Last summer, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James undertook his largest role in a motion picture when he participated in the highly anticipated “Space Jam 2.”
While filming wrapped months ago, TMZ recently got ahold of the audio from James’ farewell speech after wrapping on the project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkxjWzc8Ows
“To be completely honest with you guys, when I signed up for the project, I was like, ‘It’s ‘Space Jam.’ It’s a movie that I grew up watching. People in the movie that I idolize,” he said. “I was like, ‘Absolutely, I gotta do it. There is no way I can turn down ‘Space Jam.’
“Then I showed up on set on June 17, and I grabbed my first script, and in the far right corner that f—— thing said, ‘Day one of 58 days.’ And I was like, ‘Bron, what the f—?'”
James then went into the powerful connections he made with people on the set, going so far as to call the members of the cast and crew “family.”
He then went into his humble beginnings and why the whole experience was a dream come true.
“I’m just a small kid from Akron, Ohio, a very small town outside of Cleveland,” he said. “From a single-parent household, I’m the only child, my mother had absolutely nothing. She was walking around high school when she was 16 years old and she was pregnant with me as a high school sophomore. So, I’m really not supposed to be here.
“Growing up in the inner city, as an African-American kid, there’s no way you’re supposed to f—— make it out. And, the fact that I’m who I am as an African-American adult now with three kids of my own, and I made it out of the situations that I was in. This s— is like extra credit for me man.”
Finally, he expressed a message of profound gratitude to everyone involved.
“Y’all say y’all appreciate me, but I’m s— without y’all,” he said.
James’ humility is something that Lakers fans have come to expect. While James is surely looking forward to seeing the film in its final form in the future, he’s currently fully focused on bringing the Lakers a title.
If the Lakers do win the title this season, there’s no doubt that James’ speech to his teammates will be even more amazing than this one was.
