The director and cast of “Rasta Rockett” talk about their experiences filming the cult Disney film.
As Disney’s cult sports comedy Rasta Rockett celebrates its 30th anniversary this month, director Jon Turteltaub and his lead cast reunited for an interview with The Independent (via Variety) during which they discussed their battle with Disney over about the Jamaican accents in the film.
Based on the Jamaican national bobsleigh team’s debut at the 1988 Winter Olympics, Rasta Rocket before Disney was a feature film that had to be about “drugs, racism and the characters had a lot of sex,” as actor Rawle D. Lewis, who plays Junior Bevil, said. “I saw it become the film that it is now. This was something that had never been told before – Jamaicans in tights? People were wondering, ‘How is it going to work under the Disney umbrella?’“, he added.
The managers of the studio in question would have argued with Jon Turteltaub about the actors’ accents that they wanted Americanized rather than actually Jamaican.
“They said, ‘People from Central America won’t be able to understand you,'” said Malik Yoba, who plays Yul Brenner in the film. “At that time, people had less access to cultural differences and didn’t really know what Jamaican looked like.”
“They wanted me to look like a black Aladdin. They wanted a Disney version,” added Leon (Derice Bannock in the feature film). “It was hard because if anyone’s going to be authentic, it’s me – but I’m a professional and I had to do the work.”
AN AMERICANIZED ACCENT
Therefore Jon Turteltaub once received a phone call from Jeffrey Katzenberg, then chairman of Disney, at 1 a.m. saying: “If you can’t get these accents to where I can understand them clearly, I’ll find a director who can.”
The next day, I told the actors: ‘I’m going to get fired if you don’t speak like Sebastian the Crab. Please don’t get me fired.’ We joked about it but they understood it. They understood. We’re not going to make Sebastian the Crab but we’re going to make an Americanized version of the film that people around the world can understand.
The director later expressed his uncertainty when asked if the making of the film would be different if it was filmed in 2023.
“Times have changed a lot in 30 years. There would be no chance of me getting this job – and I probably shouldn’t get it. I’m on the side of those who say I shouldn’t have directed it and yet we ended up with a very good film. It is complicated.”
Rasta Rockett can be rediscovered in streaming on Disney+.