Tennis legend John McEnroe will appear in the first feature film by Turner Prize–winning artist Martin Creed. Titled Work in Progress, a rough cut of the film will be previewed tonight at the Glasgow Film Theatre, and the artist aims to release the film more widely later this year.
Work in Progress draws on Creed’s childhood memories growing up in Lenzie and Milton of Campsie, near Glasgow, Scotland. In the film, McEnroe will appear in one scene as a character inspired by the filmmaker’s mother, shot on a Malibu tennis court. The scene did not require the seven-time Grand Slam winner to dress in women’s clothing. Instead, McEnroe appears as an opponent in a re-enactment of a childhood tennis match between Creed and his mother. In an interview with The Times, Creed explained that McEnroe, who is an avid art collector, was a childhood hero of his.
“The reason that he was my hero is all to do with anger and the expression of anger, and he almost turned that into an art form. He pissed off all of the adults and as a child, I loved that,” Creed told the paper. “I feel like it’s very healthy if you’re able to express anger rather than turning it into violence or whatever, so that was why he was my hero.”
The film also stars Outlander actress Layla Burns, who is intended to represent Creed’s younger self. Other actors include Lily Cole, who will also play Creed’s mother, and House star Lisa Edelstein.
“The idea of the film is that it comes from my memories. So it’s the story of a little boy growing up and came from the simple idea of writing down my memories from when I was young, and then filming in the places where the things happened,” Creed said of the film. “It’s a coming-of-age story, with different chapters from birth to age 15.”
Creed, who is known for his conceptual installations, shot to prominence in 2001 for his piece Work 227: The Lights Going On and Off (2000). Creed won the Turner Prize for this work, where lights in an empty room switched on and off at five-second intervals.
Creed has shown work with major institutions worldwide over the last few decades, including shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 2012, Hauser & Wirth in 2023, and the Museum für Konkrete Kunst in Germany in 2023. Though this is the artist’s first feature length film, he has created several short films such as What The Fuck Am I Doing (2017) and the “Princess Taxi Girl” series.
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