Movie stars don’t come much bigger than Matt Damon or Morgan Freeman. And it’s no surprise that the two were up for Oscar nominations for their performance in recent UAE release ‘Invictus’.

The film, directed by movie legend Clint Eastwood, portrays South Africa’s first ever Rugby World Cup win back in 1995. It has been seen as a crucial moment in history, coming just a year after Nelson Mandela became the country’s first ever black president despite 27 years in captivity.

Freeman was up for ‘best actor in a leading role’ for his performance as Mandela while Damon was nominated for ‘best actor in a supporting role’, in his performance as legendary South Africa skipper Francois Pienaar.

One man who won’t have made an appearance overnight on the red carpet at Kodak Theatre in Hollywood however is South African-born Dubai resident Rudolf de Wee. And although he won’t be enjoying the glitz and the glam in Los Angeles, Rudolf played a huge part in the success of ‘Invictus’.

He’s now over in Dubai, training the UAE’s youngsters in rugby union.

But he played a key role in training American pin-up Damon and a whole host of extras for the action scenes in the film.

Rudolf worked with Chester Williams, the only black player in that winning Springbok team, on the action scenes. And he says: “We would be told which game we were working on and then we would have to work out the running lines or whatever, try and copy the moves for the film.

So maybe we’d have to look at the quarter final, between Western Samoa and South Africa, and then recreate the action from that.

“We did a lot of different scenes in the movie, it’s like choreography, whatever happened in each game, we had to study and then coach the players accordingly. We’d watch the actual game and then try and copy the running lines and hits.

“When Chester called me I was living in Johannesburg and thought he was kidding. But after the call I went to the airport and knew it wasn’t a joke. It was  great, we started casting for players, we started work on February 1 and we had it wrapped up around April 15.”

Damon, Eastwood and Freeman were not exactly steeped in rugby tradition, coming as they do from America and the pads, helmets and stop-start action of gridiron.

But they took to the 15-man code extremely quickly thanks to some exposure to the game in rugby-daft South Africa.

Rudolf, who played Australia star George Gregan and England’s Paul Hull in the film, explains: “They didn’t really get the game at first to be honest.

But we took then to Newlands in Cape Town to watch some Stormers games and they started getting into it really quickly and they ended up loving the game.

“They said our game was harder than American football after watching it!

They were quite surprise there was no padding, and the hits were hard. Matt definitely ended up with a couple of bumps and bruised, one day he tried a drop kick and he ended up toeing the ground.

But we had a chiropractor, Pat Bell, who was also the hooker of the All Blacks team, he was also team doctor so he could fix Matt up easily.”

Matt’s an all-action hero in a number of movies including the ‘Bourne’ series of films and ‘The Departed’.

But he proved to be a real star in his first training session with the extras.

Rudolf explains: “Matt was a brilliant guy, the first day he came we had a huddle like you would normally have with a rugby team.

“Usually the captain has to say something and Chester explained to him what it all means. And after the training session, Matt decided to lead the huddle. He said “I don’t know a lot about rugby but I know a lot about movie making.

“All I want from you guys is the best, and we will give you a very, very good movie’. Now I still haven’t seen the movie but everyone is telling me its a good film!

Many believe Mandela’s decision to back the Boks was a pivotal moment in the country’s history. And Rudolf was a proud man to be able to contribute something towards Eastwood’s efforts to recreate history.   

The former policeman says: “It was nice to contribute, it was nice being involved in something so historical. For me to be part of that, something so important, was fantastic.”

De Wee’s Rugby Skills sessions take place every Sunday and Tuesday from 3 - 6.30pm at Jebel Ali Primary School and Jebel Ali Village. Call 04 321 0008