We didn’t have the lawyer in the scripts (originally), we had the disclaimer, we had it from Ben’s point of view, and we said it was fiction. We went very, very far with a lot of stuff, and then they said you still need a counterpoint to Ben’s side of things.
I just took the notes that we got for certain scenes and said what if I had a lawyer character come in and be like, “hey, you can’t say that”. All the lawyers got excited about it.
They started pitching for the lawyer. And there are times where I could just copy and paste what they told me and be like – this feels like the thing that Walter should say. So it allowed us to keep a lot of the flamboyancy, a lot of the silliness, a lot of the fun, and have that counterpoint so that legally we felt comfortable with people having multiple sides of the stories.
Asis Sethi: When Ben found out about the project moving from drama to mockumentary, what was his reaction? Was there any pushback or did he love the new idea?
Anthony Farrell: He’s been chill the whole time. He just really wants his story to be told. I think initially he was like, oh, how’s this gonna work? But he’s got a good sense of comedy, and he was down to explore.
Asis Sethi: Watching the series I felt you had a good budget for this. But you have actors playing multiple characters. Was this a budgetary thing or a creative choice you made?
Anthony Farrell: That’s a very good compliment to RT and Corey and the work that they did to make it feel that way. This was not a high budget. This definitely was lower than the average budgets for network comedies in Canada.
I thought instead of having 70 actors come through here and having to process every single one of them, what if we had 8 actors? We only had to measure them for the wardrobe once. They only needed one trailer, one room, for the eight of them.
RT Thorne: Yeah, we put them all in one trailer. All of them. You got to share a little couch there. There’s one toilet.
Anthony Farrell: That was pretty; they were happy. I did a lot of sketch comedy and I’m very comfortable in that world. I was comfortable in challenging the audience, and I feel like RT and Corey did such a great job of tracking that.
Asis Sethi: What was the creative process behind it; especially with actors when they’re in one character, and then jumping to another.
RT Thorne: As directors, we don’t have to do any of that management. We have a great team of assistant directors and production managers who put together an intense schedule and work with Anthony. Corey and I just take a look at that schedule and go, that’s crazy, we can’t possibly do that; can you help us out here? Or, okay, yeah, it looks like we can juggle that as long as hair and makeup can juggle it.
Whether it’s a creative choice or something similar, the most beautiful thing that happens, and you as a filmmaker will know this too, you’re going to have constraints, whatever they may be. Sometimes they may be budget related, or scheduling. But those end up putting constraints on you, and you have to think about your idea and the most beautiful thing is when you come up with a solution that actually works better for the creative. And this was one of those circumstances. With Anthony’s incredible sketch and comedy background, and Corey as well.
There’s something about how wild this story is, and how crazy he wrote these scripts to be, that you want it to be over the top. And this kind of approach to these characters, and their costumes, and how they’re acting, all works to serve that.
Cory Bowles: Yeah, even though it was a film production, it felt closer to a live stage show. In the same way, we’d have to run things and move things. It could have been in front of a studio audience. It kind of had that feel of where things were just in motion. But also, on top of that, what was really interesting is that it had a sort of DIY mindset. The things that we had to be able to do, on top of all of these solved problems, new problems arose. It was great with this team. They understood the assignment, so they were ready to change on a dime. We constantly had to also evolve and adapt on a dime, and shift and discover, and we had to always have the feeling of improv. They (the actors) were ready for anything. A few of them hadn’t done sketch before, but had done stage work. So, that was really helpful as well.
There are articles where Ben was Canada’s Ben Johnson. As soon as he got caught with steroids, it was like Jamaican Ben Johnson. So we wanted to be honest about that. We don’t pull any punches when it comes to Canada’s role in what happened to Ben and how they treated him. – Anthony Q. Farrell
Asis Sethi:
You explored systemic racism very subtly throughout the series. In the first episode, the shift in his wardrobe colors and the way the Jamaican flag colors begin appearing through the graphics. It almost felt like a transition from “Canada’s Ben Johnson” to “Jamaica’s Ben Johnson.”
Tell us more about those creative choices, both on set and in post-production, and how you approached creating those subtle moments for the audience to notice?
Anthony Farrell: Thank you! We like layers; we like you having to watch it again and catch different things. My wife’s watched it a whole bunch of times, and there are certain things I’ll be like, hey, look at this scene, pause that scene – is that a racist horse? I’m like, yeah, that’s a racist horse.
