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‘Daddy’s Home’ A Sports Movie? Kobe Bryant, Tony Hawk Discuss Their Roles

By Jonathan Franks
Published on: 08:37 PST, Dec 24, 2015

Is Daddy’s Home a sports movie?

The Sean Anders-directed comedy, starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, focuses on an ongoing battle between a biological father and a step-father. The two men go head-to-head as they compete for the love and affection of two young children.

Even though Daddy’s Home is not technically classified as a sports film, there is an undeniable athletic factor present throughout the movie. Two of the people that played a major role in making that happen were none other than longtime professional athletes Kobe Bryant and Tony Hawk.

Kobe Bryant had the chance to show off his acting skills on the big screen with a cameo appearance in the film.

Kobe Bryant Daddy's Home
(Photo Credit: Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

In one particular scene, Brad (Ferrell) and Dusty (Wahlberg) attend a Los Angeles Lakers game with the kids, according to Time.

Dusty’s reputation apparently precedes him, which ends with him being able to bring his two kids court-side so that they can meet Kobe Bryant in person.

Bryant opened up about his small acting role in Daddy’s Home, claiming that his appearance dealing with a common “Meet and Greet” scenario was a huge help.

“I’m not much of an actor, so the fact that I’m just coming over and doing a ‘Meet & Greet’ like I normally would do makes me feel a lot better about being in the movie… [Mark and Will] made it so easy. I’ve known them both for a long time. Obviously, they’re both big basketball fans.”

According to Will Ferrell, Kobe “couldn’t have been nicer” to work with while filming. Even though his cameo appearance initially did not have any written dialogue, Bryant apparently agreed to do a lot more than just wave at the kids.

Daddy's Home cast
(Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images)

The future NBA Hall of Famer was not the only professional athlete featured in the film. However, the second athlete cameo was designed to be more of a behind-the-scenes appearance. In another competitive scene between Brad and Dusty in Daddy’s Home, the two fathers take their battle to the skate ramp.

Both actors had a little “help” when it came to performing their respective stunts, especially since neither of them have any professional skateboarding experience. Instead of hiring an unknown skater to replace Will Ferrell, Tony Hawk was brought on-board as his stunt double. Since Brad’s attempt at outdoing Dusty on the skate ramp ends as an epic failure, Tony suffered an epic fall that led to a pretty gruesome injury.

Last week, Hawk opened up about the experience on Twitter. In his own words, Tony claimed that his stunt double work in Daddy’s Home was “blood, sweat and laughter but mostly blood.”

He even shared a brief video clip showing his fall as well as the bloody cut that unfortunately was not created by the film’s makeup team.

Even though he’s not a pro athlete, Mark Wahlberg does get the chance to show off his physical fitness and muscular physique in this film, especially since it is much better than Will Ferrell’s.

According to Daily Mail, Wahlberg claims that he had to do about 700 one-arm pull-ups during one scene where his character got a chance to show off his strength.

This Adam McKay-produced film reunites Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell on the big screen for the first time since The Other Guys was released back in 2010. In that particular film, Mark and Will played partners that progressively transition from foes to friends.

Whether or not their characters in Daddy’s Home will make the same type of foe-to-friend transition is yet to be seen. When the movie is released on Christmas Day, however, fans and critics will finally determine whether or not it feels more like a sports comedy than a family comedy.

[Image Credit: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures]

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