A movie with meaning. In September 2000, Remember the Titans debuted in theaters and soon became a favorite. Not only was it led by an all-star cast, the story line was a powerful one.
The flick is based on a true story, following African American football coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) as he attempts to integrate a high school in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1971. Bill Yoast (Will Patton) is moved to assistant coach, as star players Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst) and Julius Campbell (Wood Harris) are put in place to run the team. In addition to being a great sports film, it also includes a strong underlying theme that together, no matter the color of one’s skin, more can be accomplished.
The film also kicked off many other stars’ careers, including Donald Faison, Ryan Gosling, Ethan Suplee and Kip Pardue, all whose characters played on the football team. Hayden Panettiere and Kate Bosworth also starred.
“You want to do movies that teach youth, society and people about how other people feel and the right way to treat each other,” the Scrubs alum told Us Weekly exclusively in 2017. “You want to do projects that have topics like that. It’s really challenging to hear people call you negative things regardless if they are acting or not — that’s very challenging to do. But you want to be a part of something that means something to people. I wouldn’t necessarily say it was challenging. It was a joy to be a part of something like that.”
In addition to the very powerful theme of the film, there was another part of the project that stood out to Faison: The training.
“The one thing that we didn’t know before starting the movie was that they threw all of the actors into a football camp. We had to go through it — each and every one of us,” he told Us at the time. “Some of us got injured really bad. We couldn’t understand why we were working so hard. We learned how to play football even though we had stunt doubles to do all this stuff. We got into fights, it was crazy! But we got out of it and we were a tight group. We hung out together. It made us very much like a team. We didn’t know each other before we started the camp. To go through all that brought us together and helped us out.”
Just like in the movie, the stars were up at sunrise and had six-hour practices.
“When you push a sled with a football team, it’s like 30 guys pushing a sled for maybe 10 yards. It was sometimes nine of us pushing a sled for 100 yards. They worked us ridiculous,” he shared. “It was weeks of that so first week we did that, the second week they brought in the stunt doubles and worked out with them and last week we kind of had off and the stunt doubles learned all the plays and stuff like that.”
Scroll through the gallery below to see where the cast is today.
A movie with meaning. In September 2000, Remember the Titans debuted in theaters and soon became a favorite. Not only was it led by an all-star cast, the story line was a powerful one.
The flick is based on a true story, following African American football coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) as he attempts to integrate a high school in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1971. Bill Yoast (Will Patton) is moved to assistant coach, as star players Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst) and Julius Campbell (Wood Harris) are put in place to run the team. In addition to being a great sports film, it also includes a strong underlying theme that together, no matter the color of one’s skin, more can be accomplished.
The film also kicked off many other stars’ careers, including Donald Faison, Ryan Gosling, Ethan Suplee and Kip Pardue, all whose characters played on the football team. Hayden Panettiere and Kate Bosworth also starred.
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“You want to do movies that teach youth, society and people about how other people feel and the right way to treat each other,” the Scrubs alum told Us Weekly exclusively in 2017. “You want to do projects that have topics like that. It’s really challenging to hear people call you negative things regardless if they are acting or not — that’s very challenging to do. But you want to be a part of something that means something to people. I wouldn’t necessarily say it was challenging. It was a joy to be a part of something like that.”
In addition to the very powerful theme of the film, there was another part of the project that stood out to Faison: The training.
“The one thing that we didn’t know before starting the movie was that they threw all of the actors into a football camp. We had to go through it — each and every one of us,” he told Us at the time. “Some of us got injured really bad. We couldn’t understand why we were working so hard. We learned how to play football even though we had stunt doubles to do all this stuff. We got into fights, it was crazy! But we got out of it and we were a tight group. We hung out together. It made us very much like a team. We didn’t know each other before we started the camp. To go through all that brought us together and helped us out.”
Just like in the movie, the stars were up at sunrise and had six-hour practices.
“When you push a sled with a football team, it’s like 30 guys pushing a sled for maybe 10 yards. It was sometimes nine of us pushing a sled for 100 yards. They worked us ridiculous,” he shared. “It was weeks of that so first week we did that, the second week they brought in the stunt doubles and worked out with them and last week we kind of had off and the stunt doubles learned all the plays and stuff like that.”
Scroll through the gallery below to see where the cast is today.
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Credit: Shutterstock
Denzel Washington
The actor has had quite a career since playing coach Herman Boone, starring in many critically acclaimed films including Training Day, American Gangster, Flight and Roman J. Israel, Esq. Additionally, he has directed four films, Antwone Fischer, The Great Debaters, Fences and A Journal for Jordan. Fences, which was released in 2017, received four Academy Award nominations (winning one), six Critics’ Choice nominations (winning one) and two Golden Globe nominations (winning one). In 2010, Washington took home a Tony Award for his role in the on-stage production of Fences, and in 2017, he received the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Globe Awards. Washington shares four children with wife Pauletta Pearson.
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Will Patton
Following his role as coach Bill Yoast, Patton continued acting, starring in The Mothman Prophecies, The Punisher, Brooklyn’s Finest and the 2018 Halloween reboot (and its sequels). He also appeared in many TV shows, landing recurring roles on Falling Skies, Shots Fired, Swamp Thing and Yellowstone.
