Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the sitdown. I'm Viv Christie, managing
Speaker 1: editor for Australian Tennis magazine.
Speaker 2: And I'm Metrolope, a writer and editor for ozopen dot com.
Speaker 2: And Viv, why are we sitting down this week with
Speaker 2: Zach Heinzelin.
Speaker 1: Well, Matt, Zach is the manner of the hour really
Speaker 1: in the documentary space. He is the director of Raffa,
Speaker 1: the documentary that was released on Netflix during Roland Garros.
Speaker 1: And in this fascinating documentary, he takes us really behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, showing us Raffa the person as well as
Speaker 1: Raffa the player, which he talks to a lot of
Speaker 1: people that we've never heard from before in Rafa's life,
Speaker 1: his family, his team members, he's inner circle really and yeah,
Speaker 1: it gives you a perspective that you probably have never
Speaker 1: really appreciated on Raffa's career before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's including us. I mean we watched this obviously,
Speaker 2: and we've both worked in the tennis space for a
Speaker 2: long time, covered the majority of Raffa's career and I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was something that struck us about this documentary about
Speaker 2: how much we didn't know it was going on behind
Speaker 2: the scenes, and we knew of the challenges, but we
Speaker 2: didn't maybe know the extent of what they were. And yeah,
Speaker 2: the various hurdles he had to overcome and what he
Speaker 2: was playing through in a twenty plus year career. So
Speaker 2: it was really fascinating to dig into that with Zach
Speaker 2: and find out what made the cut and what was
Speaker 2: left out in this incredible dot Ok. Zach Heinzelin, thank
Speaker 2: you very much for joining us today on the sit
Speaker 2: Down Podcasts. Great to have you.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Where in the world do we find you now? We
Speaker 2: were talking off camera, but for our viewers some context
Speaker 2: is always good. Where are we at the moment?
Speaker 3: Right now, I'm in Martha's Vineyard where I'm here for
Speaker 3: a few weeks with my family on the holiday.
Speaker 2: Very fantastic. That's a lovely part of the world from
Speaker 2: what we hear. And the reason you're joining us today
Speaker 2: is because you are the director of The Raffa Dooco,
Speaker 2: which came out on Netflix just under six weeks ago.
Speaker 2: I think now we've both watched it, but we really
Speaker 2: wanted to pick your brain about that, and first of all,
Speaker 2: we wondered, like, what's the reception being or the feedback
Speaker 2: being for you. Since it's been out in the world.
Speaker 3: It's been good. I think, you know, it's hard to
Speaker 3: know exactly, you know, Netflix doesn't share you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of the numbers, but in general, they seem very happy.
Speaker 3: I'm super proud of it. The response from you know,
Speaker 3: the documentary community and peers has been very positive, and critics,
Speaker 3: you know, seem to highlight the things that I was
Speaker 3: you know, most focused on and proudest of. So those
Speaker 3: are all, yeah, positive indicators. So yeah, I think everyone
Speaker 3: feels really good about it.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic that. I'm sure that must be a bit
Speaker 2: of a nerve wracking experience, but it sounds like it's
Speaker 2: been mostly positive in that in the weeks since it's
Speaker 2: been on Netflix. We would love to know how the
Speaker 2: documentary was seed like who approached to who had the
Speaker 2: idea for it, how did it all kind of come together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So David Ellison, who runs sky Dance, he and
Speaker 3: his dad owned the Indian Wells Tournament and Rafa would
Speaker 3: go there every year and there became friendly and I
Speaker 3: know David had asked Rafa many times in the past
Speaker 3: and Raffa had always said no, you know, he's a
Speaker 3: very private person. You know, he's never done a documentary,
Speaker 3: his family's never been on camera. He's not really interested
Speaker 3: in that you know kind of presentation of his life
Speaker 3: and and sort of media spectacle that it entails. But
Speaker 3: since it was his last it was going to be
Speaker 3: probably his last season and David, he started trusted his
Speaker 3: team and David in uh, deciding that it was going
Speaker 3: to be you know, now or never, and kind of
Speaker 3: went into it, you know, knowing that it probably would
Speaker 3: be uncomfortable for him, seeing as he is quite private
Speaker 3: and uncomfortable for you know, his close ones. But went
Speaker 3: into it knowing, you know, knowing that and and really
Speaker 3: you know, opened up in a way that that was
Speaker 3: pretty surprising.
