‘Action!’: Inside the acting pursuit of Falcons star running back

Michael Rothstein, ESPN Staff WriterSep 21, 2024, 06:00 AM ET

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IT STARTED WHEN Bijan Robinson was in high school, before he played a down of football at the University of Texas or became a first-round pick of the Atlanta Falcons.

He was a junior at Salpointe Catholic in Tucson, Arizona, on a recruiting trip, a high-level running back prospect visiting Austin, when he had a brief, in-passing introduction with someone who would become a key figure in his life.

Robinson didn’t know he’d become friends with Matthew McConaughey — the Oscar-winning actor, Texas superfan and Austin resident. They’d eventually describe their relationship as being like brothers.

“My freshman year … one of the guys at Texas, he asked what I wanted to do,” Robinson said. “I said, ‘One day I want to be an actor, like after football, or even during.’

Big day Bijan for 209 on the legs – Texas 34-27. @TexasLonghorns @TexasFootball pic.twitter.com/amamHrSThi

— Matthew McConaughey (@McConaughey) November 6, 2022

“He said, ‘I should get you in touch with Matthew McConaughey.’ I was like, ‘That would be cool.'”

By Robinson’s final year at Texas in 2022, he would hang out at McConaughey’s house when the actor was in Austin. They talked and texted regularly and were often seen around town together, to the point that it became, “There’s McConaughey and Bijan. Right on. Of course,” McConaughey told ESPN.

As the friendship deepened, it also became a mentorship. When McConaughey realized how serious Robinson was about acting, he began offering advice about fame and life.

Robinson knew he wanted to give acting a shot by the time he reached the NFL. He’d already taken a class and had de facto mentors such as McConaughey, Glen Powell and Jonathan Daviss — all established actors at different stages of their careers.

“I told him, ‘Yeah, man, you can do this,'” said director Jonas Pate, whose work includes the Netflix show “Outer Banks.” “‘And the sooner you treat it like you treat football and you take it seriously and it’s a real craft and you do your best to learn, you can completely set yourself up.'”

THE FIRST DAY of Barbara Chisholm’s “Fundamentals of Acting” class at Texas, Robinson told her he signed up because he was considering transferring to the department to study acting. She’d had athletes in class before, but rarely freshmen, and she knew nothing about Robinson.

“It’s a very uncomfortable class for a lot of students who are non-majors. I think some people think it’s gonna be something it’s not, but it’s a very vulnerable thing to be in this class,” Chisholm said. “And he was so open to it, and he was just super eager.”

Chisholm pushed her pupils to explore places they hadn’t tried before, embodying a completely different person every time they stepped into a role. Not only memorize lines, but immerse themselves in the character. Learn how to be honest in imaginary circumstances — something Chisholm calls “a simple concept to grasp but a very difficult thing to achieve.”

Bijan Robinson spent time on the set of Bunk’d last year, where he picked up his biggest acting role to date. Courtesy of Bunk-d

In Robinson’s case, he could play in front of 100,000 people but became nervous performing in front of 10.

Chisholm showed him similarities in the approaches. Focus on the performance, not anything else.

“This isn’t something that you can just come up with off the cuff,” Robinson said. “You have to understand that this is a craft and just how you want to be good at that; you have to do the same thing for this.”

Throughout the class they collaborated on a variety of techniques and source material. This was important to Robinson because it allowed for genuine relationships with fellow aspiring actors.

The final exam was a monologue curated for each student. The students had been nervously messaging on the Canvas app in the days leading up to the final. Chisholm asked who wanted to go first, and Robinson’s hand shot up. He still isn’t sure why. Typically, he went last or close to it.

“You’re so nervous, I was thinking about not even doing it because I was like, ‘What if you mess up?’ So it’s the mind game,” Robinson said. “So you’re saying, ‘Yes, you memorized it. But what if I stumble or what if I say the wrong thing?’

“Or what if when you’re done, nobody says anything or you have Ms. Barbara like, ‘Well, you could have done…’ There were just so many things going through my head.”

Chisholm and Robinson had already workshopped the scene as part of the prep for the final. In those sessions, Chisholm challenged Robinson to think of an incredibly difficult scenario. What if he was talking to his family, asking for permission to quit football. Judging from his reaction, Chisholm knew she hit on the necessary emotion.

“It was wonderful,” Chisholm said. “It was very, very honest.”

ROBINSON SAT IN the actors’ trailer last summer and watched his friend, Daviss, go silent. For a minute, Robinson was concerned.

Then they headed to the set of “Outer Banks.” Upon arrival, Daviss stepped in front of the camera while Robinson stood behind it and watched Pate call: “Action.”

Daviss let out a massive scream. Robinson was a little rattled.

