To finish The Last Dance, ESPN’s epic, 10-part event series on Michael Jordan and the ’90s Chicago Bulls, director Jason Hehir has had to work down to the final buzzer.
“Everything is being expedited. Normally, you turn in a rough cut and wait a week to get the partners’ notes back. Now, we have one day,” Hehir told Vanity Fair on Tuesday afternoon, shortly before attending a video-conference meeting with stakeholders to get their feedback on a cut of the show’s 10th and final episode. “It helps that everyone’s confined to their home, but everyone understands the urgency of getting this thing across the finish line.”
Originally scheduled to premiere in June to coincide with the NBA Finals, The Last Dance will now debut Sunday, April 19. It was pushed forward after the coronavirus pandemic shut down sports leagues around the county—and left ESPN without any of its signature live programming. “We’ve heard the calls from fans asking us to move up the release date for this series, and we’re happy to announce that we’ve been able to accelerate the production schedule to do just that,” the network said in a statement last month, days after even Jordan’s closet rival for the title of “greatest of all time,” Lebron James, urged ESPN to change the date. “This project celebrates one of the greatest players and dynasties ever, and we hope it can serve as a unifying entertainment experience to fill the role that sports often play in our lives, telling a story that will captivate everyone, not just sports fans.”
But it’s sports fans who will find The Last Dance especially riveting. Unlike ESPN’s previous groundbreaking, multipart-event docuseries, OJ: Made in America—which tackled not just O.J. Simpson and the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, but also the racial history of Los Angeles—Hehir’s series focuses primarily on the court. That’s to its benefit: The Last Dance combines previously unseen footage captured by NBA Entertainment during the 1997-98 season, the last of six titles won by the Bulls in the ’90s, with dozens of new interviews with players, coaches, and public figures (including Barack Obama and Bill Clinton), plus three separate conversations with Jordan himself.
It’s those present-day Jordan interviews, conducted by Hehir, which are the main event. Hehir spent eight hours with the five-time MVP and built each episode around answers he hoped Jordan would provide.
“My challenge was that he has been asked every possible question in every way possible over the course of the last two decades,” Hehir said when asked how he handled one-on-ones with the notoriously competitive Jordan, who, in the documentary, is even shown pitching pennies with arena security guards during downtime. (Jordan’s well-documented history of gambling is addressed often in the series as well.) “So what am I going to do to keep him engaged and stimulated over the course of these long interviews?”
One technique Hehir deployed was showing Jordan footage of other interviews he had conducted for The Last Dance, before allowing Jordan to respond to them in real time. It’s a trick that provides The Last Dance with some of its funniest moments—like when Jordan verbally dunks on former Detroit Pistons star Isaiah Thomas, or laughs derisively at remarks made by Seattle Supersonics guard Gary Payton.
“I expected him to defer to a poker face. And to maybe say, off-camera, ‘Hey, you know, I wanted to laugh out loud when I saw Gary Payton saying that,’” Hehir said. “But for him to be so candid and so unguarded and so honest in those moments—I mean, if you listen in the mix, you can hear the camera crew laughing, because part of it is just the humor of watching him respond the way he responds. And part of it is the pure joy of seeing that this is going to be documentary gold.”
The Last Dance has been in development for years. ESPN first announced the project, a coproduction with Netflix—which has the international streaming right—in May 2018. But it is premiering in a world that has radically changed over a matter of weeks. The global health crisis caused by the spread of COVID-19 has fundamentally altered how society functions, with mass gatherings, like sporting events, halted indefinitely. And even if sports leagues do resume play in 2020, it’s doubtful fans will be allowed to attend the games.
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For ‘The Last Dance,’ Jason Hehir Went One-on-One With Michael Jordan - Vanity Fair
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