Speaker 1: Definitely, Yeah, Zach, congratulations, It's it's just such a fabulous watch.
Speaker 1: I honestly couldn't stop watching pot me up late at night.
Speaker 1: But the narrative, you know, obviously focused on his last
Speaker 1: year on tour, but I guess also what it takes
Speaker 1: to become such a great of the tennis world. Was
Speaker 1: that the angle that you had in mind when you set.
Speaker 3: Out, We have an angle in mind. You know, I
Speaker 3: didn't know that much about Rafa. You know, I I
Speaker 3: think like a lot of American even tennis fans, you know,
Speaker 3: he's always been sort of an enigma. You know, he
Speaker 3: has not been this sort of household name. You know,
Speaker 3: he doesn't you know, speak English that well. He's never
Speaker 3: really been someone who's wanted to be a global celebrity.
Speaker 3: So I think as a result, and in the US,
Speaker 3: you know, tennis is you know, it's a it's a
Speaker 3: big sport, but you know, it's not among you know,
Speaker 3: it's not like football or basketball, baseball. So I think
Speaker 3: his popularity in the United States was you know, not
Speaker 3: as big as you might think. And for me, you know,
Speaker 3: I didn't really know much about him. I didn't know
Speaker 3: you know, everyone says though he's you know, he gives
Speaker 3: one hundred percent, he goes after every ball. You've heard
Speaker 3: about the sort of warrior mentality, and his uncle Tony
Speaker 3: and this kind of you know, disciplinarian, very intense. He's
Speaker 3: always just seems very intense and serious about everything and
Speaker 3: and guarded. So there wasn't necessilly an angle in mind.
Speaker 3: I think my my first thought was, you know, well,
Speaker 3: what what is there? What more is there? And I
Speaker 3: quickly found that you get a lot more from watching
Speaker 3: Rafa in his day to day and with his family
Speaker 3: and team than you would in any interview. You know
Speaker 3: that he might give because he shows you know himself
Speaker 3: through his actions, I think, and his actions are usually
Speaker 3: louder than words. It's it's sort of how you know,
Speaker 3: how he respects the game, how he plays, how he
Speaker 3: treats others. You know, his it's kind of way of
Speaker 3: being I think is very unique for a celebrity athlete
Speaker 3: of his caliber. And I sort of knew that if
Speaker 3: I could, you know, be around him in moments of
Speaker 3: you know, an intense emotional turmoil, which would be inevitable
Speaker 3: because of this being his last season and him having
Speaker 3: to decide when to retire, you know that that could
Speaker 3: be a way, in a way inside, a way to
Speaker 3: see you know, a deeper, truer version of himself. So
Speaker 3: as far as the story, we really didn't know. You know,
Speaker 3: we thought it would be his last season. We were
Speaker 3: expecting it to be some you know, or we hoped
Speaker 3: it would be some heroic you know, walk off home run. Well,
Speaker 3: I guess that's not a good analogy in Australia, you know,
Speaker 3: that sort of heroic where he you know wins ex
Speaker 3: Tournament wins is fifteenth Rolngeros and and retires. But soon
Speaker 3: after we started shooting, he was injured in Australia and
Speaker 3: dropped out of the Australian Open. And from there we
Speaker 3: really didn't know what the story was going to be
Speaker 3: or if, you know, if he was going to continue
Speaker 3: with the documentary or with the season. There were a
Speaker 3: lot of unknowns at that point. But then you know,
Speaker 3: things shifted and the story actually became much more about
Speaker 3: why can't he stop playing? Not so much when is
Speaker 3: he going to play intel or when will he you know, decide,
Speaker 3: But he kept, you know, continuing on and soldiering on,
Speaker 3: even though it seemed like even amongst his team there
Speaker 3: was a lot of doubts whether his body, you know,
Speaker 3: could sustain another season. And that became the question why
Speaker 3: what is it about him that makes him incapable of
Speaker 3: stopping at the end of a career, because that is
Speaker 3: actually all of the same, you know, reasons why you know,
Speaker 3: he was the great player that he was. So that
Speaker 3: became the way that we sort of blended the present
Speaker 3: and the past through that question up, well, what makes
Speaker 3: him keep going? You know, why can't he stop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was so compelling. That's kind of
Speaker 1: that that narrative of why didn't he stop?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I found Yeah, and also that I think you
Speaker 2: also said about going back into his past. We was.
