“Bottoms” director Emma Seligman and Marreesha Sapp-Lynch reveal the personal story behind the former football player who stars in the film
It might seem strange, especially to those who only know Marshawn Lynch from his football career, to see the Super Bowl champion in a comedy about queer high school girls who start a fight club.
bottom (currently in theaters) features the 37-year-old former NFL star in a scene-stealing role as Mr. G, a clueless teacher who oversees an after-school feminist club started by PJs Rachel Sennott and Josie Ayo Edebiri. Even the film’s director and co-writer, Emma Seligman, admitted that she initially thought landing Lynch was a long shot.
“It was such a random movie for him that I was so shocked that he even considered it,” Baby Shiva the filmmaker (who goes with the pronouns she/they) says to PEOPLE.
But the real reason for this incredible lineup is more personal: Marshawn Lynch’s queer sister, Marreesha Sapp-Lynch, says he asked her if she should add bottom to a growing acting resume that includes Western world and Murderville.
“From the beginning, when he read the script, he said I was on his mind,” recalls Sapp-Lynch, 34. “I thought, ‘You should definitely do it.’ I just told him: ‘It will help you understand, gain more knowledge about the lesbian community’.
Ayo Edebiri learned real fighting skills for ‘bottom’: ‘I definitely know how to pack a punch’ (Exclusive)
Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri in “Bottoms”.
United Artists Releasing / Courtesy Everett Collection
Like the characters PJ and Josie, Sapp-Lynch has identified as a lesbian since high school. It was easy to open up to her mother, Delisa, she remembers — “She’ll still tell me to this day, ‘I always knew you liked girls!'” — but brothers David, Marshawn and Davonte had a less direct reaction.
“They were understanding, but they didn’t understand,” Sapp-Lynch tells PEOPLE. “Marshawn had a lot of questions and he thought it was his fault, ‘What did I do?’ Because he was always told growing up that I couldn’t have a boyfriend, ‘You can’t talk to boys.’ We’d go to a party and he’d ask everyone, ‘Did you dance with my sister?’ But I wasn’t attracted to boys, so I didn’t dance with them!”
Her brother has accepted and celebrated her sexuality since those teenage years, Sapp-Lynch says. Example: Marshawn helped plan her 2021 wedding and walked her down the aisle.
“I asked him to walk me down the aisle because our dad passed away,” Sapp-Lynch says with a smile. “He was crying the whole time,” she adds.
“He doesn’t cry — or I don’t see him crying. The fact that he cried and shed tears meant a lot to me.” (Marshawn was so invested in his sister’s wedding, in fact, he talked the couple into moving it from 2023 to 2021. “He was very involved in the whole planning… He called us at 5:00 in the morning talking about cake designs and gifts for parties.”)
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Marshawn Lynch.
Frazer Harrison/Getty
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But with bottom, a comedy produced by Amazon’s Orion Pictures and Elizabeth Banks’ Brownstone Productions, Marshawn had a bigger chance to pay tribute to his sister. Discussing the role of Mr. G with the football player, Seligman, 28, remembers thinking that there must have been “more to it than him wanting to be in a funny movie or something.”
“In his words, he said he wasn’t amazing when Marreesha got out of high school and he felt like this was the universe giving him a chance to right his wrongs,” she adds. “He gave the impression that he was actually most interested in that.”
During the filming in New Orleans, Seligman says, “he kept bringing up Marreesha.” In particular, when Sapp-Lynch and her wife visited the set, she recalls, “He kept saying, ‘That’s my sister.’ In a way that was like a proud parent [of queer kids] — proud brother.”
And when Orion Pictures president Alana Mayo suggested Marshawn for Mr. Ga, Seligman says, realized that it could broaden the moviegoing audience. bottom. “His belief in these girls and getting to know them and understanding them means a lot in the grand scheme of things within the crazy conservative town they’re in.”
In addition, the story’s homophobic characters are obsessed with the high school football team, Seligman points out. “To have an iconic football player like him playing this character who gets to know this part of town, and seeing them as real people with valid desires and hormones and feelings — it’s pretty cool that Marshawn represents that kind of straight, male character.”
Sapp-Lynch agrees and says I’m watching a movie full of gay characters like bottom while an outing in high school “would help me feel lighter, feel better about being who I am.”
“I didn’t understand my sexuality in high school, so I actually think it might have freaked me out,” Seligman admits. “That would excite me. Maybe that would trigger some things!”
Of co-writing the film with Sennott, she says, “I really just wanted to see my high school self in a silly comedy.” She recalls a quote from Edebiri: “Being stupid is a political act.”
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“Just having queer characters in something so silly that’s not serious feels subversive,” Seligman continues. “I don’t think we’re trying to prove anything political or have any deeper message or meaning from the film. Except ‘Gay people can be funny, sexy and horny, and that’s normal.’ Sometimes it’s enough just to normalize something.”
“Marshawn in the movie,” she adds, “besides being a wonderful actor and improviser and a lovely human being, it’s wild that so many more people would get to see him who otherwise wouldn’t.”
bottom it’s in theaters now.
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Source: HIS Education