Peyton Manning has certainly inspired countless young athletes through the years as they aim to replicate his legendary career. As it turns out, he's also inspired at least one actor.
In an appearance on this week's "Manningcast", actor Vince Vaughn revealed he took inspiration from Peyton for the famous scene in his movie "Wedding Crashers."
As a refresher, the scene involves Vaughn's character, Jeremy Grey, playing a game of backyard football against the wealthy Cleary family. Grey, already playing the role of imposter, claimed he was "first team all-state in high school" and tries to call a series of complex pre-snap audibles to friend John Beckwith, played by Owen Wilson. Unfortunately, they weren't on the same page.
In his talk with the Manning brothers, Vaughn said he took inspiration from Peyton when he was shooting the scene.
"That was definitely inspired by Peyton," he said. "He would always come up to the line and change the plays and it always looked so complicated. He'd kind of make these decisions and he'd have this terminology, so as a fan I always thought that was cool."
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"When we went to shoot the scene that day, I remember saying to the director, 'the more I make it like I really am invested here in what I'm doing, the funnier it's going to be when it goes bad,'" Vaughn continued. "It was definitely Peyton-inspired to say 'hot route' and '7/11'... We were definitely feeding off of Peyton's skills.
Vince Vaughn was doing his best Peyton impression in Wedding Crashers 😂 pic.twitter.com/bVeOQiaUjY
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) October 25, 2022
As Manning pointed out, the scene is ranked as the second best football-related movie scene from a non-football movie on NFL.com. And it might never have achieved that title if it weren't for Vaughn's appreciation of Peyton's pre-snap play calls.
