Safety's Jay Reeves, Corinne Foxx Talk Working With Ray McElrathbey on His Life Story

In Safety, Disney+'s new film from director Reginald Hudlin, actor Jay Reeves plays the real-life story of Ray McElrathbey, a former college football player who found himself on the wrong side of an NCAA investigation about 15 years ago after a family emergency forced him to adopt his brother, and anyone who tried to help represented a potential conflict of interest for the player. While McElrathbey is certainly an inspiring figure, the film goes a long way to humanize him, with bouts of emotionality, some bad decisions, and a sense of hopelessness that creeps into him more than once. That doesn't diminish how inspirational he comes off, but instead enhances it by forcing him to work through it.

Helping him every step of the way is the girl of his dreams, Kaycee, played by Corinne Foxx. Of course, Foxx learned early on that in Hollywood, even true stories need a dash of magic.

"We were really lucky to have the real Ray, the real Ray on set with us," Foxx told ComicBook.com. "It happened in 2006, so he's not that old right now. So he was with us almost every single day. And so I asked him, 'who is the real Casey?' And he goes, 'there's a lot of girls who are going to think they're Casey.' So Casey is not a particular person. I think she's combination of people. So I did have a lot of freedom to take what's on the page and kind of create who I, who I thought that she was then obviously talk to Ray and we built the character kind of together. But it was it was really cool to at least be telling a story inspired by a true story."

Foxx also talked about the exhausting workouts that McElrathbey would host with the on-screen football team -- workouts that she attempted exactly one time.

"Yeah, it wasn't that long ago, and the man's still in shape," Reeves told ComicBook.com. "So it definitely was a lot of pressure, 'cause he shows up [on set] jacked and buff. So just trying to get like him, and be him; he's a silent leader. He's not the guy who's going to come up to you and talk to you about what you're doing, what you need to do. He's going to lead by example which is always been the type of learning I take best to, you know, so Ray was amazing."

Safety is now streaming on Disney+.