Hartland athletes help
with "High School"

By Leah Boyd

DAILY PRESS & ARGUS

• December 19, 2008

The
Eagles of Hartland High School showed off their moves last weekend, this time
for the big screen.

Eight
of the school's varsity cheerleaders and five varsity wrestlers spent
Saturday and Sunday working as extras for the movie "High School,"
starring actors Michael Chiklis and Adrien Brody. The Hartland cheerleaders spent more than
16 hours on set at Howell Public Schools' Parker Campus in Marion Township — or the film's fictional Morgan High School — stunting and working with
some of the actresses.

"It
was different from anything any of us have ever done," said cheerleader
Katie Cummings. "We all thought it was an amazing opportunity to have
our school picked from all the schools in Michigan."

The
movie, which has been filming in the Howell area for more than a month, is a
teen comedy focusing on a class valedictorian who fails a random drug test after
experimenting with marijuana. He then plots with a school "druggie"
in an attempt to get out of sticky situation.

Cummings
— along with teammates Haley Bourdeau, Lauren
Hamlin, Lauren Steele, Jessie Tierney, Amber Tustian,
Kristi Waite and Lydia Quella — were selected
out of Hartland's 28-member squad.

The
school's wrestlers — Doug Baughman, Sean Hultberg,
Ross Kantola, Brandon Kesterson
and Charles Putz — made their debut in a
humorous scene, said varsity Coach Todd Cheney. He said the boys worked for
about five hours to complete a scene that included the team's smallest
wrestler tackling and pinning one of its largest.

Cheney
said at one point during filming, actor Chiklis (of
the TV series "The Shield" and movie "Fantastic Four")
joked with the boys that actors hire stunt men to do what wrestlers do.

Mike Livanos, second assistant director of the film, said he
wanted to use local athletes for the movie. Livanos
is a graduate of the University of Michigan and a 1998 graduate of Northville High School, where he was coached by one of
Hartland's assistant wrestling coaches.

"The
kids did a great job," Livanos said.