Writer-director Jesse Eisenberg has played biographical roles before with outstanding success. The 42-year-old even won an Oscar nomination for his performance as Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in the 2010 film The Social Network. Eisenberg’s filmography also includes portraying Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky in the 2015 dramedy The End of the Tour. Now, the star of the hit Now You See Me heist films wants to play coach Pop.

“I just find him to be the most fascinating person on the planet,” Eisenberg said to The Wrap. “Here’s this tough coach who cries sometimes and talks about the plight of America, and yet he’s also this terrifying figure who can be so mean to journalists. People like that are fascinating because, on the one hand, they’re known to be very nasty, and on the other hand they’re these bleeding hearts.”

The tough exterior of Gregg Popovich was always on display, and he had no problem instructing his star players like Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker to work hardest during practice. “I’ll purposely get on the big boys the most. Duncan, Parker, and Manu Ginobili will catch more hell from me than anybody else out there,” previously Coach Pop had said. “You know the obvious effect of that. If you do that and they respond in the right way, everyone else follows suit.”

But he was never afraid to cry in front of his players and even consoled them when his roster needed him the most. A perfect example of this is during the 2013 NBA Finals. The Heat won Game 6 103–100 in overtime, after Ray Allen’s clutch game-tying three-pointer with 5.2 seconds left in regulation. The players were distraught, and Coach Pop knew talking about X’s and O’s wouldn’t help.

“We talked and we basically cried together,” Ginobili said to ESPN. “He went one table at a time with different players and had conversations and tried to cheer us up when we were devastated.”

And Eisenberg wants to showcase this exact personality that the broader audience might have missed amid the chaotic NBA schedule. However, he downplayed being the number one option to portray Gregg Popovich.

“I just think I would be very low on the list to be cast as a basketball coach.”

Gregg Popovich shed a tear for his associate’s success

Being the head coach for 29 years is no easy feat. In fact, Coach Pop holds the most wins of any coach in NBA history and led the Spurs to five NBA championships. During that spell, Steve Kerr, Becky Hammon, Mike Brown, Mike Budenholzer, and Ime Udoka, among others, spent valuable time learning alongside Popovich.

“I had interviewed for three or four years and missed a few opportunities that were close,” Udoka said of Gregg Popovich’s emotional reaction. “So I call him on FaceTime and say, ‘Boston offered me the job,’ and he’s on the treadmill walking when he gets choked up. You see him looking, and he starts crying, and he had to hang up. He was like, ‘I’ll call you back.’ He broke down. His voice is cracking. And he hung up.”

Ime Udoka played for the Spurs from 2007 to ’09, then was an assistant under Popovich from 2012 to 2019. And after years of rejection, Udoka got the head coaching job; even Gregg Popovich couldn’t help but shed tears at the good news.

There are plenty of scenarios where such moments of Coach Pop would be on display. While there is currently no biopic in the works, the power of manifestation could lead Eisenberg to his dream role.