John C. Reilly Says ‘Winning Time’ Celebrates Lakers Owner Jerry Buss’ Leadership In Integration – Contenders TV
deadline.comJohn C. Reilly plays Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss in the HBO series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty. Buss recruited Magic Johnson and turned the Lakers around beginning the late 1970s.
Although Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was already on the team, Reilly said Buss’s color-blind recruiting paved the way for his success.“If we’re going to be frank, his super power was that he wasn’t racist,” Reilly said on a Deadline Contenders TV panel Sunday at the Paramount Theatre. “That was a radical thing to do at the time.
The support of the Black community and everyone who spoke at his memorial shows you that I think that was his super power. To really see people, see who they were and what they could contribute and what they were capable of.”Reilly said Buss also crossed gender barriers by giving his daughter, Jeanie, an executive position.“Whether it’s his 18-year-old daughter [or] women stuck in administrative positions, he empowered them,” Reilly said. “He could see people.
That idea if you can dream it, you can do it, he really lived that. He put everything he had into his dreams.”Reilly said the HBO production continued Buss’ tradition with diverse talent behind the scenes.“Even though this show is about sports and entertainment, we’re trying to entertain you, the issues it deals with in terms of Black and white relations, that was some of the deepest stuff for me,” Reilly said. “For me, going to a set and being able to work with African-American actors every day, to have the crew represented by people of color, from top to bottom, HBO did an amazing thing the way they built this show.
Read more on deadline.com