Wrestling with greatness: How Jennifer Lopez and Jharrel Jerome became “Unstoppable” in their new family biopic

This year's most inspirational story — about NCAA wrestler Anthony Robles, who was born with one leg, and his mom, Judy — will have you crying and cheering.

Jharrel Jerome distinctly remembers the time, near the end of filming his new movie Unstoppable, that he took to the mat to wrestle Anthony Robles, the NCAA championship-winning athlete he portrays in the biopic.

"We don't talk about that day," the actor tells Entertainment Weekly, laughing. "It didn't go well for me. That's the first time I saw Anthony really be nice to somebody [on the mat]. I definitely wanted to feel what the other wrestlers felt wrestling him."

"Brute and monstrous" is how Jerome describes the champion wrestler, qualities that propelled Robles to the top of his sport — and the medal podium — in 2011 as a student at Arizona State University. But even more impressive and inspiring is that he did so with just one leg. His congenital disability challenged him in all of the expected ways, so he trained harder than all of his fellow athletes, not just keeping up with but surpassing their skills, stamina, and strength.

But the guy Jerome encountered that day on the mat was starkly different from the one he became close friends with over several years during preparation for the movie — more like the guy he first saw in a YouTube video, where Robles was being interviewed outside of his Mesa, Ariz., high school.

"Anthony's such a beast on the mat. He's dominant, and he's aggressive," says Jerome, who won an Emmy in 2019 for his lead performance in When They See Us, about the Central Park Exonerated Five. "But you watch this video, and he's the complete opposite. He is so kind and sweet, and the smile is so wide, and he has such a big heart. So I'm over here [wondering], What is going on? What a duality. I wanted to find the guy beyond the wrestler who wrestled at home. That's what pulled me to it. The wrestling just came with it."

Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV, movies, and more.

It was the obstacles Robles overcame outside the sport, since infancy, that might truly define him. Robles' mom, Judy — played by Jennifer Lopez — had him as a teenager. When we meet the mother and son in the movie, nearly 18 years later, her family includes four more children with her abusive husband, Rick (Bobby Cannavale). He's the only dad Anthony has ever known, but he's not the most supportive guy...jealous, even, that his children idolize their big brother more than their own dad. Unfaithful, controlling, pompous, selfish, and temperamental, he abandons the family at one point, forcing Anthony to forgo a full scholarship to Philadelphia's Drexel University so he can stay in the Phoenix area to help support his family.

"There was a lot about her that I understood," Lopez says of Judy and her willingness to stay in such a toxic relationship. "There were different sides to him that the kids didn't see, that only Judy saw. With those types of people, there's a part of them that fools you into thinking that they care about you and that they truly love you — and it's really about their damage that they're putting onto you."

In a brief flashback, we get a small glimpse into Rick's own upbringing. But, as Cannavale sees it, compounding the problem is fear — worry that his four sons could end up in the jail where he works. "I am cognizant of that feeling. I have three sons myself, and one of 'em is 29, and my heart's still in my throat for him — I'm afraid for him," Cannavale admits. "And that's kind of where I approached the guy from. So whatever the result of that is.... They used to call tough love, of course — but I think in that neighborhood I would pitch him as more than just a run-of-the-mill a--hole."

Anthony would most certainly disagree with that. And while Cannavale admits Rick is in competition with Anthony for Judy's love and attention, the issues run deeper with her.

"We talked about that kind of a co-dependent relationship," Cannavale says of conversations he had with Lopez (whom he previously worked with on Shall We Dance? and Parker). "We both acknowledged that we knew what this was, that we had seen this at some point, somewhere in our lives before. The long lens of being older now and seeing that for what it was allows you to really play it almost affectionately, knowing how fraught the relationship is boiling. We both understood what that was."

"There was a lot going on with the two of them that was dysfunctional and unhealthy, but she loved him and wanted him to be there," Lopez adds. "He was the father of four of her children. As angry and upset as she could be at him, she could also welcome him back in a second, like she did in the movie, which was heartbreaking.”

