A Controversial NFL Player Cast As The Star Of A Racy New Movie
Hey, if Dwayne Johnson can do it, why can't the NFLers?
This article is more than 2 years old
Former NFL All-Pro running back and Super Bowl champion Marshawn Lynch is hitting the ground running in his new career as an actor. The Seattle Seahawks legend has joined the cast of the high school sex comedy Bottoms. The teen flick is directed by Emma Seligman (Shiva Baby) and production is scheduled to begin this spring. The Hollywood Reporter was among the first to announce the casting.
The plot involves two unpopular queer high school senior girls who start a fight club, with a goal to have sex with a cheerleader before they graduate. Ayo Edebiri (Dickinson, Netflix’s Big Mouth) has been cast in the lead alongside Rachel Sennott (Call Your Mother), who is co-writing the script with Seligman. Ruby Cruz (Mare of Easttown, Castle Rock, and the upcoming Willow reboot), model-turned actress Havana Rose Liu (No Exit), Cindy Crawford’s daughter Kaia Gerber (American Horror Story), Nicholas Galitzine (The Craft), Miles Fowler (Winning Time), Dagmara Dominczyk (Succession) and Saturday Night Live star Punkie Johnson are also in the cast. It’s not clear which role Marshawn Lynch will play, but given the setting, our guess would be he plays a coach of some sort. MGM’s Orion Pictures is overseeing production, with Elizabeth Banks, Max Handelman and Alison Small producing for Brownstone Productions.
Lynch earned the nickname “Beast Mode” over the course of a 12-season career, with his punishing style of running over defensive players, rather than around them. He won Super Bowl 48 as a member of the Seahawks, where he had his best seasons. He also played for the Buffalo Bills and Oakland Raiders during his career. Since he retired after the 2019 season, Marshawn Lynch has moved into acting, with some success and impressive performances. He played Giggles in three episodes of HBO’s futuristic western Westworld in 2020. He has appeared in several music videos, and appeared as himself in TV series like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The League. He even voiced himself in a cameo in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops III. He owns a clothing line called Beast Mode, with a popular online store.
Marshawn Lynch most recently proved his comedic mettle as an actor with an appearance in Netflix’s series Murderville. The series, which made its debut in February of this year, featured Will Arnett as police detective Terry Seattle. Each week, he had to solve a new murder, with the help of a celebrity guest star playing themselves, which included Lynch, Conan O’Brien, Sharon Stone, Annie Murphy, and Ken Jeong. However, the guest star is never given a script, so they have to improvise all of their lines. Lynch’s sense of humor and quick mouth was perfect for the role, and his episode is a fan favorite. This YouTube video features several outtakes from the series, including the Marshawn Lynch episode.
As an NFL player, Marshawn Lynch had a pretty successful side hustle in commercials. He had some memorable commercials for Pepsi and the Madden video game series, among others. In 2020, he celebrated the kickoff of the NFL season for Lays with this commercial, a play off of “Twas The Night Before Christmas.”
