REVIEW
STEPHEN MERCHANT’S
Fighting With My Familyis
a fun, compelling, feel-good
comedy-drama that tells
the story of the Knights,
a working-class, wrestling-
obsessed family in Norwich,
and how their daughter Saraya
made it all the way to the bright
lights of big-time wrestling in
the WWE — titles, big crowds,
The Rock and all. If the story
sounds familiar, it’s because the
film was inspired by a 2012
Channel 4 documentary of
the same name which followed
the Knights’ journey. But,
in creating the characters
for the film, that was just
writer-director Merchant’s
starting point.
1 PAIGE
Black-clad wrestling prodigy,
played by Florence Pugh.
“I could see why Dwayne
[Johnson, who also produced]
thought the documentary
would be a good film, although
I didn’t feel that it had enough
for a movie. What swung it for
me was Paige told me on the
phone that she had won the
[wrestling TV show]Rawtitle
in her first match. So now you
have this ready-madeRocky
movie sitting there in real life.
All the way through the writing
process I had the real woman in
my mind. She was in Florida,
I was in London and LA, but
I would meet with her when I
could. One time I was shootingLogan and had a day off, and
went to Florida. There was a
big hurricane and I almost got
stuck there. I would record our
calls and listen to them back.
What was interesting was, she
told me when she went to the
WWE training camp in
Florida, she felt she was bullied
by the other girls. When I
mentioned this to the trainers,
they said, ‘Well, sometimes she
was the bully.’ So I tried to
introduce her sense of
isolation, and how being a long
way from home made her lash
out at the other girls. When it
came to casting, she was almost
impossible to replace. She’s so
unique, charismatic, she has
a striking look. How do youreplicate that? Florence came
in, and found a version of
Paige, as opposed to an
impression. Once I had that, I
could tailor the movie to that,
instead of the real person.”2 ZAK
Paige’s older brother (played
by Jack Lowden), rejected
by the WWE at the same
time as they accept Paige.
He doesn’t take it well...
“The family were shocked when
he didn’t get signed. It’s
completely arbitrary. When you
see him perform, he’s very
entertaining and charismatic. It
didn’t make sense to me why he
didn’t get signed. But Zak had
a dark, depressive time afterWriter-director Stephen Merchant on moulding the characters of
FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY from their real-life counterparts
Above from left:
Paige (Florence
Pugh); Zak
(Jack Lowden);
The Rock (as
himself); Ricky
(Nick Frost)
and Saraya
(Lena Headey).1
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SHUTTERSTOCK, PRESS ASSOCIATION