Interview: 'Kelce' director and producer Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce
The Philadelphia-based duo on their hit Prime Video documentary about NFL center Jason Kelce, how they worked with NFL Films, and what they think their subject will do after football
When it comes to things that happened with their subject while they were following him, the filmmakers behind Kelce, the documentary on Prime Video about the Philadelphia Eagles' Jason Kelce, got very lucky. (Read my review of the film here.)
The project began in 2021 when the duo behind 9.14 Pictures began following Kelce in what they thought would be his final season in the NFL. As Kelce remains a member of the Eagles, it's clear that it wasn't.
They were following him during the 2022 season when Kelce's team reached the Super Bowl, which put him against his brother Travis. The brothers had also started a popular podcast, called "New Heights," the Eagles made a Christmas album, and Kelce's wife gave birth to their third child. All of that, and much more was captured by the documentarians Argott and Joyce.
I spoke with Argott and Joyce last week about the film, which has since become the #1 movie on Prime Video. We talked about working with Kelce, the Eagles, and the NFL, and what they really think the Eagles' center might do with his life after he's done playing football.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Stephen Silver: Tell me the story, real quick, about how this project came together and who you came to be the director and producer of it.
Don Argott: Jason and Connor Barwin were kicking around this idea of Jason's time coming to an end playing football, and he was looking at post-football life, and exploring that, and thinking a lot about that. As you can see in the film, he's a really thoughtful guy, and he really thinks about stuff and thinks them through.
And they thought a documentary of kind of following his last season and transitioning out of football and into retirement, would be interesting to see, not only from a viewer’s side but for Jason, he thought there was a lot of value in documenting that, for other players, just to show what it's like. So we started the season before this past season… and we were filming with him, and kind of going down the path of making that film, and Jason decided to not retire that year, and he decided to come back.
And we had this big discussion about, [whether] we should continue to film, or should we put this on pause. And we all felt that there was a lot of momentum, and we all hit it off well, and we thought that there was something interesting in just [keeping] going, and see what happened. And what happened was the most incredible football season in recent memory, and then on top of that, for us to be able to capture that, and all the things that transpired along the way was just pretty magical.
SS: Yeah, you certainly did have some fascinating things happen, just in terms of what was going on with him, what was going on with the team, Saturday Night Live, the Christmas album…
Sheena M. Joyce: For a documentary filmmaker, it was just lightning in a bottle, it was amazing. Let's not forget that Kylie Kelce was nine months pregnant at the Super Bowl, and there was a chance that she could go into labor during the game. So the stakes were very high on many levels.
SS: So you are both Philly natives and Eagles fans, is that correct?
SMJ: I'm the Philly native, we're both Eagles fans. Don grew up in North Jersey, but I'm from Delaware County.
SS: What surprised you most about Jason Kelce, while working on this project?
SMJ: The thing that surprised me most about Jason Kelce, while working on this project, was how truly authentic he is, and how accessible he is. He is the guy you want to root for on the team, not just because he's such a star athlete and the best at what he does in the sport, but because he's such a great guy. And they say don't meet your heroes because you'll be disappointed. But if you have a chance to meet Jason Kelce, you're not going to be disappointed.
SS: Eventually he's going to stop playing, I assume. I just remember going back a while, there's always speculation about whether it's his last year. He talks a lot in the film about his different options of what he might do after he retires because I assume those conversations were at least a couple of years ago.
DA: When we started this project, he was completely lost in terms of what he thinks his next steps are going to be. I think that was part of the appeal of doing this, he was going to try out a bunch of things and see what he liked, see what he was good at. And then, during the course of this, he starts the podcast with his brother. I think for him now to have that as a foundation is going to be a very easy transition out of football.
I don't think it's going to be easy when he decides to not play, because I think, as you see in the film, everything about playing football is so important to him, it's such a big part of his identity. It's the part that drives him, and kind of gets him to get up in the morning. I think his fear, and his impetus for starting this project, was… what if he can't find that again? What if you can't find the thing to replace the thing that's been in your life for so long? What if you transition out of football and you're unfulfilled?
I do think now that he has established himself, him and his brother, and his podcast, which they're just naturally good at, he's himself in the best ways, and now obviously national media is taking attention, and every other commercial is either him or his brother. He's not going to have many issues transitioning out of football, the way I think he would have one or two years ago.
SMJ: Jason is so intelligent, and so naturally kind and funny, and a hard worker. All of the things that we love about him, that make him such a great and successful football player are going to make him successful, I really don't have any doubt about it.
SS: Jason Kelce is a rare athlete who has played for a long time in Philadelphia and has managed to remain beloved the entire time. I know there's a little bit of sports radio stuff in the film, where people are a little upset with him because he had one bad game, and there was some consternation that he was taking his time to decide [about retirement] and that might affect the salary cap.
But overall, he's a guy who everybody loves. I don't know how much this comes up in the film, but did you talk to him much about how he's approached being a Philadelphia athlete, being from Ohio, being from another part of the country? A lot of athletes have come through town over the years who have had trouble navigating Philadelphia fans, and media as well. What does he think about that?
SMJ: I don't want to speak for Jason, but I will say that while he is not from Philadelphia, he has certainly adopted Philadelphia as Philadelphians have adopted him, as one of their own. This is a city that he belongs in, and one in which I believe he will remain in, even when he is done playing. So the city has definitely left its mark on Jason.
