The Making Of Ben Stokes: Phoenix From The Ashes

“When Ben dropped out of cricket last summer, we had no idea what would happen and where the film would go. We were glad that he wanted to share that moment with us.”?

Executive Producer Mark Cole and Directors Chris Grubb and Luke Mellows talk to us about making one of the most talked about sports documentaries of the year…?

How it Came About….?(Mark Cole) We agreed a deal in Summer 2020. There were a lot of other people interested in telling Ben’s story so it was great for Ben and his manager to believe in Whisper and our creative vision for the film.?

How It Was Shaped…?(Chris Grubb) Many sports documentaries focus on retired athletes, whereas the one with Ben was a live story. At the start we knew we had the core of a great story because of what Ben had done at Headingly and the World Cup. And, of course with Bristol, we knew Ben wanted to talk about things he hadn’t talked about before. But we had no idea where it was going to go. Sadly, quite early on in the process, his dad fell ill. It was one of our initial filming phases between lockdowns, so we had to get his confidence and trust at a stressful time for him. It was one of the first filming sections we did.??

Luke Mellows: We first spoke with Ben’s manager in October 2019. Since then, we had a global pandemic and lots has changed in both Ben’s and Whisper’s lives. The way the whole thing evolved as we were making it was totally unpredictable. When Ben dropped out of cricket last summer, we had no idea what would happen and where the film would go. We were just glad that when he did decide to come back and play again, he wanted to share that moment with us.?

How the Main Interview Took Centre Stage…?(Luke) The way we use the Sam Mendes sit down interview is a key part of the film. It’s quite unusual to have an interview that you can build a film around. For everyone who witnessed the interview live, it felt like something really special and interesting had happened, but the most difficult thing was how we actually used it.?

Chris: It was a great interview. It was a very delicate situation and we had a responsibility as we were talking to someone clearly going through something really quite serious. We were unsure about how deep to go into it because of that, but I thought Sam’s approach was really well measured.?

The Involvement of Sam Mendes…?(Chris) Sam is obviously a massive cricket fan, but he astounded us throughout with how much he was prepared to trust us and his help was invaluable. We had struggled with the ending, as Ben’s career is evolving constantly. We’d gone to the West Indies, where he hits a century in his return to cricket and we thought brilliant, that’s a fantastic end. Then he gets named captain and gets even better run chases! We had some good discussions with Sam about it as we wanted the film to be slightly timeless, so his feedback on that was a big help.?

Ben’s Honesty…?(Chris) Ben is a very honest person and I think that comes across in the film. He felt very strongly that he wanted to give a very raw, no holds barred interview and that came across very early on. We go into some quite emotive subjects. That didn’t happen overnight, there was a lot of talking and we involved him in every stage.

We also spend a lot of time with Ben’s agent, Neil Fairbrother. He is very protective of Ben, but didn’t want to remove anything that was difficult or complex and having someone as intelligent as a manager as Neil really made the film. He could see the value of that honesty when I think others wouldn’t. To have that confidence to go the places we went was important.?

Mental Health in Cricket…?(Chris) Cricket is mentally a very stressful game, and we focus on that with the players included in the film. We wanted to include Stuart Broad talking about why he plays cricket – he went into a lot of depth about the mental challenge of the game. I think that’s what draws people into the sport, but it has consequences as well and that’s a wider debate too.?

How the Film Transcends Sport…?(Mark): The bravest thing that Chris and Luke did was to work closely with Sam ahead of the centre piece interview and move the documentary from being too focused on cricket and instead have a broader relevance around topics like loss, grief and mental health. Sam has spoken about that being a real pivotal moment for the film appealing to a wider audience. That’s something we have as an ethos in everything we do at Whisper and there’s no greater example of that than this film. That’s the real success of it, so amazing credit to Chris and Luke, Sam and the wider team.?

Ben Stokes: Phoenix From The Ashes is available now on Prime Video.