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Anthony Gharib, ESPN
Claressa Shields had just watched “The Fire Inside” in early January 2024 for the first time, a film chronicling the 15-time world champion boxer’s journey from growing up in Flint, Michigan, to becoming a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Shields relived the moments — good and bad — of her road to London in 2012 and the aftermath of that gold medal-winning performance.
The film, which releases in theaters on Christmas Day, is “very accurate,” according to Shields. She had a hands off role and only OK’d the script. She spoke plenty of times with producer Barry Jenkins to ensure she was fine with people learning about parts of her journey.
“I want them to see everything wasn’t easy,” Shields told ESPN. “It was hard mentally and physically and emotionally and it took a lot to overcome those things, but I wanted those things to be in there, because I’m not ashamed of them, and I think it’ll help somebody else.”
Shields won gold in 2012 and 2016 in Rio, becoming the first American boxer — male or female — to win gold in back-to-back Olympic Games. “The Fire Inside” primarily highlights her run to London, concluding as she begins training for Rio.
As Shields watches the film, she cries, laughs and clenches her fist, the fire still very much burning inside. But once the movie ends, only one thing remains — finally meeting Ryan Destiny, the actor whose portrayal of Shields made her proud.
The two had spoken over the phone throughout the filming process. Shields called Destiny when she found out the actor got the role. Shields peppered Destiny with questions including if she ever got in a fight or pushing war. Destiny, who didn’t play sports at all before the movie, told her no. Shields admitted she got worried.
“I was praying for her. I said, ‘Oh, Lord, please give her the strength ’cause I know it’s going to be hard,'” she said.
Destiny told ESPN that she scared Shields a little “because [Shields] thought that I was maybe a little too pretty, a little too prissy for the role.” But the gold medalist came around to Destiny playing the role. After watching the film, Shields loved the boxing scenes and felt it was accurate to her experience, director Rachel Morrison told ESPN.
But, Destiny didn’t know that.
She invited Shields to her birthday party in January, which coincided with Shields’ first watch the night before. Shields wished her a happy birthday before a “scared” Destiny asked the boxer: “You seen the movie?”
“And I said, ‘Yes.’ And she said, ‘Oh.’ She just looked at me,” Shields recalled. “I start screaming, and I picked her up, and I was hugging her, and she was crying, and I was crying. I was like, ‘I loved it.’ And she just was like, ‘Oh my God. I’ve been waiting to hear that for so long.'”
It was a moment that served as the climax of a journey delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Filming began in 2020 then was halted until 2022. Exteriors were filmed in Flint with most interiors in Toronto. From a fighting perspective, the pandemic meant Destiny got to train twice, proving to be a valuable experience.
Morrison said Destiny grew as an athlete in that extra time. It was hard to build muscle and keep weight on the first time around because Destiny did “so much more physical activity than she had ever done.”
But when filming came back the second time, they figured out what worked and what didn’t.
“It was just so different for me, very shocking to my body, and just so new,” Destiny said. “And of course, I had to diet. I had to gain some weight and muscle, which was also just completely new. Not the most fun thing, but it needed to happen.”
She worked with Robert Sale, the same boxing technical advisor for “Creed” and “Creed III.” Destiny revealed that she consulted with actor Michael B. Jordan and received support from him throughout the whole filming process. Sale treated her like a fighter, not an actor — essential for understanding the coach-athlete dynamic.
Morrison trained to box, too. She worked with Dicky Eklund Jr., the son of a character played by Christian Bale in the movie “The Fighter.”
By the time “The Fire Inside” began shooting, Morrison had two years under her belt. It allowed her to choreograph fighting scenes with the experience of training and sparring to understand what it’s like to actually be hit. She wanted to “mind the game” and feel the psychological experience of being up against the ropes or having to back up out of the corner.