For all of her nerves about sharing her family's story with the world, Judy Robles says she felt in good hands with Lopez, whom she shared many personal stories with and found a kindred spirit in. "She was able to really take on how I felt — the highs and the lows," Judy says of the actress. "We long to be loved, and we want something impossible to work out. And even when we see it and we're like, 'But I've got to keep pushing' — there's always that little bit of hope," she reflects of her marriage. "When I watched the movie, when I watched me, I was like, 'Oh, yeah, I was pretty weak. I kind of don’t want to see that part of me.' But I know that was my growth journey." Judy believes that, after watching the film, "people aren’t left with a sense of who I used to be, but who I am now."

She says her son is a big part of that evolution, crediting him with helping her rise above her situation to pursue a better life for herself — no surprise given the bond between the two, who occasionally stop to hold back or even wipe tears during their interview together.

"I keep reminding myself of the underlying message of it all: It's that word 'unstoppable,'" says Robles, who's now a motivational speaker and ESPN commentator (and wrote the book the movie is based on). “There are special people in my life — my mom, my siblings, and my coaches — who helped me wrestle through certain opponents in my life. I hope this film helps someone that's wrestling through something in their lives, that it’s going to help them through an opponent. That's what it’s all about.”

Like Robles, the biopic of his life has faced its share of adversity. First announced in preproduction six years ago, Unstoppable would have to wait through the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns before moving forward in 2023 with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's Artists Equity producing, and Oscar-winning editor William Goldenberg (Argo) making his directorial debut.

With a résumé that also includes tense dramas such as Zero Dark Thirty and Gone Baby Gone, as well as the boxing biopic Ali, Goldenberg has spent a lot of time editing memorable and physically taxing performances. And he knew how hard Jerome was working to get the wrestling just right, spending months in his intense training with Robles ahead of the start of filming. But then, just weeks into production, the project — like many that year — endured another big delay as the actors’ and writers’ guilds went on strike.

Goldenberg remembers the agonizing call he had to make to his star. "He took a minute when I told him that we got shut down," the director recounts. "He just said, 'I gotta call you back,' because it was all the effort he put in, and we're two weeks in — he was so emotional about it. He called me two hours later and said, 'I’m just going to use [the time to] get stronger, to get better.' And he did."

A very Anthony thing of Jerome to do. But then again, he got to learn by example. "I spent time with Anthony before he was even married and had his first child, so I've seen chapters of his life," says Jerome, 27, who was 22 when they met. "Even though he isn't an emotional guy, once you spend enough time with somebody, you'll see some things creeping in.... It's very tricky playing somebody in real life. There's a sensitivity that belongs there, and there's a respect. They're still a human being — they're not just a project, they're not just work.”

That respect isn't just about the emotional aspects of his life but also the physical. Special effects are used to remove Jerome's leg, but he worked with a movement coach (Allison Diftler, Goldenberg's wife and a former professional dancer) to learn how Robles not just wrestles but moves through life: how to walk up and down stairs, get out of a car, get in and out of bed, and perform other mundane actions.

"He doesn't have a prosthetic, and he's chosen that in his life," Jerome says. "So for Anthony, those crutches [are] another pair of legs for him, that's his support. He can beat us all in a race right now on those crutches — it's kind of scary how good he is. So for me, that was a pivotal part of the process. If I looked like I had sprained my ankle two weeks ago and I'm just wobbling on crutches, it would not come off as authentic. We also worked a lot on balance. We worked a lot on me having my hands out and just up on one foot. I actually got real scared that my other leg was going to get super weak over time compared to the other because of how much I was leaning on it."

On the mat, Jerome became so good at wrestling that the real wrestlers cast in the movie as Robles' ASU teammates and competitors wondered how long the actor had been involved in the sport.