Speaker 2: I think one of the big takeaways from this documentary
Speaker 2: is how much file footage you had access to and
Speaker 2: vision of him of when he was a little kidd
Speaker 2: with his family. Did you guys know in the team
Speaker 2: that you would have access to this incredible archive or
Speaker 2: did that kind of go oh, we do have this,
Speaker 2: So that actually gives us another storytelling in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I credit the archival producer Knnie Honeycut. It's you know,
Speaker 3: really diving into the Spanish television broadcast archive. Rafa himself
Speaker 3: didn't really have any archive, you know, his family there
Speaker 3: there were a few home videos that we found, but
Speaker 3: they were not meticulous about, you know, documenting his career
Speaker 3: by any means. I think the fact that he was
Speaker 3: gifted at a young age and played in tournaments you know,
Speaker 3: and was in the sort of the Spanish Championships, et cetera.
Speaker 3: You know, from age eight on, there was more footage
Speaker 3: of him young than you know other players. Rafa you know,
Speaker 3: is kind of known for how quickly he became, you
Speaker 3: know how he was on the tour at age sixteen
Speaker 3: and playing guys much much older. So a lot of
Speaker 3: footage existed, but you know, it's it takes a lot
Speaker 3: of time to go throw that footage and sort of
Speaker 3: find the moments that feel you know, one of the
Speaker 3: moments I love most from the archive is he's asked
Speaker 3: at I think he's like eight years old, he's just
Speaker 3: won this championship, and he's asked, you know, how do
Speaker 3: you feel you've just won, you know, this championship and
Speaker 3: a young Raphis says, well, you know, just because you
Speaker 3: won this championship doesn't mean you're going to be good.
Speaker 3: You still have to you know, keep training, and and
Speaker 3: for an eight year old to say that, you know,
Speaker 3: you knew that there was something in his mind that
Speaker 3: was saying the voice of his uncle, which we sort
Speaker 3: of later discovered. But but something about that response, you know,
Speaker 3: almost felt like premeditated or or you know, that it
Speaker 3: was coming from somewhere else, and that kind of mentality,
Speaker 3: you know, he had to sort of never you know,
Speaker 3: sort of you know, revel in your accomplishments and but
Speaker 3: always be looking for what's next, how do I how
Speaker 3: do I get better? You know, never being overconfident, you know,
Speaker 3: really is part and partial with with his style of
Speaker 3: play and and and you know his spirit. His career
Speaker 3: of course.
Speaker 1: You know, it spanned over twenty years, more records than
Speaker 1: we can probably even count or remember. How how did
Speaker 1: you decide what to leave out?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question there. It's funny because Rapa
Speaker 3: wanted a fifth episode after seeing the four episodes. He
Speaker 3: was like, well, you know, there are all these other
Speaker 3: matches that you know are important to my career. And
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, he played over twenty years. There's there's
Speaker 3: countless great matches, you know. I My feeling was that
Speaker 3: there almost was too much tennis in the in the project,
Speaker 3: you know, and we really wanted this to be a
Speaker 3: global audience and and not necessarily only tennis fans, you know,
Speaker 3: so it became much more about the person. And you know,
Speaker 3: there are the iconic matches, you know, his first, his
Speaker 3: first Grand Slam, the Wimbledon's against Roger feder the Australian
Speaker 3: Open against Djokovic, but then later in his career there
Speaker 3: are certain you know, like the twenty twenty two Australian
Speaker 3: Open match was you know, one of the greatest comebacks
Speaker 3: of his career and a hugely important match to sort
Speaker 3: of understand at age, you know, I think he was
Speaker 3: maybe thirty five, thirty six, you know that he still
Speaker 3: had at playing against Medevedev, who was much younger, when
Speaker 3: the question of his longevity had always been top of mind.
