What you need to know
One of Coach Carter’s most memorable scenes was a blend of fiction and reality.
A pool party scene in the 2005 sports drama in which the Richmond High School Oilers basketball team celebrates winning a holiday tournament featured actors who were actually drinking on set, according to some of the film’s cast members.
In an interview on the Taboos Comics and Kicks podcast, Antwon Tanner recalled when the cast was seriously partying on set and admitted that the young actors got a little carried away, something that Samuel L. Jackson didn’t like.
“It was hilarious. It was a lot of fun,” he said, noting that many of the scenes weren’t supposed to happen this way, but that everyone was “drunk.”
Tanner, 50, revealed that he brought his own alcoholic concoction (which he calls “coochie juice”), a blend of Hennessy, Punotic and other alcohols, to the set, and that several cast members and extras all participated.
“We were walking around handing out little cups to the girls who were there,” he recalled. “Everyone was drunk, so nothing was happening as expected.”
But he wasn’t happy when Jackson, who Tanner noted was a “perfectionist,” showed up.
“So, Sam, when we got to the set, we had to go right away as planned, but we all passed out,” he said, laughing as he imitated their drunken behavior.
“He was like, ‘What the hell is going on?'” Tanner recalled, adding, “He was furious.”
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Tanner admitted that he, Rick Gonzalez, Rob Brown, and Robert Richard were “naughty kids.”
The One Tree Hill star said he even briefly fell asleep while filming the bus aftermath scene. “I was in a daze. I was done getting on the bus. I was actually asleep in one scene and woke up, my eyes were red and I was very drunk that night.”
Richard touched on the same scene when he appeared in Byron Scott’s FastBreak in 2024.
“The producers are still mad at all of us for that scene, because we didn’t fabricate anything in it,” he laughed.
“We were in a mansion somewhere, there was a yacht in the garage, we were drinking in the yacht, and Sam wasn’t there yet.”
He recalled that even though the actors were clearly instructed not to go into the pool, they still went in.
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“They specifically said, ‘Please don’t go into the pool. We don’t have a pool permit,'” he said. “So Channing[Tatum]and I took off all our clothes for the camera and jumped in…and we put all the girls in the pool and they were furious. And when Sam got there, they told us.”
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE at the 16th Annual African American Film Critics Awards in Los Angeles in February, Richard, 43, revealed that he has never seen any of the TV shows or movies he starred in.
“I haven’t seen anything I’ve done,” he admitted. “I’ve never seen Coach Carter, I’ve never seen Cousin Skeeter, I’ve never seen him one-on-one.”
Explaining why, he added, “I just do it for the love. Yeah, for people to say, ‘I’m watching your show. Popcorn, theater, chocolate, TV, turn off the lights.'” I really enjoy the fact that people enjoy my work. ”
