'There was no escape, I had no idea how intense it would be': Actress Lenora Crichlow on her gruelling training for film Fast Girls
By LISA SEWARDS
|
All that training paid off! Leonora Crichlow ditches the sportswear for Fast Girls premiere
It is the first major British film about athletics since Chariots of Fire won four Academy Awards more than thirty years ago. And it is set to be the Bend It Like Beckham feelgood film of the summer.
Fast Girls tracks the rollercoaster journey of two rivals in the British female sprint relay team – natural-born sprinter Shania Andrews, played by Lenora Crichlow, for who running is a means of escape from her life on the estate and prissy Lisa Temple, played by Lily James, who has been groomed for success by her father, a former gold medallist.
For Lenora, Fast Girls presented a big challenge as she didn't just have to act, she also had to convincingly recreate the body, gait and speed of an elite athlete.
But with no previous sprinting experience and a running audition to pass, Lenora, 27, felt the odds were against her. 'I used to be sporty and played netball and football but this was before the boobs and hips arrived and slowed me down,' she laughs. 'I was amazed to get the part, but then they sent me on a really tough six-week fitness regime to get me into proper shape.'
At the insistence of director Regan Hall, she found herself – along with the rest of the cast – training alongside their real-life Olympic counterparts, for the sake of authenticity.
'I jumped at the chance but had no idea just how intense it would be,' says Lenora. 'Just looking toned was simply not enough so I was given two fitness trainers to achieve the tight stomach and taut quadriceps but even that's with help from the camera angles and lighting!
'I was in Cardiff filming my last series of the BBC's sci-fi programme, Being Human, for 14 hours a day then having to fit this gruelling regime into the schedule. So I was waking up at 5am and doing 30 minutes on a spinning bike which had previously served as a clothes horse in my room. Then it was straight into the press ups.'
By the end of the six weeks, the cast were managing 1,000 sit-ups a day. Initial anxieties about stepping out in tiny, Lycra running shorts and cropped tops, disappeared quickly.
Lenora was trained by the British 100m female sprint champion, Jeanette Kwakye, who is also in the current UK sprint relay squad and will participate in London's Olympics, as well as Shani Anderson who represented Britain in female athletics for 11 years.
Toned: Leonora said her and co-star Lily James were the slowest runners
'For the film, every muscle was on display', says Lenora. 'There was no escape, plus it was freezing cold filming in those flimsy pants. Then I had to watch myself in very slow or very fast close-ups on playbacks.
'Each time I'd spot a new detail about myself, saying: “Now I even hate my ears.” I'd be lying if I said I didn't have anxieties about showing my body off with that level of scrutiny but it was also liberating.
'I certainly wasn't body perfect by the time I stepped onto the set and I thank the lighting and clever camera shots, which left me saying: “Wow, we pulled it off.” There is so much pressure to hide every scar and imperfection but this time we had to play by the rules – eat sensibly and work hard. There was no quick fix.'
The training programme was relentless. 'Jeanette would sometimes come to Cardiff just to train me for one hour then go back to London, so I had to make every minute count. She would just know if I hadn't put in the work to reach a certain level by a certain day,' recalls Lenora.
Fast Girls: The cast of the film had to train hard
'After a while it became addictive. Even though each race we filmed was broken down into sections over days, we weren't just doing fitness training, but also getting to grips with sprinting technique.
'We watched clips of the world's best athletes on YouTube to see how a sprinter's hips move, where their knees are, how their posture is and the precision of the crouch position on the starting blocks. Just that alone is a killer on your hands.'
Due to their prior work commitments, both Lenora and Lily James went straight into filming Fast Girls, without the head-start of full-time training which their co-stars had. 'Between you and me, in reality, Lily and I are the slowest runners. We'd met all the cast initially, but when I saw them a few weeks later, I said: “Oh my god, your bodies are just so different now.”'
Co-stars: Kimberly Wyatt (left) and Dominique Tipper arriving at the world premiere of Fast Girls
Fast Girls was shot at London's National Sports Stadium at Crystal Palace and at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre in Edmonton, north London in December while the British Olympic and Paralympic teams were also training.
The stars had to do everything the Olympic squad does, including pulling weighted sleds, hill running, circuit and weight training and some 1,000 sit-ups a day. All this on a healthy, alcohol-free diet with portions the size of a small fist every two and a half hours.
One of the greatest insights was the peril of injury. 'On the first day of filming the running, I suffered two stress fractures in my ankles. I was utterly devastated and felt I'd let everyone down. I'd only been training six weeks so I can imagine how real athletes must feel when this happens after four years' training.'
Her injury meant she had to take three months off before she could resume her running scenes. As a result, the production team had to be extremely resourceful. 'I had a special physiotherapist and went into rehab to keep my muscles toned and stop them from wasting while I was resting.
'But when I went back I had special spiked shoes to run on a sponge track which absorbs 20 per cent of your body weight and on the days I really couldn't run, we cheated to make us look good, using a special effects camera that David Beckham and Thierry Henry have used for commercials for insurance reasons so they don't sustain injury during filming. It was a very clever edit job.
'But in real competition real athletes have none of this backup. Now I have so much respect for them. I'll be watching the Olympics with different eyes.
Idol: Leonora Crichlow and Dame Kelly Holmes, who is a huge fan of the film Idol: Leonora Crichlow and Dame Kelly Holmes, who is a huge fan of the film
'I read Olympic medalist, Kelly Holmes' autobiography which was an inspiration to me. Kelly has seen the film several times and given it the thumbs up even though she laughed at the artistic licences, pointing out that real athletes don't go through the hours of intensive make-up and hair we did to make us look good.
'But real athletes don't need anything to make them look breathtaking – their fitness and precision in aiming to shave off a tenth of a second at the highest level of athletics, is nothing short of amazing. So I hope Fast Girls raises the profile of athletics in Britain.'
*Fast Girls is released nationwide today
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2159783/Actress-Lenora-Crichlow-gruelling-training-film-Fast-Girls.html#ixzz1xrj7JvU1
