Air (I) (2023)

Matt Damon: Sonny Vaccaro

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Quotes 

• Sonny Vaccaro : [to Michael Jordan]  Forget about the shoes, forget about the money. You're going to make enough money, it's not going to matter. Money can buy you almost anything, it can't buy you immortality. That, you have to earn. I'm going to look you in the eyes and I'm gonna tell you the future. You were cut from your high school basketball team. You willed your way to the NBA. You're gonna win championships. It's an American story, and that's why Americans are gonna love it. People are going to build you up, and God are they going to, because when you're great and new, we love you. Man, we'll build you up into something that doesn't even exist. You're going to change the fucking world. But you know what? Once they've built you as high as they possibly can, they're gonna tear you back down - it's the most predictable pattern. We build you into something that doesn't exist, and that means you have to try to be that thing all day, every day. That's how it works. And we do it again, and again, and again. And I'm going to tell you the truth. You're going to be attacked, betrayed, exposed and humiliated. And you'd survive that. A lot of people can climb that mountain. It's the way down that breaks them, 'cause that's the moment when you are truly alone. And what would you do then? Can you summon the will to fight on, through all the pain, and rise again? Who are you Michael? That will be the defining question of your life. And I think you already know the answer, and that's why we're all here. A shoe is just a shoe until somebody steps into it. Then it has meaning. The rest of us just want a chance to touch that greatness. We need you in these shoes not so you have meaning in your life, but so that we have meaning in ours. Everyone at this table will be forgotten as soon as our time here is up - except for you. You're gonna be remembered forever, because some things are eternal. You're Michael Jordan, and your story is gonna make us want to fly.

• Sonny Vaccaro : A shoe is just a shoe until someone steps into it.

• Deloris Jordan : But everyone once in a while, someone comes along that's so extraordinary that it forces those reluctant to part with some of that wealth to do so, not out of charity but out of greed, because they are so very special. And even more rare, that person demands to be treated according to their worth because they understand what they are worth.

  Sonny Vaccaro : Or their mother does.

• Howard White : That damn slogan came from a convict about to get executed in front of a firing squad, and they asked him, "what's your last words?"

  Sonny Vaccaro : "Just do it"?

  Howard White : Yeah.

  Sonny Vaccaro : That's where that comes from?

  Howard White : Yeah.

• Sonny Vaccaro : A shoe is just a shoe until somebody steps into it. Then it has meaning. The rest of us just want a chance to touch that greatness. We need you in these shoes not so you have meaning in your life, but so that we have meaning in ours.

• Sonny Vaccaro : You're gonna be remembered forever because some things are eternal. You're Michael Jordan, and your story is gonna make us want to fly.

• Sonny Vaccaro : I could not do what you do.

  Howard White : I know you can't do what I do. You can hardly do what the hell you supposed to do.

• Sonny Vaccaro : Is this gonna lead to some Buddhist aphorism I don't wanna hear?

• Sonny Vaccaro : I mean if we're going to make it, we gotta take risks.

  Rob Strasser : Spoken like a man without a seven-year-old on Sunday afternoon.

• Sonny Vaccaro : I can tell him the one thing the other companies can't compete with. Our basketball division is fucking terrible.

  Rob Strasser : I do not love it.

• David Falk : [Falk has learned that Vaccaro visited the Jordan family in person]  You know, my job is to protect Michael and his family from people like you. When you go around me, you make me look ineffectual. And if you end up signing him, it makes me look irrelevant. Now, that's the worst thing you can do to an agent.

  Sonny Vaccaro : Look, if your irrelevance is becoming self-evident to your client, I don't see how that's my fault. I think that's maybe something you should take up with your therapist.

  David Falk : You don't wanna talk to my therapist. You don't wanna have a life half as fuckin' miserable as my therapist. But you're giving me no choice. Because now, after what you did, unless you make some fuckin' miracle dream deal with the Jordans, unless you stop making that fuckin' Air Sole and start making the entire company Air Fuckin' Michael Jordan... I'll bury you alive, and light you on fire, and dance and piss on your grave, and fuck the eye-hole of your skull!

  Sonny Vaccaro : You're right, I don't wanna be your therapist.

• David Falk : You wanna fuck with me? You fuckin' herpes simplex two motherfucker!

  Sonny Vaccaro : You know, the fact that you know there's a second simplex of herpes makes me think that you might have it, David.

  David Falk : Of course I do. Everyone has herpes. You know why you don't Sonny? Because no one will fuck you. No one!