DA: I also think one of the reasons he has done so well here is because I think he was uniquely suited as someone coming from a place like Ohio, blue-collar, working-class people. Jason's road to where he got to, was not easy. He was not the first-round pick, he wasn't a second-round pick, he wasn't even a third- or fourth-round pick.
All of those things, when you don't use those things to limit yourself, you use them to light the fire, that's exactly what Jason's all about. He knows he has to go out and prove it, because no one's given him the opportunity, and the only way to stand out is to go out and be better than everything else. And people notice after a while. But that fire inside you, when people don't believe in you, that's what this town's all about. It's like 'Good, keep counting us out, keep thinking that we're not good enough, and we'll show you.' At least that's the thing that drives sports, and sports fans in this city more than anything.
SS: I'm curious about… I know this was about two years that you spent with him. How often are you going to film? Do you just say 'Hey, we're going to your house to film today,' and then a couple of weeks pass, or is it more that something interesting is going on and you might want to have cameras there?
SMJ: It's an everyday thing, but you pick your moments. There may be certain threads that you want to follow, and there may be certain benchmarks that you don't want to miss. We went to doctor's appointments with Kylie and used some of that in the film. It was probably a lot for the family over those two years.
DA: It was nowhere near every day. Most films don't need to be somewhere every day unless they're following a specific process. Knowing that this was undefined and could go on forever, the last thing you want to do is to wear out your welcome. You never want to be the people that are like "Oh, these fucking guys again." You have to be mindful of those things.
All of these things, as documentary filmmakers who have been doing this for over two decades at this point, you learn a lot and you learn on every project, still. I think that's the best thing to do when you're working with real people, you have to be mindful that they're not characters in their life, they're like real people. We might be looking at these people like 'I'm seeing all these storylines and stuff,' but they're living their life. So you need to try to walk that line a lot, and be mindful of it, and also give them space, too, so you don't get annoying and you're not asking the same questions over and over again.
As the story became more and more clear, and the events that we were following were what was happening, it was easy for us to show up and say "Hey, we're going to come over and film the podcast today," or "We're going to come out and do dinner tonight." We were trying to find moments where we wouldn't be so annoying to them, that we were around all the time, and they wanted to live their lives and not have cameras around, which I completely understand.
SS: So the game footage was all NFL Films stuff, right?
DA: Correct. NFL Films and the Eagles specifically.
SMJ: The Eagles more than anyone were incredibly helpful and great partners throughout the process.
SS: Well I know [Eagles owner] Jeffrey Lurie has produced some movies, including documentaries.
DA: He's very passionate about documentaries.
SS: What was it like for you, both at the stadium and at the Super Bowl, in terms of having access? Did you have seats, when you were filming them in the crowd? How did that work?
SMJ: Don and I split up for the Super Bowl, he went ahead with Jason and the team and I stayed behind with Kylie and the girls to capture, because the players needed to be there earlier. So Don and I tend to divide and conquer when we do things anyway. Do, you tell it, you were sitting next to Kylie in the stands during the game?
DA: It was cool because, at that point, we kind of flew very much under the radar, we weren't in touch with the NFL or anything like that. The Eagles were aware of us, and they were helping us out with footage inside because I wasn't allowed to film inside the stadium. But we worked it out so they could get us footage from the games and the locker room and things like that that we could use.
So we had a really good relationship with them, but at that point, when we were going to the Super Bowl, there was no way that we were going to continue to make this film without the NFL being involved in some way. What was really amazing was that we were filming the NFC Championship Game against the 49ers, and we were doing the tailgating stuff in the parking lot. Jason left to go to Chickie's and Pete's to watch the Chiefs game, so we showed up at the Chiefs game at Chickie's and Pete's, and NFL Films were there filming. And they're like "Who are you guys?" and we were like, "Who are you guys?"
And so after that, the cat's out of the bag, everybody knows this is gonna be the Kelce Bowl, and there's going to be a ton of media attention, so we're going to have to make sure they know that we've been doing this, and hopefully they'll not shut us down. And what happened was, the polar opposite of that- they came on board, and they looked at some scenes that we had cut together, and they were so blown away by the access that we had, and how Jason was on camera, and they said 'we were going to do our own Kelce Bowl documentary but you're already there, so why don't we just help you guys out? This is not hyperbole, but there's no way we could have made this film without NFL Films.
SMJ: They were dream partners, in this scenario. They could not have been more supportive. And I think that speaks to who Jason is, and what kind of man he is and what kind of player he is, that both the Eagles as an organization and the NFL and NFL Films wanted to help us out, making a film about Jason and his family, because he is so beloved.
DA: Also huge props to Connor Barwin. Connor specifically paved the way with the NFL, because he had a relationship with the high-up guy at NFL Films, Keith Cossrow, and he was really the guy that decided we're going to come on board and make this together. And as an outside production company, that's happened very infrequently, as you know, NFL Film has… the gate's closed, when it comes to outside people working on projects, because they don't need anybody, really. But this was a testament, as Sheena said, to how much people love Jason, how much they believe in the story, and how much they saw all of the positivity this story is for the league, really. And it just all worked out, it was like the planets aligned perfectly.
SMJ: One thing I'd add is that I feel like this story transcends football, transcends the game in a lot of ways. And NFL Films could see that, that this is because of our access to Kylie, and his parents Donna and Ed, and brother Travis, it really is a family story, and it's a story about adversity and love, and family, and so you don't just have to be a fan of the game to enjoy the film.