Andy Roddick makes his acting debut playing a version of himself in the new pickleball sports comedy “The Dink.”
The film’s star Jake Johnson and the tennis champion had appeared on each other’s podcasts prior to making the movie.
“He’s always funny, but he’s on another level in this movie,” Johnson told me at “The Dink” premiere on Monday. “We almost cast like a comedic actor to pretend to be an athlete, and we gambled and cast Andy and he crushes it.”
It was producer Ben Stiller’s idea to offer the role to Roddick.
“[Roddick’s] whole thing is he was very self-deprecating and he’s like, ‘I promise you I’m not the guy,’” Johnson said. “We were like, ‘You’re the guy. You’re the guy.’”
He certainly was. “I think if you can compete at the level he competed in with sports, you can deal with a little bit of pressure and say some lines,” Johnson said. “He was open. He was funny. He was collaborative.”
Johnson leads “The Dink” as a former tennis pro trying to gain his father’s respect by joining a pickleball club. The film, directed by Josh Greenbaum, also features Ed Harris, Chloe Fineman, Mary Steenburgen, Aaron Chen and Clio King.
Greenbaum said of Roddick, “I had a Zoom with him and I was like, I think this guy can pull the role off…Any actor will tell you even if you’re playing a version of yourself, you still gotta act and he did an amazing job.”
“The Dink” is available to stream on Apple TV.