"He was never so happy as when the other wrestlers were asking him how long he had been wrestling or if he had wrestled in school," Goldenberg recalls, laughing. "Believe me, you've never seen anybody happier."

Thrilled, sure...but also terrified, especially for Robles to see the final product of his wrestling efforts. "Anthony was my coach. He was my own mentor through the whole entire process. So as I was growing into him, he was there watching it," Jerome says of their half a year of training, five days a week for four to five hours a day.

"I hope this film helps someone that's wrestling through something in their lives, that it's going to help them through an opponent. That's what it's all about. —Anthony Robles"

Don Cheadle, who plays Robles' ASU coach, Sean Charles, had a front-row seat to some of that prep work. "The first day I met Jharrel was [when] they were going through one of the choreographed wrestling scenes, and he was so committed and he was wrestling for real," recalls the Crash and Hotel Rwanda star, who spoke with Coach Charles and learned as much as he could about the sport — even hitting the mat himself to get the full experience. "I don't want to just be up there bulls---ting. I started training as soon as I got the part. It is, I think, probably one of the hardest, if not the hardest sport. It's full body, total intensity, can't ever let up, fast, slow.... It encompasses everything."

"It is one thing to learn wrestling, which is tough in and of itself. But for him to learn my style of wrestling, which is very unique and specific.... He was nailing it," says Robles, who remembers days when Jerome would put in a full day of work filming scenes, then head to wrestling practice where he'd get thrown around and "slammed on the mat. He was willing to jump in over and over and over and ask every single time, 'Was that right? Was that how you would do it?' just looking for my approval from it."

Which Jerome got. But there was someone else who it meant even more coming from. "It was one thing for Anthony to look at me like, 'You are getting it.' It was another thing for Judy, who was there often, to come up to me and say, 'You look like my son. You feel like my son. You are my son.'"

That appreciation is still evident when the Robles see Jerome between wardrobe changes at their EW cover shoot in West Hollywood, some six weeks after the movie's Sept. 6 premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. They exchange excited hugs and hellos before stepping in front of the camera along with Lopez for their laugh-filled group shot. Their bond is strong, forged from shared experiences, personal stories, and trust.

But getting here wasn't easy for the real-life mother and son.

"My mom always used to tell me growing up that God made me this way for a reason. And there were times where I struggled growing up. I kind of felt like I was always fighting something," Anthony says, his voice breaking as he fight back tears, a rare display of emotion. "I was fighting something I couldn't see, and I didn't know when it was going to stop, but I just had that faith that there was a plan. And to be here now, I can see that plan. For a while, I thought it was just wrestling — it was just to win a title, it was just to win a gold medal for myself. But as you'll see in that film, it was people, it was these kids that looked up to me. It is not about me. It's about the story. I'm just a vessel to share that story, to share that message: that there is a plan for everybody, that we're all going to face something and we're all going to feel like we're fighting with no end in sight. I'm just grateful to be able to see it now."

Judy, who took charge of her life and future (as seen in an end-credits reveal that almost feels like a spoiler to share here), says watching the movie made her realize that its title is also about her. "Everything that we went through together, individually, I wouldn't change it as hard as it was, as painful as it was, as many times as I cried and just wondered, why am I the one going through this again week after week, year after year," she says. "Going through that was worth it to get to where we are because instead of folding under the pressure and giving up, he and I continued to fight through it."

And now audiences get to see what Jerome, Lopez & Co. knew all along, when the movie opens Dec. 6 in limited release and starts streaming Jan. 16 on Prime Video. "It says a lot about the character of someone, when people are good and loving and supportive of each other, what they can accomplish," Lopez says. "I've been a single mom at times in my life, and [I’ve asked,] 'Am I enough for them?' And the truth is, all you need is really one good parent to love you. You hear it in Anthony's voice, and look what he’s been able to accomplish. That's what the movie gave me: You are enough."