Kiwi actor Temuera Morrison set to play England coach in new rugby movie

It's the season of rugby movies — hot off the heels of former All Black Dan Carter's movie A Perfect 10 comes The Brighton Miracle, starring Temuera Morrison.

The movie is based on Japan's exploits at the 2015 Rugby World Cup and Morrison is playing Australian coaching legend Eddie Jones.

If you think New Zealand has gone RWC crazy, the Japanese media are eating up the rugby excitement with The Brighton Miracle trailer filling up headlines this week, reminding the nation of the Brave Blossoms' 34-32 win over two-time world champions South Africa four years ago.

Last week Morrison told the Kyodo News that he had heard Jones was not the most likeable chap — but that's what you have to be if you want to achieve levels of perfection.

The movie, written and directed by Max Mannix, was filmed in Australia and Japan. It will be released worldwide a week before the 2019 RWC kick-off in Tokyo. It explores how Jones engineered the miraculous result and looks at him making the impossible possible.

Morrison, 58, asked Mannix if he was sure he wanted a Maori from Rotorua to play Jones. Mannix thought Morrison was perfect — and Morrison says some of his friends had already commented on the likeness.

"Researching Eddie and reading about him and watching him, has been quite good for my own personal life in a way because he's such a go-getter, such a motivator," Morrison told Kyodo News.

"I decided to totally immerse myself and find out as much as I could about Eddie. The way he doesn't look at just the rugby, he looks at the whole culture. He did a whole summary on Samurai culture and found out what makes the country tick."

This article was originally published at nzherald.co.nz and is reproduced here with permission