Photo Credit : Quantrell D.Colbert; Courtesy of Lionsgate(NEW YORK) — Kyrie Irving is turning the game of basketball on its head in the new underdog comedy Uncle Drew. Inspired by the famous 2012 Pepsi commercial, the Boston Celtics point guard dresses up as an elderly street baller and plays alongside NBA legends like Shaquille O’Neal, Reggie Miller, Chris Webber and Lisa Leslie.
The film — which centers on a Foot Locker employee named Dax, played by Lil Rel, who reunites Drew’s former team for a street ball tournament — pokes fun at the seriousness of the sport.
“It’s about time that people just laughed at some of the historical things that have happened [in basketball],” Irving tells ABC Radio. “Mistakes in our careers that have just been part of history. We’ve all been laughed at.”
He continues, “It’s good to kind of relapse on it…just address those things as a joking way.”
Miller, who plays the blind baller, Lights, agrees and adds life is about finding the humor in difficult situations — both on and off the court.
“You got to be able to laugh at yourself,” he says. “We’ve all had blunders in life… And at times you got to sit back and you’ve kind of got to enjoy that.”
Other stars like Webber add that the experience was simply “a lot of fun,” while Nick Kroll, who plays Dax’s rival, Mookie, says the film actually made him “emotional watching it.”
According to Erica Ash, who stars as Maya, the film also offers a much deeper message.
“The first thing is really to never give up,” she explains. “Because as we say in the movie, ‘You miss 100 percent of the shots that you don’t take.’ And then, the second theme is: family is what you create it to be.”
Uncle Drew is now in theaters.