“I’m really proud of our boxing scenes because I think the choreography is pretty dynamic,” Morrison said. “And it really … puts the audience in the ring in a way that even with so many boxing films out there, I don’t know that many of them have captured that level of, sort of, immersive experience.”
The film covers emotional parts of Shields’ journey.
Shields doesn’t receive the notoriety or money she expects after winning gold, expressing frustration that her life seems to stay the same. It pushes her to attempt to pawn her medal at a pawn shop, only for the owner to inform Shields’ mother. Shields’ mother shows up and has an emotional embrace with the boxer — their up-and-down relationship is chronicled too, something Destiny asked Shields about for a better understanding.
One of the more emotional moments is when Shields travels to China for the 2012 Olympic trials. However, her trainer, Jason Crutchfield — played by actor Brian Tyree Henry — is unable to join her overseas.
Shields feels lost, suffering her first professional defeat to Savannah Marshall as she struggles to understand the instructions of a coach she normally doesn’t work with. She takes it hard in the film — refusing to speak to Crutchfield when he calls her after and rewatching the fight multiple times, nitpicking what went wrong.
Speaking about it over a decade later, it still bothers the boxing star.
“I felt like I had let my family down, and I let Jason down and everybody down when I had lost, so when I see that in the movie, it still makes me cry,” Shields said. “And I see that … even though I’m tearing up now, but that’s the hard part for me to watch.”
A major reason why the film accurately portrays that moment is because of Morrison and Destiny’s experience with their respective boxing coaches.
Morrison got close to her coach, feeling a “little bit at a loss” when he would travel with other fighters. Destiny experienced the same. When her coach couldn’t be on set, she admitted not having the same confidence compared to if he was actually there.
“It was a very odd thing to go through, but it was great in hindsight for the film itself, and being able to make sure that I executed even those parts correctly,” Destiny said.
Stunt people weren’t used for any of the fight scenes. Destiny completed the scenes and the boxers involved were actual boxers. She recalled it being weird to film the fights. When training, she learned the fundamentals and how to actually fight.
Destiny had to relearn things for the camera such as making punches wider and figuring out distance so they weren’t actually connecting on punches. She was hit a few times because they got too close. But, Destiny was quick to joke: “I hit them too, but they can take it. They’re used to it.”
Morrison wanted to keep those scenes unique and distinct, especially since there are five fights within the first two-thirds of the movie. Lighting and location played a role in making them look different.
The first fight of the film is a “oner,” meaning they had to do it in one take.
“[That] was a chance to do something a little bit different because you don’t need to communicate anything other than the fact that she’s a badass,” Morrison said. “So you could just play …. and also … it’s almost a minute of fighting, and Ryan lands every single one of those punches.”
Shields called Destiny’s boxing “beautiful” and could tell she trained. She had no complaints about the fights, mentioning that the scenes looked real.
The film has been embraced by Shields and the Flint community — a sense of validation for Morrison.
The director admitted she didn’t know much of Shields’ story before working on the project, but it deserved to be out there. To her, that was the reason to make the movie. There was something fundamentally wrong with being unaware of the story, but “that’s sort of what the movie kind of touches on,” Morrison said.
Destiny didn’t know Shields’ story either, explaining it as a mixture of her being in the arts and not athletics. However, she is from Detroit and realized that other people from there also weren’t aware of Shields’ journey from Flint — a heartbreaking reality.
“It’s just insane that not enough people know about her and what she’s accomplished,” Destiny said. “She’s made history. And because of that, I just wanted to have the honor of being able to play someone where you can be a little vessel in telling the story itself.”
Her story will “finally be told the right way,” according to Shields. She hopes the movie inspires and encourages people, highlighting the fact that if she can make it, someone else can too.
“I want 5-year-olds to watch the film,” Shields said. “And then when they turn 20 and people ask them, who is your inspiration? They be like, you know what? I watched the movie ‘The Fire Inside’ with Claressa Shields, and that’s what helped me get to where I am. I want it to be that big of an impact.”