There are articles where Ben was Canada’s Ben Johnson. As soon as he got caught with steroids, it was like Jamaican Ben Johnson. So we wanted to be honest about that. We don’t pull any punches when it comes to Canada’s role in what happened to Ben and how they treated him.
It’s part of this redemptive arc for Ben. We were very honest about how that went down. So feeling that in the beginning, that’s a theme that we continue with all the way through the series.
RT Thorne: The great thing about working with Anthony is he really sets the tone with these scripts. When the scripts came out, I remember reading them and I was like, what the hell did I sign up for? It was so boundary-pushing.
Some of the jokes are so off-color and hilarious. There’s freedom in which Anthony was like, all right, look, if we’re going to talk about this, then let’s talk about it, and let’s be honest, and then let’s be outlandish, and that kind of atmosphere just encouraged all of us.
Every day it was that kind of additive atmosphere created by him to just welcome the craziest ideas. It was a lot of fun in that place, and that’s what comedy’s for – really to hold a mirror up to society and force you to look at it, but then hopefully have you laugh at how stupid we all are sometimes.
Anthony Farrell: I love shenanigans.
RT Thorne: That was on your door the whole time, right? I love shenanigans.
Anthony Farrell: Please bring shenanigans. And I had the right directors to bring shenanigans to the table. I would love it when they walk up to me with a smile on their face.
Cory Bowles: Yeah, there was a lot of laughing all the time. Ben, too, would when he would visit. He’d be howling. It’s really funny.
Asis Sethi: It’s a show that everyone would want to binge watch. I wanted to as well, but it was 2AM, but I had to wake up at 6AM.
RT Thorne: We forgive you.
Anthony Farrell: Thank you.
Asis Sethi: (chuckles) Thank you. In a mockumentary, every frame functions as both evidence and fiction. So where do you personally draw the line between recreating reality and constructing believability? Is your role to immerse the audience so fully that they temporarily believe it, or to subtly remind them that what they’re watching is, in fact, a construction?
Anthony Farrell: I’ll let the directors handle it. We had limitations with the wall and all those things, and they did a really good job of figuring out how to make the audience feel grounded when they needed to feel grounded, but also feel like they were in a different world when they needed to feel in a different world, and I think they did a lot of work in isolating those moments and figuring out when we’re in flashbacks.
RT Thorne: We had an approach. And again, it was from the scripts. Ben is telling his version of the story. And so to do that, we’re jumping into his memory of the time. And then there’s occasionally moments of quote-unquote, real history, where he’s speaking of the race, and you’re hearing commentary from commentators who are there. So we developed a language that, in certain moments, when it’s his memory, we were going to shoot that in a particular style, and then when it was presented as factual,
things would be shot in another type of aspect ratio with a feel of saturation and colors. And then we were very aware that we were also making something that is absolutely bonkers. It has humour and it’s a crazy story. But there’s heartfelt moments. There’s actual personal moments to somebody like Ben when he’s telling this story.
He’ll tell a story about how Carl Lewis took 18 needles to become the first black Captain America which is insane. But then he’ll also tell a story about meeting his mentor and what that person meant to him, or the moment that he had to tell his mother that he has to give the medal back. These are very personal moments, and we really wanted to make sure that those moments were treated with reality.
Cory Bowles: Yeah, it all comes from a bonkers script. I will say this, and it goes a little beyond what we’re saying. But one thing I really love on a project is I love the feeling and challenge of uncertainty. You can feel the closer we were getting to this, and the closer it was becoming a reality.
Everyone we were working with had not done this before.
It was a pretty rewarding thing to lead up to doing, and to figure out how to do, and every time we hit something, it’s like, oh, this is gonna be great. And that was pretty beautiful.
I made the comment about looking back at Ben, and him laughing. The biggest thing is that he was always so grateful. There was no judgment on his part, either. He was very invested the whole time.
We have the impossible schedule, now we gotta do what’s possible inside the impossible schedule to make the impossible happen. – Cory Bowles
Anthony Farrell: And I think the shenanigans worked really well. What’s great to me about this is that while people are watching the show, they’re texting us, like, wait a second, what happened? We’re getting non-stop texts from people, and lots of different people are loving the show. It’s reaching a lot of different people in different ways, and I feel like that speaks to the layers we’ve put in there.
