Writer/director/producer Davis Guggenheim believes the message of the inspirational drama Gracie - based on events in the lives of Elisabeth, Andrew, and the rest of the Shue family - is an important one. The ‘you can do anything if you try’ spirit that runs through the Shue siblings runs also through the film. “The fact that girls still, today, feel like they're a little bit less, that the playing field's a little tilted against them...and to inspire them that they can do anything, that would be a great thing," said Guggenheim.

"And to inspire anybody who feels like life is a little rough, that they can do anything. Because if the Shues can do it, anyone can.”

Finding the Right Gracie: Carly Schroeder was selected over 2,000 other young actresses to fill the role of the talented soccer player, Gracie. “We knew that the movie would succeed or fail depending on who that actress was, because if you didn't believe her, the movie wouldn't work. And Andrew thought that we had to find a soccer player who we taught how to act. I thought we had to find an actor who we taught how to play soccer. And we fought about it. We had a thousand conversations about it - and we were both wrong.

What really happened, as I learned...You think you're choosing, but you don't choose. When we finally realized that she was it, you realize that the thing we were looking for was her spirit. You know, she has this fight in her eyes, and this toughness that you can't fake. You know, that my wife has. If you have that... In the absence of spirit, you can't create it.

You can't pretend that someone's that way. And you either have it or you don't. You can't manufacture it. And she had it.”

Not only did she have that special spirit, Carly Schroeder was also one tough cookie. “People had to remind me to be more careful, because I get very excited, and she's so tough and wants to please,” confessed Guggenheim. “And she got knocked down. There was one time I thought we broke her ankle. And another time, I thought that she had been knocked out. She is so tough. We were joking around at the airport yesterday, and she punched me really hard. I punched her really hard back and I realized that I had hurt her. (Laughing) And she punched me even harder. She's an equal. And she's tough, you know? She's a fighter. But I realized that we really could have really hurt her.

There are a couple scary moments because I wanted to attack this feeling that I think audiences have, which is, ‘A girl can't do that,’ you know? ‘Oh, that'd never happen.’ So I wanted to show how physical it was, and to show her get knocked down, and her having to get up so that you didn't feel like, ‘Oh, that was just too easy.’ I put the harsh physicality in it on purpose.”

The State of New Jersey Deserves Some Credit: “I think this is the little movie that could, and there was like a hundreds reasons why it could have fallen apart at any given time,” said Guggenheim. “You know that thing that Johnny says to Gracie? You know, ‘You can do anything?’ That's not just some fabricated Hollywood line. That's the Shue family. That's what these guys told each other. You look at Elisabeth and Andrew and John, their brother, and Will, who died, they were all these spectacular spirits. They were extraordinary kids because they all just believed they could do anything. So it took Andrew's passion and the State of New Jersey. It fell apart a hundred times. It was almost made last year. And it took all those things to make it happen. It defied all the odds. It's sort of a miracle the movie got made.”

Putting Together a Soundtrack: Guggenheim explained how Bruce Springsteen got involved with the film. “Well, the '70s are such a great time for music, and it was for all of us, because we all grew up then. And you can't think of music in New Jersey without thinking of Bruce Springsteen but we never thought we'd get it. When I was driving to the New Jersey shore to shoot the beach stuff, I woke up at five in the morning, and I bought, the night before, his album Greetings from Asbury Park to get me in the mood. It's dark, the sun was rising, and I was listening to Growin' Up. I was like, ‘This is our movie.’

The song that's in the movie, Bruce Springsteen, Growin' Up, I put it in the rough cut - my cut. I almost took it out because I thought we would never get it. That he would never give us permission, because he's famous for not giving songs. And Andrew [Shue] really sort of fought to get it. I actually think that if we had offered him a proper amount of money, he would have said no. That he gave it to us because he loved this movie, and he loves New Jersey, and thought we were the little guy.”

Shooting the Action Sequences: Guggenheim’s no stranger to action scenes having directed episodes of 24 and The Unit, but he admits shooting the soccer scenes was a little tricky. “The hard part was soccer and Andrew wanted to make a movie because he felt like soccer's never been...a good soccer film has never been made, he thought. The reason why is soccer's really hard to shoot. I realized the reason why is that it's continuous. First of all, the first answer is that football and baseball, there's a lot of scoring. The audience can know when a guy hits it or when he gets struck out. You know when a guy catches a touchdown or doesn't. But the beauty of soccer is in its nuance, and that there are few goals. But it's hard to shoot.

The other part about it is soccer doesn't stop. So when you're shooting a football game, the play ends, you can cut to the character thinking about what just happened. ‘Oh, f**k, I just got hit in the head. Coach is going to pull me out,’ and ‘What am I going to do now?’ Or, you know, baseball, like, ‘I've got to throw a strike or else we're going to lose the championship.’ So you can have those moments where you stop and describe what's in a character's head. And soccer, you can't do that. They're always moving, they're always running. It never stops. So that's why we put these artificial stops in there. That's why we do the free kick. They stop, you put the ball down. So that was really tough. Soccer's tough.”