“I just watched how he interacted on the sidelines with this spiky haired, tattooed Marine, beautiful lady in the stands, and that was his wife Brenda.
“American Underdog,” a biopic of Warner’s life directed by Erwin and his brother Jon, opens in theaters on Christmas Day.
An undrafted Warner works at a Hy-Vee grocery store in Iowa, as the couple navigate financial struggles, uncertainty around Warner’s football career and raise her two children, one with disabilities.
One scene shows the couple struggling so much they run out of gas in the middle of a snowstorm as they drive to Warner’s mother’s house to find a warm place to stay.
As his efforts to play pro football seem bleak, a frustrated Warner, who at one point is on food stamps, vents to Brenda about whether he should give up.
“For Kurt, he was one of the first in my young adult life that I remember being as bold as he was with it.