Speaker 3: With Rafa, you know, I think with Novak we maybe
Speaker 3: expected his career to be a bit longer. I think everyone,
Speaker 3: Rafa included, thought that his career would end, you know,
Speaker 3: much earlier, as is true of most you know, tennis
Speaker 3: players you know, usually retire in their early thirties. Anyway,
Speaker 3: there were matches that, you know, for whatever reason, mostly
Speaker 3: because of the structure that we chose, of the episodes
Speaker 3: you know, just didn't didn't make the cut. But you know,
Speaker 3: for me, I prefer living in fewer matches longer and
Speaker 3: understanding what's at stake, what's really going on in this match,
Speaker 3: How do we use the match to analyze the you know,
Speaker 3: the sort of mental strategy of what's the difference between Novak,
Speaker 3: who's super confident in Rafa who almost uses this this
Speaker 3: kind of humility or lack of confidence as a motivation,
Speaker 3: you know, and then with better or how do we
Speaker 3: see his game on grass and see how we can
Speaker 3: analyze Rafa's differences and gain a better understanding of him
Speaker 3: more so that you know, when you won twenty two
Speaker 3: Grand Slams, there's gonna be a lot of you know,
Speaker 3: trophy raises. But it's just I'm less interested, you know,
Speaker 3: I think another filmmaker probably would have made something different.
Speaker 3: You know, I read it's funny when you talked about
Speaker 3: how it's kind of nerve nerve or I'm not sure
Speaker 3: how you used it, but when you release it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll ye. How you respond to the reception.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And I tend to sort of focus on
Speaker 3: any negative reaction more than a positive one. And the
Speaker 3: positive ones are nice. But then I like to see
Speaker 3: what people are saying, maybe maybe criticisms. And I found
Speaker 3: if there was one, it was that, you know, that
Speaker 3: there was so much about his struggles with his body,
Speaker 3: you know, and at times was hard to watch because
Speaker 3: of it, and for someone who did win so much,
Speaker 3: you know, expecting more of a sort of celebratory feel,
Speaker 3: and you know, I think again, you know, I think
Speaker 3: it's just my interests were more in that struggle, more
Speaker 3: in the messiness, more in what makes you know this
Speaker 3: guy human? You know, I think you know, we all
Speaker 3: know he was a great tennis player. We all you know,
Speaker 3: we could endlessly talk about probably like or breakdown matches
Speaker 3: more strategically and show highlights. But for me, the idea
Speaker 3: that at such a young age he had this foot
Speaker 3: disease was sort of the key you know, reveal of
Speaker 3: information for the whole series and for me, as someone
Speaker 3: who didn't really know that that existed, that the fact
Speaker 3: that he played on you know, a malformed, deteriorating left
Speaker 3: foot for his entire career was the thing for me
Speaker 3: that was most revelatory and sort of set the course
Speaker 3: of his career as this one that could end at
Speaker 3: any moment. And that's a mentality I think that you know,
Speaker 3: he played with in every match, and so you can't
Speaker 3: separate you know, sort of Rafa's body from Rafa's tennis. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that's sort of a long, a long answer to
Speaker 3: your question about matches, but it's more the answer is
Speaker 3: more what I'm interested in, you know, as a filmmaker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely showed that more human side, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: had watched Raffa for so many years and didn't even
Speaker 1: know that. I guess the seriousness of that, that injury.
Speaker 2: And I was the same.
Speaker 1: You were alongside Raffa in some of his most difficult moments,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, the injury in Melbourne when he
Speaker 1: learned that he couldn't fly the a historian open what.
Speaker 2: What was that like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that injury specifically. I mean it happened
Speaker 3: in Brisbane, but then he sort of went to Melbourne
Speaker 3: and went to the doctor there and the doctor delivered
Speaker 3: the news that it was a tear, and a severe
Speaker 3: enough tear, you know where he wasn't going to be
Speaker 3: able to play. And you know, that was like six
Speaker 3: or seven days into shooting. So at this point, you know,
Speaker 3: I had not developed much of a relationship. Of course,
Speaker 3: you know, we knew each other, but he he was
Speaker 3: from day one. He was in practice mode. You know,
Speaker 3: he was very much you know, this was his comeback
Speaker 3: in the season, and I was there and following him.
