There was nothing simple about the way Willie Pep boxed. The term “the sweet science” was coined for fighters like him, a man whose feet were performing ballet while his fists unfurled combinations. He could execute everything by the book if he wanted to, but he rarely wanted to. He layered in unorthodoxy, in the way he stood, the way he pivoted, the way he used a subtle shoulder feint to freeze an opponent. You won’t find many clips on YouTube of Pep standing flat-footed and throwing a predictable one-two. What you will find is Pep dancing, ducking, dodging, and landing spectacularly clean punches on befuddled opponents.
He fought with maximum complexity.
His favorite phrase, however, the one he frequently signed photos with, was as simple as could be. Two words: “Keep punching.”
From the moment actor James Madio began to learn about Willie Pep, recognized his physical resemblance to Willie Pep, and combined forces with his screenwriter/producer friend Steve Loff to get a script for a Willie Pep biopic in motion, those two words came to define the effort.
This was not an A-list movie star volunteering to play an A-list ex-athlete and having studios throw tens of millions of dollars at him for a project that couldn’t miss. This was a working man’s actor, with one of those faces you’re pretty sure you know but you can’t quite remember what you know him from, wanting to play an all-time great fighter famous only to hardcore boxing fans, a few octogenarians, and maybe people from Hartford, Connecticut. So it was never going to be quick and easy to get made. Madio and Loff had to tell themselves, over and over and over: Keep punching.
For 12 years.
I’ve seen “The Featherweight,” the new film that hit about 15 theaters in select locations over the last couple of weeks and now awaits wider distribution, and one of my main takeaways is this: Thank goodness it took so long to happen.
It’s the right actor in the right role with the right script at the right time, and had “The Featherweight” come together quickly, a decade or so ago, it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well.
“Yeah, that’s the thing,” the Bronx-born Madio said this week from his home in Ohio, where he lives with his wife and three kids. “Twelve, thirteen years ago, I wasn’t married, had no kids, didn’t lose my mother, didn’t go broke and then make money, didn’t do the roller coaster of finances 17 times. So there was nothing to reflect on, nothing to pull from. And as an actor, you need those scars. They help you. As hard as they are, you can pull from them. So, dealing with the loss of a parent, dealing with having children – this performance in this movie, 12 years ago that performance would have never been. The trajectory of this, it’s what it was supposed to be and it landed where it was supposed to land.”
Madio is 48 now. He was in his mid-30s when his dad first told him to look up the ex-fighter Willie Pep, to learn about this all-time great who was maybe the best defensive boxer ever and went through a half-dozen wives and came back from a plane crash in the middle of his career and returned for 10 fights in his early 40s after being out of the ring for six years. Madio printed out a picture of Pep and put it by his computer. The resemblance was undeniable. Loff certainly saw it when he laid eyes on that photo, and they set to work – on a multi-decade period piece spanning Pep’s life from age 19 to 45.
It was only after six years of running into walls at every turn that a different approach occurred to Loff. He would focus in on a specific point in Pep’s life, when he was 42, broke, drifting, married to a woman half his age, and wanting to fight again. And he landed on an inventive framing: The movie would be a faux documentary. A camera crew shows up at Pep’s house in 1965 to see what the ex-champ is up to, decides to make a film about him, and we, the audience, are watching that footage – with the occasional archival flashback clip mixed in.
So now Madio didn’t have to play Pep across various eras – other than a few boxing scenes, he could focus on playing just the weathered, 42-year-old version.
And by the time everything was green lit and they finally started filming in November 2021, Madio was 45 and had the life experience to relate perfectly to much of what that Willie Pep was going through.
“The objective was to show him in this light, this man who has a film crew knock on his door and that excites him. He thinks he’s going to now be able to be back in the spotlight,” Madio said. “But the joke’s on him because documentary filmmakers, if they find something to track and follow, they’re gonna go with it. They’re gonna see you when you’re crying over your dying father or see you when you’re fighting with your kid, and they’re gonna get in your face.”
Just when it feels like every version of a boxing movie has already been made, “The Featherweight” comes along and tells a somewhat familiar story in a fresh way. That wouldn’t have been the case if the original version of the script had gone the distance.
Once the documentary-style approach was in place, bringing with it an avenue to make the film on a manageable budget, Appian Way Productions – the company founded by Leonardo DiCaprio, Madio’s co-star in “The Basketball Diaries” way back in 1995 – came on board. At first, “Hoop Dreams” director Steve James was attached, but he took a different job and instead recommended another documentary filmmaker, Robert Kolodny.
This became Kolodny’s debut directing a feature film of the scripted variety. On the September 18 episode of “The Boxing Movie Podcast,” Kolodny told host Steve Hunt that, in Pep, Madio had found the defining role of his career.
“Well, look … I hope so,” Madio said when informed that his director had said that. “I worked my ass off for it – it’s not like I was given this. I had to go earn it, and now I feel like I’m in a really good place, so if this can help me play more vibrant characters and get better roles, then great, I’ll take that.”
Part of Madio working his ass off for it included the entire movie shoot being crammed into just 18 days. They shot in Pep’s hometown of Hartford, and Madio said it was hectic but rewarding.
“It went by in the blink of an eye,” he recalled. “There’s a lot of pressure, but it’s wanted pressure, pressure that you had asked for your entire life and career. And playing Willie Pep, this is something that as an actor, this is the moment you’re waiting for, right? I tried, not in a method-acting way, but I tried to really stay with who Willie was while I was there for those 18 days, because I thought that that would help.
“And the way we shot it, as a documentary, the camera is always rolling. So there was this freedom to explore and move around in ways you wouldn’t normally be able to in traditional narrative filmmaking. I didn’t have to worry about hitting a mark. I didn’t have to worry about continuity, because most of the time it was only one take. So there was a great freedom in the way we did it.”
As for the boxing scenes, Madio – who grew up a boxing fan and even gave the sport a try in his early teens, until he faced a southpaw in the gym and took a beating and realized this was not something he should pursue further – said the challenge for him was not in trying to look convincing as a boxer, but in trying specifically to move and box like Willie Pep.
“That man was incredibly gifted, such a special fighter,” Madio said. “It was difficult, knowing his footwork was his specialty, learning his triple jab, his V step, all of that stuff. I would work on that religiously.
“But the good news for me was, it’s filmmaking. There’s an edit that can help me look good. The editor, Robert Greene, could cut out any shot where the boxing didn’t look good enough. I was protected, in a sense. I was protected by an edit.”
Still, it isn’t easy for a guy in his mid-40s to plausibly pass as the 22-year-old Pep who beat Chalky Wright for the featherweight title. One aid to Madio on that front (besides hair coloring products): He stayed in shape for 12 years, always ready to start filming as Pep if a deal to make the movie came together.
Astute boxing fans will notice two familiar faces in cameo roles in “The Featherweight”: The second-best-ever boxer from Hartford, former welterweight titlist Marlon Starling, pops up early in the movie. And current featherweight prospect Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington appears later as a sparring partner for the comebacking Pep.
It’s best to stop there in terms of anything resembling spoilers. Hopefully, fight fans will be able to see the movie soon. Madio said he expects it won’t be long before it’s available on a streaming platform, but in the meantime, powered by mostly positive reviews (81 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), they’ll keep pushing for a wider theatrical release.
They’ll keep pushing, and they’ll keep punching. Just because “The Featherweight” is, after a dozen years, a finished product, that doesn’t mean the fight is over.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, Ringside Seat, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.
