Winning Time's Hadley Robinson Reveals What It's Like To Work With John C. Reilly And Sally Field - Exclusive
While such marquee players as Earvin "Magic" Johnson (Quincy Isaiah) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Solomon Hughes) are at the center of "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty," the new HBO and HBO Max series also keys in on the behind-the-scenes personnel that helped build the "Showtime Lakers" of the 1980s. Among them is Dr. Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly), an energetic investor who purchased the struggling NBA franchise in 1979 with the intention of creating a showbiz atmosphere to attract crowds to the team's home games at the L.A. Forum.
Buss knew he couldn't achieve his goals alone, though, so he brought some important family members into the fold — his mom, Jessie Buss (Sally Field), who served as the franchise's accountant, and his daughter, Jeanie Buss (Hadley Robinson) as an assistant to the Forum's general manager, Claire Rothman (Gaby Hoffmann). And while Jeanie Buss' suggestions to bolster the Forum's business aren't taken seriously at first, Rothman comes to realize that her new assistant — who was about 18-years-old when she started with the team — may have much more to contribute than she first realized.
Time, of course, has proven that Jeanie Buss' contributions over the years were extremely valuable, which explains her eventual ascent to the top as the Lakers' team president. So, as a relative newcomer with aspirations as an actor, Robinson — whose credits including roles in the streaming series "Utopia" and the 2019 feature adaptation of "Little Women" — said she was taking every opportunity to learn from the esteemed members of her screen family while working on "Winning Time."
Robinson said she absorbed the greatness
"Winning Time" presented Hadley Robinson a parallel universe scenario in a sort of way. Like Jeanie Buss initially, Robinson said she felt like the new kid on the block while working on the series, as she was surrounded by an ensemble of great actors every day. As such, Robinson told Looper in an exclusive interview that she wasn't about to let the opportunity to learn from her co-stars — especially Reilly and Field, whom she shares key scenes with — go to waste.
"It's like one big Masterclass. I feel so lucky to be around these people when nonetheless learning from them constantly, and also, watching somebody on screen is very different from acting with them, because it's like you're absorbing information in a whole new way," Robinson enthused. "Now, I feel very lucky [to be] rubbing shoulders with everybody on this project. Going into it, I was mostly nervous, and it was a similar position Jeanie's in where she's showing up for this big job, and she's surrounded by these greats. It's like getting to be a fly on the wall and [absorbing] that greatness, hopefully. [I'm] hoping some of it will stick, too, and then [I'll be] emerging with more [of] a sense of comfort, I hope."
Also starring Adrien Brody, Jason Clarke, DeVaughn Nixon, Jason Segel, and Michael Chiklis, the new series "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty" is on HBO and HBO Max, with a new episode dropping every Sunday through May 8.