Speaker 3: So in that moment in the car, I was, I
Speaker 3: was filming. I was, you know, because I do some
Speaker 3: of the filming myself. When it you know, when the
Speaker 3: space is small and requires kind of a small footprint,
Speaker 3: and you know, I just remember feeling, you know, in
Speaker 3: those moments you form a connection, you know, because you
Speaker 3: witness someone going through something, and when that person sort
Speaker 3: of understands that you witness that you and you've seen
Speaker 3: another layer of them, there's kind of you know, a
Speaker 3: bond that's formed, you know, not necessarily because of anything
Speaker 3: that you did, other than you know sort of of
Speaker 3: you know, be there and capture it in in a
Speaker 3: in a way that is as inobtrusive and as you know,
Speaker 3: sort of sensitive as you can be. You know, I
Speaker 3: always felt like I never wanted to ask anything of Rafa,
Speaker 3: and so we we didn't do interviews while he you know,
Speaker 3: was during the season. We waited until after the season.
Speaker 3: During the season we were merely there to sort of
Speaker 3: shadow him and watch, you know. We we didn't want
Speaker 3: to stop his routine. We didn't want to interrupt in
Speaker 3: any way, which was difficult because if you missed something,
Speaker 3: you know, there was no like redo, there there was
Speaker 3: no like let's get that from another, you know. It
Speaker 3: was it was like on the fly, you know, go go,
Speaker 3: go go, And you know, Rafa I think understood that
Speaker 3: if you know, if this was going to be a
Speaker 3: real version of him that those moments, you know, needed
Speaker 3: to be seen and you needed to understand what it
Speaker 3: is like to get that news and uh, you know
Speaker 3: understand kind of the heartbreak and the sacrifice because it
Speaker 3: it makes the you know, the winds that much more impressive.
Speaker 3: It makes the and it helps you understand. Yeah, like
Speaker 3: you know, what does it take and what is it like?
Speaker 3: And and why is it hard? And and all these
Speaker 3: things that we talk about and sports there is all
Speaker 3: this sort of like motivational you know, go one hundred
Speaker 3: percent or you have to you know, go that, but
Speaker 3: but what does that actually mean? You know, what is
Speaker 3: one hundred percent for one person versus another? Or like
Speaker 3: you know what. So it's those kinds of of of
Speaker 3: you know, messier parts that I think a lot of
Speaker 3: athletes don't want you to see because they do chip
Speaker 3: away at the armor of the kind of you know
Speaker 3: the warrior who you know sort of you know, slays
Speaker 3: the dragon. I think when you see Rafa kind of
Speaker 3: tearing up, you know there's a vulnera but there's a
Speaker 3: there's a sensitivity there that exists. You know that that's
Speaker 3: for some athletes, you know, they don't necessarily want to
Speaker 3: reveal that side of themselves. But that's honestly what I
Speaker 3: like love most about Rafa is that he just feels,
Speaker 3: you know, more human to me than and I've done
Speaker 3: profiles and other athletes and and you know, and in
Speaker 3: celebrities in general, and I feel like Rafa because of
Speaker 3: where he's from, because of his family, because of the
Speaker 3: kind of like ethos, you know, and upbringing that he had,
Speaker 3: he's just very himself. He's very real, and he's and
Speaker 3: he's very down to earth, and he experiences emotions, you know,
Speaker 3: in a similar way. I think that to a lot
Speaker 3: of us, and and the fact that he was willing
Speaker 3: to show that was was very brave in and of itself. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, we would also love to know. Yeah, because you
Speaker 2: kind of refer to previous projects you've done, there's been
Speaker 2: some sporting projects you've worked on. I think there was
Speaker 2: the HBO series twenty four to seven earlier in your career,
Speaker 2: which had a sporting focus following teams and athletes getting
Speaker 2: prepared for sporting events. But a lot of your other
Speaker 2: work has been not in the sporting space, and certainly
Speaker 2: not in tennis. Has it kind of shifted your attitude
Speaker 2: to like, are you more of a tennis fan now?
Speaker 2: Are these? Are there kind of other tennis projects you'd
Speaker 2: like to explore or was this kind of a one
Speaker 2: off for you?
Speaker 3: Don't know. I I did work in sports early in
Speaker 3: my career, in sports documentaries, not necessarily because I was
Speaker 3: a fan of sports, just because it was the place
Speaker 3: that I found a job and in entrance into the
Speaker 3: documentary world. You know, I I do like tennis. My
Speaker 3: dad was a good tennis player, so I grew up
Speaker 3: playing tennis as a kid. You know. Obviously that helped
Speaker 3: me in some ways just to sort of like understand,
Speaker 3: you know, the game, and and came in with a
Speaker 3: curiosity and excitement about the project. But you know, and
Speaker 3: I think it is a it's a beautiful game to watch.