Asis Sethi: Mockumentaries are not everyone’s style. My dad wouldn’t be turning on the TV – hey, let’s watch a mockumentary today. But I guarantee you, if he was watching this, he would be laughing with me.
Do you want the audience to forget that they’re watching a constructed narrative? Or do you want them to stay aware of the narrative the whole time? What was your intention for the audience?
Anthony Farrell: It was about – you’re going to get a lot of information in a funny way, and then you’re going to think about it later and be like, oh, wait a second. I want it all to seep in, but at different times. With the comedy, the shenanigans, you’re going to think about what that meant for Ben, and also what that silly scene is based on, because everything that we do in the show is based on something Ben told us. They’re based on a truth, and we have embellished and fictionalized and heightened and all those things.
So I want people to have fun and enjoy the journey, but then also think about what it means for the real person.
Asis Sethi: Are you using humour to reveal the truth? Or is it to make difficult truths more consumable by the audience?
Anthony Farrell: Ah, that’s a good question. The humour’s the crazy story, the wildness, all that stuff is real and part of what Ben’s life really was. It’s finding the comedy of that and bringing it to life. I think comedy’s a way to feed people vitamins. They’ll have a message behind it. And this show has a real message behind it, and I think we do a good job of bringing that to the forefront.
RT Thorne: There’s a real correlation between tragedy and comedy.
Anthony Farrell: Tragedy is comedy.
RT Thorne: If you walk down a street and you fall into a hole; that’s tragedy for you, but it might be comedy for me.
There’s a real correlation between those two things, and it’s often perspective, and then it reminds us all that we’re human. So I think there’s something within this. This is a tragic story for Ben.
This is a man who went to the height of his heights. His ultimate goal in life was to win a gold medal, and he won it for this country that supported him. And when certain information came out, they threw him away. He was the one who they stripped the metal from in front of the world. And he became the steroid guy for that era, and that’s very tragic.
That’s what comedy’s for – really to hold a mirror up to society and force you to look at it, but then hopefully have you laugh at how stupid we all are sometimes. – R.T. Thorne
Cory Bowles: Even going back to the fact that when you’re talking about funny videos and failed videos, nine times out of ten, the people who are posting those videos are the people that it happened to, which is really funny because there’s something also cathartic about it.
This was one of the things with Ben, it’s a cathartic thing for him. It was a release; he was laughing about it. He had an incredibly positive outlook on everything about his friends and about the experiences he had. And it’s something that I took with me. When you make a biopic on someone, you’re dealing with an event that is not only their life, but it’s a major part of history in the country. You want it to be special.
RT Thorne: It’s like some of the best laughs are the laughs where you can laugh at yourself.
Asis Sethi: What was the most challenging part of this journey? From getting it greenlit to post-production, what was that biggest challenge that you had to navigate?
Anthony Farrell: That’s a hard question for me. I’ve been working on this since the summer of 2020. One of the hardest things for me is knowing you’ve got something special, and you can’t convince people to put money into it. The hardest part was being worried that we put all this work into this and it’s never going to see the light of day. And then being very thankful and grateful.
Game TV and Paramount+ Canada decided that they were going to make it. And then after that there were a lot of hard parts, but I feel I had lots of friends along the way to help me make those parts not feel so hard.
Cory Bowles: We had a schedule that had us doing scenes every 15 minutes at times. Assets would have to be changed, people would have to be changed, wardrobe would have to be changed, things would have been flying in; that was the biggest challenge.
Everyone was thinking, this is not going to work, this is not going to happen. We have the impossible schedule, now we gotta do what’s possible inside the impossible schedule to make the impossible happen, which we eventually will, but we can only just say that to ourselves, because no one else is gonna believe that.
RT Thorne: That is a hundred percent true. Many nights before me and Corey just looked at the schedule like, this is not gonna happen, we’re not gonna do this.
Sometimes on a production, if you choose the wrong people, then they can make everything challenging. But the opposite of that was on this show; everybody came to play, and everybody came to help.
The biggest challenge is to make something that honours Ben and his story. And make it good. We want people to watch it and enjoy it. You’re laughing here, you might want to cry here, those are the beautiful things that emerge from filmmaking.
Asis Sethi: Thank you so much. This was such a beautiful conversation and fun at the same time. Thank you for making me laugh again.
