Not many people can say they’ve been kicked out of a locker room at the Olympics or have made NBA superstar Kevin Durant cry, but director Jake Rogal got an all-access pass to the Paris Summer Olympic Games for Netflix‘s basketball documentary “Court of Gold.”
Rogal, who produced the Michael Jordan documentary “The Last Dance,” returned to the basketball court but took a much more international lens for the Olympics action. He traded Jordan for current basketball superstars like LeBron James, Steph Curry and Durant, plus foreign talents including Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama. Across six episodes, “Court of Gold” follows basketball teams from the U.S., France, Serbia and Canada as they chased Olympic glory in Paris last summer.
“What Jake did a masterful job of is the diplomacy and the management of so many moving parts, with not only the entities on our side of the fence and the production companies involved and the IOC, but also dealing with the four teams, all of their personalities and the four crews who had to follow them,” said Jason Hehir, who directed “The Last Dance” and produced “Court of Gold” through Words + Pictures. “In many ways, this was a more difficult, complicated project than ‘The Last Dance,’ with a lot less time to put everything together. What Jake accomplished here as a true director, with a capital D, is astonishing.”
Even though viewers know the Team USA won its fifth straight gold medal, the stakes and excitement are high throughout “Court of Gold.” The U.S. is no longer a guaranteed Olympic frontrunner, as basketball has become such an international sport, and each foreign team is ready to steal its crown.
With Variety, Rogal breaks down his emotional interview with Durant, getting kicked out of Serbia’s locker room and needing a boost to interview the seven-foot-three Wembanyama.
How did you decide which countries to follow, and how did you gain access to their practices and locker rooms?
While they’re all in a similar tournament, every country is so different in the way they operate. Most of the countries were receptive, because we framed it as “We are making a time capsule of a historic moment for your basketball organization and for your country.” Team USA was an obvious choice because they have all the superstars and the story really centered around them, win or lose. France was another obvious choice, because they’re the home country and Victor Wembanyama is this amazing star. Canada was another team that was pretty obvious, because they were a dark horse. People were telling us they could win the whole thing, and they have a ton of NBA players in the roster. That fourth team, though, we thought about for a long time. Greece, Germany and South Sudan were in the mix. Ultimately, we came to Serbia for a couple of reasons. They had a really good team and you add Nikola Jokic, who is the best player in the world, they could really make noise. We knew we wanted to tell countries’ backstories, and Serbia’s story is so rich that the human element was there.
Did you have a backup plan if any of those teams had lost and exited the tournament early?
We talked about pivoting a lot and we had daily conversations about what teams were doing and interesting storylines to follow. At one point, France was struggling and Germany was doing amazing, so we started to loop Germany into the four teams to have four and a half teams. So we went to a German practice, we interviewed the head coach, started reaching out some of the players to see if they were comfortable with it, and then three days later they lost and got knocked out of tournament. That story went away and France went to the gold medal game.
There’s a pretty emotional moment where you’re interviewing Kevin Durant and he starts crying when he talks about what basketball means to him. How did you get him to open up like that?
When he’s emotional, the first thing you want to be is respectful. The show is the second thought in my head in that moment. There’s someone in front of me who’s being really vulnerable right now, and it takes courage to be that vulnerable publicly, especially to someone he doesn’t know. The second thought was, “This is great for the show.” When someone is authentic and real, it makes people like to watch that. When you see an athlete be real, you’re like, “Finally.” I know that’s in there, and they’re just not showing it to me. It’s nice to see someone be authentic. The question I was asking him was about Twitter. After the first Serbia game, he was on Twitter responding to people who didn’t have a lot of followers. I was like, “Dude, why are you spending your time doing that? Like, you’re a global superstar in Paris. Don’t you have better things to do?” His thing was, “When I respond to them, I have 28 million followers, so people can see I’m making a point based on what this person is saying. It’s because I love basketball so much, and it means so much to me and it’s made me who I am.” Then he went into this emotional soliloquy about what basketball means to him, and he got himself emotional. It wasn’t an emotional question, but it hit him in a way that was emotional.
You interview President Obama at one point, and he jokes around with Team USA before the tournament. Were there any other scenes with him that were left out?
Every moment that we had that was entertaining was in the cut. There was nothing that we left on the floor. With President Obama in particular, those guys are on their best behavior, of course, but what makes these NBA superstars who they are is they’re unapologetically themselves almost at all times, no matter who’s in the room. That moment with Anthony Edwards and President Obama was real. That’s how they’re talking when the cameras aren’t there. The fact that our cameras were there and they were willing to be themselves was cool for us to capture. When those cameras turned off, that’s what the conversation looks like. Anthony is totally himself, no matter who you are, and President Obama knows how to disarm and let people feel comfortable.
There was one heated moment when Serbian coach Svetislav Pešić kicks you out of the locker room during a tough game. What was that moment like?
The Olympics got us the credentials that we needed, but the coaches ultimately had control of final access. We went to each team and said, “We want to be in these sensitive places. You have ultimate authority, though. Kick us out whenever you want. If we’re being annoying, tell us. This is your tournament and team, and we are just trying to be additive to that, not get in the way.” Some coaches took us up on that, of course. Coach Pešić ran a locker room a certain way and would get heated at certain times, so he kicked us out a bunch, which is totally fine and within his right. It was never in a way that upset us or offended us. He always talked to us afterwards about why, and it usually had nothing to do with us. It was something that’s going on in the game. The reason we included that moment of getting kicked out is the authenticity. We wanted this to feel real. We never told anyone to do anything. I can count on one hand — literally, it was Serbia — how many times they kicked us out. But otherwise, we pretty much lived in those locker rooms.
Are you going to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics to film another season?
I think “Court of Gold” should be done at each Olympics in any sport. Seeing how different countries approach sports is a microcosm of how some of those countries operate. It’s hard to get a true sense of how other cultures are, and I think sports are a good way to do that. “Court of Gold” should go to Milan, they should go to L.A. for basketball, as a franchise it should continue through the Olympics and do them every year.
Courtesy of Netflix
After making this show, is there a player whose career you’d want to follow closely?
Is it cliché to say Victor Wembanyama? He’s impossible to take your eyes off of. At his age, to be as thoughtful and cerebral and aware as he is — I could see him stopping before he talked every time we asked a question because he wanted to think about what he was going to say. That’s so rare. Combined with his basketball skill, obviously, he has that thing. That guy has it. He’s personable, friendly, thoughtful, smart. He’s so young and he had so much pressure on him at the Olympics. There were billboards of him everywhere and people wanting to get to him. We will see him explode in a way that we really haven’t before internationally.
How do you interview a player like Wemby, who’s 7’3”?
I’m 5’11”. I try to pick the same chair so that your eyeline is the same. With Wemby, he sat on a normal chair and I sat on a barstool. Then we were the same eyeline, which was humiliating for me. The pictures that the crew got, which they still make fun of me for, are in my phone. That was challenging because he’s so, so tall. For the other guys, usually you can position yourself in a way that they’ll be close to matching you. Kevin looked down a little bit on me. Victor was so big that I had to sit on the barstool and he sat on a regular chair and I still was shorter than him.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