Speaker 3: I think it's a great game to profile somebody because
Speaker 3: it's an individual sport and and you know, you know,
Speaker 3: all of these other sports, you know, whether we profile
Speaker 3: a soccer player or a basketball player, you know so much,
Speaker 3: so much of their accomplishments are always depending on you know,
Speaker 3: their teammates, Like how how how great would have Michael
Speaker 3: Jordan been without Scottie Pippen? You know, we will never
Speaker 3: know you. You certainly know how good Rafa uh you
Speaker 3: know was And the fact that it's you know, you
Speaker 3: out there against somebody else in this arena, all eyes
Speaker 3: on you. Everything is exposed, every weakness that you potentially
Speaker 3: have is exposed. You know, it makes for a very
Speaker 3: dramatic kind of uh you know battle, you know, almost
Speaker 3: like boxing a spectacle. And I think that that is,
Speaker 3: you know, from a filmmaker's perspective. You know, it allows
Speaker 3: you to kind of be you know, bigger with with
Speaker 3: the way that you present it. I mean the Federal
Speaker 3: match specifically, you know, like the music is really big.
Speaker 3: There's just that there's this epicness to the way that
Speaker 3: it's presented. And you know, I can't think of a
Speaker 3: lot of other sporting events like that where had the
Speaker 3: lead up, you have the rivalry, the one versus one.
Speaker 3: The personalities are so different, you know, I don't know
Speaker 3: of ones in history that really matched that kind of
Speaker 3: you know, dichotomy of character. Maybe you know Muhammad Ali
Speaker 3: and Joe Frazier or something like that. But so tennis
Speaker 3: is is nice, I think from a sort of profiling
Speaker 3: and individual perspective, and I think it's it's a beautiful game,
Speaker 3: you know, to film esthetically, you know, I think there's
Speaker 3: a there's a you know, an elegance and artistry in
Speaker 3: Rafa's game, you know, the sliding on clay. I just
Speaker 3: remember there's one line where he says, like, you know,
Speaker 3: if I needed a slide you know, ten meters, I did,
Speaker 3: and you see him to slide across the screen and
Speaker 3: it's it's, you know, I find it to be a
Speaker 3: really beautiful sport. So I would love to do more
Speaker 3: tennis projects. You know, I I don't have anything you
Speaker 3: know immediately that I'm doing tennis related, but I do
Speaker 3: love it as a as a sport.
Speaker 1: For for filming, it was it was wonderful to hear
Speaker 1: of hear from some of those rivals that you just
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andie Roddick
Speaker 1: and John McEnroe also featured. What was it like to
Speaker 1: spend time with those former players.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was interesting. You know, all of them are
Speaker 3: very very different. You know, I think all of them
Speaker 3: have great respect for Rafa. You know, it's it was
Speaker 3: in some in some ways easy to you know, have
Speaker 3: the get those people to talk because they all respected
Speaker 3: Rafa so much and were very happy too to be
Speaker 3: a part of the documentary. Yeah. I mean, I I think,
Speaker 3: you know, Novak has so many interesting insights and really
Speaker 3: kind of is a good storyteller and and and uh
Speaker 3: and you know, an intellectual sort of like willing to
Speaker 3: really dive into things, and and you know, Roger was
Speaker 3: was really good at just explaining what it was like
Speaker 3: at the at the time. I think you know how
Speaker 3: impressive Rafa was when he first started. And you know,
Speaker 3: I think that the focus for me was always Rafa's
Speaker 3: inner circle. I think that some of those other players,
Speaker 3: even like the journalists to some extent, they don't really
Speaker 3: know Rafa. You know that they know the tennis player,
Speaker 3: and they know the matches, and they know, you know,
Speaker 3: the intensity that he brought, but you know, the inside
Speaker 3: about who he really is all kick his family. So Yeah,
Speaker 3: while I think those interviews were important, you know, to
Speaker 3: sort of retell those historical matches that really define his career,
Speaker 3: you know, I think that the more important characters and
Speaker 3: the ones that I certainly wanted to focus on, were,
Speaker 3: you know, his team and family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that was what was most you know,
Speaker 1: beautiful for us as journalists as well. We'd never heard
Speaker 1: from so many of those people.