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Wood Harris
Following his role of Julius Campbell, Harris starred in big-budget films including Ant-Man, the Creed franchise and Space Jam: A New Legacy. In 2002, he landed a recurring role on The Wire and in 2018, he joined Fox’s Empire. Four years later, Harris returned to his sports-themed roots and starred on the 2022 series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty. He married Rebekah Harris in 2001 and they share two children.
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Ryan Hurst
After portraying real athlete Gerry Bertier, Hurst landed many big roles in both film and TV. He starred in We Were Soldiers, Taken and The Ladykillers before landing a leading role in Sons of Anarchy in 2008. After starring in 54 episodes, he went on to appear in King & Maxwell, Bates Motel, Outsiders and in 2019, joined The Walking Dead. He’s continued to score TV role after TV role including Paradise City and The Mysterious Benedict Society. In 2005, Hurst married Molly Cookson, with whom he later founded the Fast Shoes production company.
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Ryan Gosling
After playing Alan in Remember the Titans — his second movie role ever — Gosling went on to become a giant star, appearing in dozens of movies, including The Notebook, Blue Valentine, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Drive, The Big Short and La La Land. After portraying Neil Armstrong in 2018’s First Man and starring opposite Chris Evans in the 2022 action flick The Gray Man, the Mickey Mouse Club alum will play Ken to Margot Robbie‘s Barbie in the 2023’s Barbie. He has been nominated for two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards (winning one) and four Screen Actor Guild Awards. In 2009, he and his band, Dead Man’s Bones, released their first album. Despite keeping his personal life very private, Gosling dated Sandra Bullock from 2002 to 2003 and Rachel McAdams on and off from 2005 to 2008. In 2011, he began dating Eva Mendes, and the pair share two children.
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Donald Faison
One year after starring as Petey Jones, Faison landed a main role in Scrubs, which aired from 2001 to 2010. He later appeared in The Exes, Uptown Girls, Something New and Emergence. The Clueless star has cohosted the Scrubs rewatch podcast “Fake Doctors, Real Friends” with former costar Zach Braff since 2020. As for his personal life, Faison welcomed his first son with ex-girlfriend Audrey Ince, in 1995. He was married to Lisa Askey from 2001 to 2005 and the pair share three children. In 2012, he married CaCee Cobb. The duo share a son and a daughter.
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Ethan Suplee
After playing Louie in the football flick, Suplee — who is also known for his turn as school bully Frankie on Boy Meets World — landed many prominent roles. He was part of the main cast of My Name is Earl, Jennifer Falls, The Ranch and Chance. He also starred in many films, including John Q, Cold Mountain, The Butterfly Effect, The Wolf of Wall Street and Motherless Brooklyn. He also went through a massive transformation, showing off his tremendous weight loss and sharing his workout regimen via Instagram in 2020. He shares four children with wife Brandy Lewis.
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Hayden Panettiere
Despite only being 11 at the time of the film, Panettiere was already a star with a recurring role on Guiding Light when she landed Remember the Titans. She went on to appear in multiple TV shows and movies, including Malcolm in the Middle, Raising Helen and Bring It On: All or Nothing. In 2006, she landed a main role in Heroes, which aired until 2010. Her next main role was on Nashville, which aired from 2012 to 2018. Panettiere has been romantically linked to Stephen Colletti and Milo Ventimiglia. She dated Wladimir Klitschko from 2009 to 2018, and the pair share one daughter. She went on to date Brian Hickerson in 2018, but the duo split in 2020 after multiple alleged incidents of assaults. While the pair have been spotted together on multiple occasions in 2021 and 2022, Hickerson told reporters in July 2022 that the two are just “friends” and are “absolutely not” back together.
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Kate Bosworth
The model broke out following her role as Emma in Remember in the Titans. She starred in many hits, including Blue Crush, The Rules of Attraction, Superman Returns and Force of Nature. In 2013, she married director Michael Polish and the pair funded Nona, a 2018 film examining human trafficking. She announced her separation from Polish in August 2021. In January 2022, Us Weekly confirmed that Bosworth had been dating House of Darkness costar Justin Long “for a few months” after becoming friends in 2021 while filming the thriller.
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Kip Pardue
In addition to modeling, Pardue starred in multiple films and TV shows after playing Ronnie “Sunshine” Bass. He appeared in Driven, The Rules of Attraction, Thirteen, Phantom, ER, Mad Men, Ray Donovan, Runaways and Once Upon a Time. In 2019, SAG-AFTRA found the actor guilty of sexual harassment following a complaint by Sarah Scott. He denied the allegations.
Credit: Shutterstock/Courtesy of Burgess Jenkins/Instagram
Burgess Jenkins
After portraying Ray Budds, Jenkins starred in many films and TV shows including One Tree Hill, Marry Me, Nashville and later, 112 episodes of The Young and the Restless. He is married to Ashlee Payne.
Credit: Photo by Tracy Bennett/Walt Disney/Bruckheimer/Kobal/Shutterstock
Craig Kirkwood
Kirkwood continued to act after portraying Rev, appearing in Cats and Mice, Rain, Calendar Girls and Hounded, among other projects. In 2008, he graduated from law school and is now a criminal defense attorney. In 2005, he married Katie Kimberling.
