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'A victory for us': Watch an exclusive, stirring new scene from 'Rudy' director's cut

​​​​​​​View Date:2024-12-24 00:41:23

Break out a few extra hankies and get ready for some extended goosebumps: “Rudy” is rolling out new plays you haven’t seen before.

The classic 1993 underdog football movie, starring Sean Astin as real-life Notre Dame walk-on Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger, notched its 30th anniversary this year. To celebrate, a director’s cut is being released Tuesday (on 4K Blu-ray and digital platforms) with 13 extra minutes of never-before-seen footage. (USA TODAY has an exclusive peek at one of the new clips.) The bonus features include five deleted scenes, plus a commentary with director David Anspaugh and writer Angelo Pizzo, who first collaborated on the iconic 1986 hoops film “Hoosiers.”

Here are the highlights from what’s been added:

Ned Beatty gets a stirring speech in 'Rudy' director's cut

One of the reasons why Rudy is determined to attend Notre Dame and play football is because of his father, Daniel Sr. (Ned Beatty). And his dad opines on why it means so much to him in a new scene set at a Christmas church dinner. Asked why Notre Dame football is such a "big deal," Beatty's character tells a story about how his father would talk about how the "greatness of America" was represented by "poor Irish and Italian and Polish boys" who played in the middle of the country and would beat "the rich boys back East." When Daniel Sr. came to America during the Great Depression, he saw that Irish Catholic immigrants “faced a lot of hate. So every victory by Notre Dame is a victory for us."

In the commentary, Anspaugh calls it "a shame" the scene didn't make the theatrical cut and Pizzo adds that "it answers on a deeper level why Rudy is so drawn to Notre Dame."

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A young Vince Vaughn gets more screen time

Vince Vaughn had his first credited screen role in “Rudy,” playing underachieving Notre Dame tailback Jamie O’Hara. Initially a jerk who ultimately comes around (by changing a key play in a game that allows Rudy to finally get on the field), Vaughn’s character appears in two new scenes. One’s set in the gym where Rudy (who’s not yet attending Notre Dame) tries to buddy up to Jamie, who’s not having it. “We might as well be friends, we’re going to be on the same team next year,” Rudy says, with Jamie snarling, “In your dreams.” In another new scene, Jamie runs into Rudy and his sportswriter friend Mary (Greta Lind) at the local bar, and Mary knows all of Jamie’s impressive high school stats.

“I hope Vince will take the time to check this cut out. His character really fills out the story,” Anspaugh says in the commentary. Adds Pizzo: “When (Jamie) does do that one gesture at the end of the movie for Rudy, we have more of a sense of who he is and who he used to be.” 

Greta Lind’s sportswriter has most of her scenes added back, too

Nearly 10 minutes of Lind's screen time has been brought back in the director's cut, making Mary a more significant figure in Rudy's life. She’s one of the first people Rudy tells when he makes the team, she convinces him to let her write a story for the school paper (which is why the crowd chants his name in the big game), and Rudy asks her to light a candle and pray for him to dress for his last game, even though she says, “I don’t believe in that stuff.” 

“When we had to cut all her material, we lost the female presence in the movie,” says Pizzo, who married and had two kids with Lind following the movie's release.

‘Rudy’ deleted scenes feature an inspirational alternate ending

The most interesting of the five deleted scenes is an alternate ending: The original movie finishes with Rudy being carried off the field by his teammates and a picture of the real Ruettiger, but a sequence included on the new director's cut shows a group of kids going outside to play football.

They’re picking teams, who’s going to be Notre Dame and who’s Georgia Tech – the two squads that tussled in the movie’s climax – and one smaller boy with a gold helmet says, “I have to be Rudy because I’m going to Notre Dame." It's a bookend to the film's opening, with kid Rudy playing with his brothers, and a nod to the true-life figure's inspirational journey.

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