Speaker 2: Yes, that was Yeah, that was the first time i'd
Speaker 2: heard a lot of them talk. I think Peve and
Speaker 2: I were both chatting before this interview about just how
Speaker 2: much we learned. Even though we've been in that space
Speaker 2: ourselves for years as tennis people, we learned so much
Speaker 2: and heard from new voices. It was that was such
Speaker 2: a defining feature of it. You've been so generous with
Speaker 2: your time today, Zach.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: We've loved this. We wanted to know. As you said,
Speaker 2: you don't have any tennis projects on the horizon at
Speaker 2: the moment, So what is next for you? What's your
Speaker 2: what's your next project? Where are you off to and
Speaker 2: what will the next a little while look like for you.
Speaker 3: I'm working on something, but I can't talk about it.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. Yeah, we'll look out for it, you know,
Speaker 3: like all of these things that they take a while.
Speaker 3: I imagine it will be probably two years before this
Speaker 3: comes out, you know. The Rafa one was about two years.
Speaker 3: It was about a year of filming and a year
Speaker 3: of editing. Documentaries take a long time, you know. I'm
Speaker 3: enjoying a little bit of a little bit of downtime
Speaker 3: now before you know, I get going on this other project,
Speaker 3: you know, the making of a documentary series. It's four
Speaker 3: hours about you know, someone you know as as noteworthy
Speaker 3: and famous and important as as Rafa. You know, it's
Speaker 3: it's hard. There's a lot of reviews and a lot
Speaker 3: of people you know, a lot of notes and and
Speaker 3: you know, and you're sort of constantly trying to make
Speaker 3: things better and improve upon the project. So it was
Speaker 3: a beast of a project for sure. So I'm taking
Speaker 3: a little bit of time off before jumping into the
Speaker 3: next one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely fair. Oh we did hear though that you
Speaker 2: were off to Wimbledon.
Speaker 3: Is that true? I am. I'm going to Wimbledon for
Speaker 3: a day, so I'll be at the quarterfinals on Tuesday,
Speaker 3: which I've never been. Uh so I'm excited. Yeah, it's yeah,
Speaker 3: it's the only major I haven't been to. Actually I
Speaker 3: went to I went to the Australian Open with Rafa,
Speaker 3: but he didn't play, so I actually didn't get to
Speaker 3: watch it match there, so it doesn't can.
Speaker 1: Well, you'll have to come back. Love to back, Zach.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time today. It's been. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been wonderful to learn more about refer and yeah,
Speaker 1: your great work.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, thank you for all the questions and for
Speaker 3: supporting the project, and yeah, this was fun.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Exome and congratulations. Yeah. For anyone that doesn't know,
Speaker 2: I guess do we put a spoiler alert in? It's
Speaker 2: been out there for long enough, but people listening and
Speaker 2: watching can go and find it on Netflix. Has been
Speaker 2: out was it since May twenty six or May twenty nine?
Speaker 2: Between May twenty ninth, Yes, so go and watch it.
Speaker 2: Four episodes yet we loved it and we're sure everyone
Speaker 2: else will too. Well, Viv, that was fantastic to be
Speaker 2: joined by Zach. Great to hear that he's having some
Speaker 2: much deserve time off after what was a huge project,
Speaker 2: and that he got to go to Wimbledon for the
Speaker 2: first time, which is really cool. But yeah, wasn't it
Speaker 2: fascinating to hear that so early in the process of
Speaker 2: making this documentary Raffa got injured and pulled out of
Speaker 2: the AO, and Zach kind of didn't even know what
Speaker 2: would happen. Would would Raffa want to keep doing the documentary?
Speaker 2: What direction would it take from here? I just thought,
Speaker 2: what an amazing challenge to overcome so quickly in the filming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess as somebody who has worked in
Speaker 1: the creative space and has to edit a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Just kind of fascinating to hear how the narrative unfolded
Speaker 1: as the story progressed. Really and yeah, as it turned
Speaker 1: out he had so much to work with. The RAFFA
Speaker 1: wanted another episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was. That was fantastic too. Well, we'll be
Speaker 2: back again next week with another episode of the sit Down.
Speaker 2: Please remember to subscribe so you never missed an episode
Speaker 2: when it lands in your feed, and if you could
Speaker 2: leave us a rating or a review, we'd love that too.
Speaker 2: See you next week, Viv, See you then, Matt,