Kurt Angle‘s next movie is a bit of a family affair.
Angle recently spoke with Bill Pritchard of WrestleZone to promote his fundraiser for the USA Wrestling program. During the conversation, Angle spoke about his familial connection with actor Jon Bernthal. Angle is Bernthal’s uncle through marriage, and he praised how hard the Punisher and The Walking Dead star has worked to get where he is. Angle also shared that Bernthal helped him find the directors for a new semi-biographical movie he’s working on.
“Jon is one of the most talented actors in Hollywood today. He’s done incredibly well. And, him and my niece Erin, they got married maybe 10-11 years ago. Jon was a struggling actor, he comes from a good family though. And he was going all over the place,” Angle said. “He was going to Russia for theatre, he was playing semi-pro baseball over there. He was going to Boston for theatre, LA, Seattle, just everywhere. And when he decided to move to LA and start working on his acting career, he broke in really quickly. It was like, ‘Wow! This kid is so talented.’
“We get along really well,” Angle explained. “I have a movie about my life story coming out. And Jon is helping out with it a little bit. So, he got me the directors, Ian and Eshom Nelms. And these directors are really talented. They were actually amateur wrestlers, so they understand my sport. And they directed movies like, Fatman starring Mel Gibson, and Red Right Hand starring Orlando Bloom. They’ve done a lot of incredible films.”
What will Kurt Angle’s movie be about?
Angle said his movie is based on his own life and journey to winning an Olympic gold medal. He described it as having Rocky type of feel, “with a touch of The Fighter and Iron Claw.” He noted that this is the first of two potential films, with the second focusing on his pro wrestling career.
“So, for the first time, I’m going to be on the opposite side of the camera. And I’m going to be watching these guys do their magic. And I can’t wait to bring this to the world. I think it’s going to be a great story. And what the idea is, It’s to have two different movies. Which is kind of ironic. But first one’s about my Olympic story, second one is about my professional wrestling career. So, we are doing the first one first. Seeing how that pans out, then we are going to do the other one. There’s just too much content to put both of them together. And just way too much. So we decided to seperate the two and do the first movie first. And the second movie in the future.”
Angle says the script is almost finished and they will look for investors and start casting in the next few months. He has a few people in mind for the cast, but doesn’t want to spoil the surprise by teasing any names just yet.
“We have a lot of people that we want to cast, from my family members and also myself,” Angle noted. “Hopefully, there are going to be a lot of big names that we are going for. So, it’s going to be really cool. Really fun.”
Learn more about Kurt Angle and USA Wrestling’s fundraising efforts here.
Watch our full interview with Kurt Angle below:
