‘Hustle’ Acting Coach on Key to Working With NBA Stars and First-Time Actors
When filmmaker Jeremiah Zagar got called to the big leagues to
direct Adam Sandler in Netflix’s
Hustle
, he drafted a key teammate
from his last film to make the leap along with him.
Noëlle Gentile, a onetime public school theater teacher in Brooklyn and
upstate New York, spent months working with athletes-turned-actors Juancho
Hernangomez, Anthony Edwards, Kenny Smith, Boban Marjanovic and legend
Julius “Dr. J” Erving to prove their skills on and off the court. The film centers
Sandler as Stanley Sugarman, a down-on-his-luck basketball scout for the
Philadelphia 76ers. After discovering a once-in-a-lifetime player with a rocky