The Under Review - Issue 4 | Summer 2021

HORSTMAN 51
It truly is, more than anything, a love letter
to Bubba Smith and to his father Willie
Ray Smith, who were really instrumental in
my dad getting to Michigan State. And of
course to all the pioneers whose stories
people in your and my generation really
don’t know because it happened before we
were born. I’m just really passionate about
documenting that history and offering a
space for these very incredible men to tell
their stories.
TH: I have friends’ dads’, whose favorite player was your dad. I’m just wondering without having the
knowledge that he was this football star as a kid, were there ever interruptions when you were out in
public of strangers coming up to your dad to talk to him, or get pictures, or autographs, or interact with
him when you were just trying to have family time.
MW: Yeah I think my earliest memory of that happening, we were all out for a family dinner. I was really
young so I don’t really remember the context, but I remember someone coming up to the table and asking
my dad for an autograph. Really having no context for that, I think I was more excited about whatever
restaurant we were at having frog legs. Someone ordered them and let me taste them and I just thought
that was the wildest ever. To this day I don’t think I’ve had frog legs ever again. I think it’s funny that that
memory coincides with that experience with my dad.
It was kind of weird because at the time I was coming up, it was more like people’s parents. My siblings
were around (for his playing days), so their Gen X friends have those memories. There were a lot of
situations where people were very nice to us. People were always saying hello and I just thought it was
that my dad was a really friendly person and not because they
recognized him, or thought it was pretty cool to meet him. It is
really interesting I guess. It’s an interesting and weird experience.
TH: This documentary is also going to be released as your memoir
later this year from Little A Books. I think what’s cool about this is
you do often see books come out, getting optioned for film, and
then being adapted into film. Maybe it’s more common than I’m
thinking it is, but I feel like I don’t often see a film go the other
route from a film to a book. Did you always know you also wanted
to write the book version of this film? And what has that process
of bringing it to the world in an alternate form been like?
MW: When I started my filmmaking career, I started as an actress
and a dancer and started making films in 2011. My first film is a
narrative short film called White Space. It’s about a deaf
ISSUE 4 | SUMMER 2021