“Having to get yourself mentally in that space in preparation of anything that could happen that day, it was pretty intense,” Robinson said. “And having seen him do all types of things like that, I mean, I was like, ‘Man.’

“I mean, that’s what I want to do.”

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After they left the set, Robinson inundated Daviss with questions. What was he thinking about? Where was he headed mentally? How long did it take to get there? How does he get back?

“He got to see that method of how you drop into something,” Daviss said. “There are many different ways to do it, and everybody has a different method of it.”

Daviss realized Robinson’s passion for acting. Robinson cared about process, not parts, and what Daviss used as motivation. Robinson wanted to ask the 10 questions after the obvious ones to get deeper answers.

Sometimes, Daviss told him, he knew exactly what he was going to do beforehand. Other times, it’s a reaction in the moment or worked out through multiple takes. Daviss equated it to Robinson practicing a cut or spin in football, not knowing how those skills would be deployed in a game.

Robinson understood. He had heard it in Chisholm’s class and conversations with McConaughey, who stressed being comfortable in front of the camera to create authenticity.

Robinson got home from his “Outer Banks” experience and looked in the mirror in the weeks and months after. He started thinking about the worst things that happened to him or could happen to him.

He envisioned how he would react if he saw his mother beat up in the street. Or if people he cared about were hurt. Robinson started sweating. Shaking.

“And then,” Robinson said, “like, just tears started coming out.

“And I was really happy in that moment.”

Robinson bawled. Taking himself to a place he didn’t know he could reach. He found the process draining, interesting and enlightening.

Robinson learned an important acting lesson. He could channel emotions. He could cry on command.

McCONAUGHEY COMPARES ACTING to football. Every scene is like a playcall. Can you navigate the issues which might come up? What if someone gets stuck?

“Great acting is when you have a plan, and you have obstacles giving you resistance,” McConaughey said. “And you have to figure out a way, either by fight, flight or by pulling out the lucky key to unlock that door to get through it to get where you’re going.

“That’s when you see life happen. That’s what happens in life. That’s what happens every day.”

Matthew McConaughey has been something of an acting coach and mentor to Bijan Robinson, who starred at Texas from 2020 to 2022. Aaron E. Martinez-USA TODAY NETWORK

One specific piece of advice from McConaughey resonated with Robinson. It has helped in acting, in interviews he gives in football and how he approaches different situations in life.

“How I’m doing things in real life, imagine a camera in front of you,” McConaughey said. “Can you do the exact same thing in real life, but with a camera in front of you. … I feel like we’re all actors in real life, but we just don’t have a camera on in life.

“If there was a camera in front of us and we are talking right now, can we talk the exact same way while somebody’s looking at us pointing a camera?”

McConaughey, hearing the advice stuck, explained why he shared it with Robinson.

“You got one take. Action was called the day we were born. Cut’s called the day we die and leave this life,” McConaughey said. “What are we doing in that one take? As men, as people, as a player, as a performer, that’s what you got.

“Yeah, in acting and in films, you and I here, we can get take two. May even be able to improve it in take two. But that’s like bonus round stuff. You don’t get that. You get some do-overs. You get forgiven. You screw up and you can make amends and a take two in life. But it’s still all part of the same first take.”

IT’S MID-APRIL AND a smiling Robinson is sitting inside the Falcons’ facility in Flowery Branch, Georgia. There are potential parts, he said, that he can’t discuss yet.

Two months earlier, he filmed a role — playing himself in an episode of the Disney Channel show “Bunk’d.” This was progress beyond commercials for his Bijan Mustardson condiment line.

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Two months later, Robinson was supposed to head to set for a role on “Outer Banks,” a role which had been conceived a year earlier when Robinson visited Daviss on set and met Pate, a diehard Falcons fan.

“First it was like, ‘Hey man, we’ll throw you in. We’ll shoot this,'” Pate said. “And I could tell he was gonna be good. And so as the scripts kept going, we started to consider writing to him. And so we did.

“And then we had to give it to someone else eventually. But basically like any good young actor, he was dealing himself in.”

Last year on set, Pate saw Robinson processing and learning. The combination of the writers’ strike last fall, football and the filming schedule turned a speaking role this season with clear lines into a lesser, non-speaking one.

If there’s a fifth season, Pate said, he has a plan for Robinson. He also continues to think of roles for Robinson and encourages him to audition in the offseason. Pate insists Robinson can learn from the audition process, too.

“I have my main thing here, and my love and joy is football,” Robinson said. “But I feel like it’s important for an athlete, or anybody, to have a Plan B in their life that they love to enjoy, too.

“And I feel like that would be a cool Plan B for me.”

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