Basketball legend Sue Bird shares her career highlights and coming out story in Sundance doc ‘In the Clutch’
Sue Bird let a team of filmmakers capture her final WNBA season for the documentary "In the Clutch," which is premiering at Sundance.
When basketball legend Sue Bird decided to let a team of filmmakers capture her final season after playing 21 years in the WNBA, she wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from watching her career be contextualized on film, but it turned out to be wonderful.
“You play such a long time — so many different moments, so many different memories — and to have it now, in this one film, is amazing,” Bird said, visiting the Variety Studio presented by Audible at the Sundance Film Festival. “I think the hardest part throughout the process was showing those emotional moments.”
When she was on her own, the emotions flowed freely. “I’d be crying like a baby, like in the shower,” Bird admitted, laughing. “But then the minute I was in front of the cameras or in front of the crowd, the emotions didn’t always come,” she said, turning to the filmmakers seated alongside her. “I feel lucky that for years to come, I’ll have this. You guys did such a great job telling my story.”
It was “Insecure” and “Freaky Tales” star Jay Ellis who’d had the idea (along with his Black Bar Mitzvah producing partner Aaron Bergman) to approach Bird about capturing that final year of WNBA play. Ellis had been watching Bird’s star rise since high school (at Christ the King, which has long been a basketball powerhouse), then as a two-time NCAA champion at UCONN before getting drafted into the WNBA in 2002, where she won four titles and five Olympic gold medals.
“Seeing this amazing career and knowing that she had won these titles, and all these gold medals and had become — if I’m not mistaken — one of the two highest gold-winning team athletes of all time in the Olympics, we also knew that Sue had been playing for 19 years at this point, and that it might come to an end soon,” Ellis explained.
Rating: 5