How Uncut Gems almost became a Kobe-Bryant-centered film before taking a different turn?

When Uncut Gems was released in 2019, it quickly became known for its fast pace, tension, and a strong basketball connection. Even if not based on a true story, Kevin Garnett’s appearance as himself added a real feel to the movie, especially for the NBA fans. But only a few people know that the film nearly went in a completely different direction before being released.

Before Adam Sandler was chosen as Howard Ratner and before Kevin Garnett was cast in the film, the Safdie Brothers, the creators of the movie, spent years reshaping the story. They explored many versions of the film, especially the ones built around real NBA players. One of the biggest names that they seriously considered was Kobe Bryant, the late Los Angeles Lakers legend.

Inside early Uncut Gems script that nearly featured the late Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant

In the initial stages, the Safdie Brothers wanted a real basketball star to play a key role as a part of the story. So at different times, players like Amar’e Stoudemire and Joel Embiid were part of the plan that they were coming up with. These ideas changed as the script started to evolve and as real-life commitments made filming difficult.

Around 2015, the film's casting crew began thinking even bigger and outside the box, and they came up with Kobe Bryant. The Safdie Brothers liked the idea and started rewriting the story to match Bryant’s career, who was an active player at that point in time, playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. They started shaping scenes around his most popular games, including one big night at Madison Square Garden, where Bryant scored 60 points. But there was an issue. The movie needed East Coast games to work with the story and timeline. Kobe was closely linked to the West Coast and the Lakers, which made things harder. The Safdie Brothers soon realized that writing the film around real NBA games and players was more complicated than they had expected.

Why Kobe Bryant walked away from Uncut Gems?

Even after spending weeks rewriting the script around Kobe Bryant, the plan suddenly ended. And the reason was quite simple, Kobe Bryant no longer wanted to act. After retiring from basketball after the 2015-2016 NBA season, Bryant had already moved on to pursuing other goals and interests. Kobe Bryant was focused on storytelling, but in a different way. Instead of acting in films, he wanted to create and direct his own projects. His agents made it very clear that acting was no longer something he was interested in. So, the Safdie Brothers stopped pursuing him for the role. By that time, Kobe Bryant had already started the Granity Studios and was working on his own creative projects. In 2018, Bryant won an Academy Award for Dear Basketball, a 2017 six-minute short film based on the farewell letter that he wrote, announcing to the world his retirement from professional basketball. Thus, his attention was fully on filmmaking, working behind the scenes, and not appearing for the camera.

After Kobe Bryant dropped out of the film, the Safdie Brothers kept searching. They needed someone intense, believable, someone who was able to match the energy of the movie. Eventually, they turned to Kevin Garnett, the former NBA star. Garnett’s personality fit the film naturally. He had a sense of passion and aggression, which made him believable in every scene of the film. Even though the Safdie Brothers were Knicks fans and Garnett had a rivalry with them for years, they felt he brought something special to the role. So in the end, Uncut Gems found exactly what it needed in Kevin Garnett. While Kobe Bryant was once close to being part of the film, Garnett’s performance helped the movie to become one of the most talked-about sports dramas of all time.



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