Dermot Mulroney was glad to be able to study archive footage for Shooting Stars

Dermot Mulroney was pleased that he was able to study archive footage for 'Shooting Stars'.

The 59-year-old star features in the cast of the sports film about the high school basketball career of NBA icon LeBron James as coach Keith Dambrot and made the most of the chance he had to watch videos of his character to bring him to life on screen.

Dermot told ComicBook.com: "It's rare that I played a character where there's good YouTube footage of him.

"I made a lot of use of a little deep dive on some of Dambrot's game and training sessions and stuff like that I was able to see. I did my best to try and bring some of his characteristic physicality to the role. I think you see bits of it in the film for sure."

The movie was filmed in LeBron's home state of Ohio and Dermot felt it added further authenticity to the project.

The 'My Best Friend's Wedding' star said: "Even the script itself had such a strong connection to the community that the story takes place in.

"The production insisted on shooting it in Akron and in around Cleveland, Ohio, so that brought another level of authenticity and connection to the original story because the people there were actually shooting in the high schools these games took place in.

"They remember this storyline like it was yesterday, of course. It was an incredible experience to add the human factor from the community into the making of this movie. There's no AI in those (arena) stands or anything. It became a communal event making this movie."