Rising Actor
Charles Lott Jr.
Appearance In The Ben Affleck Film
‘The Way Back’
Starring alongside Ben Affleck, Charles Lott Jr. appeared in the film THE WAY BACK which debuted
in theaters March 6. The film is about an ex-basketball star’s struggle with his past alcoholism as he
coaches his alma mater’s basketball team. It is a classic in the making. The film allowed Lott to gain
wisdom both from his experience on the film and his relationship with Affleck. Check out our exclusive
interview with the up and coming actor who measures how hard he works based upon the recent Kevin
Hart docu-series on Netflix, and names Will Smith, Leonardo DiCaprio, Angela Bassett, and Denzel
Washington as other big name actors he would love to work with.
Y
You star with Ben Affleck in the
drama-sports film THE WAY
BACK. It premiered March 6th,
how did you find out you got the
role and what was it like working
with Ben?
So, this is crazy? My manager got
me the audition. I got a call late
one night, and it was so funny
because it was ironic that I was
watching the Accountant on TV,
and so he had called me and said,
“Hey, you have an audition,” and
I was like, Oh! And he said, “It’s
with Ben Affleck,” and I was like
OH! It all happened so fast it
didn’t even feel real.
Charles, whose character is
Chubbs, plays basketball in the
film. The actor says he was sent
the script and was scared be-
cause he never really played the
sport before. I played football.
34 | BSM MAGAZINE | APRIL 2020
I’ve always been athletic, but basketball was never really my
thing, so that night (getting the part), I got up and took my
basketball and went to the rec center and practiced, and I also
practiced the script. I woke up the next day of the audition,
which was on a Friday. When I went in, there was a dog in the
lobby. I got so distracted with the dog that when the casting
lady called me five times, I didn’t hear her. When I ran inside
the room, I forgot my script, and everything that was supposed
to go right, I thought went wrong. Luckily, the audition went
well, and they had called me back to audition again because
they wanted to see a clip of me doing basketball stuff, training
in front of coaches, but I ended up injured. I rolled my ankle
practicing because they had actual basketball players there. I
was in a wheelchair, and one of the casting ladies came up to
me and told me I could leave because I got hurt, and I was
rolled out because I couldn’t walk. I am literally on the verge
of crying because I was so close after having the directors call
back after my first audition went well. My thought: It’s so ri-
diculous, man life throws crazy things at you.
Charles shared he was stopped before he got to the car to
come back inside. The director, Gavin O’Connor, was there.
He walked up to me, and hugged me and said, I know you’re
injured, but we like your character so much, we will just have
to work around it and get you into rehab to work on your leg.