There's something inherently funny about the sound of a paddle thwacking a pickleball. Filmmaker Jared Bonner, an avid player, knows better than most. Enthusiasts hear the high-pitched noise as a staccato song of social fitness. But to some bystanders vexed by courts near their homes, that incessant plastic popping is more like “the devil’s megaphone,” as a character hilariously puts it in Bonner’s new movie.
Noise complaints are just one cultural quirk of America’s fastest-growing sport played for laughs in Pickleheads, a mockumentary from writer/producer/star Bonner and director Josh Flanagan. The comedy will make its world premiere during the Austin Film Festival on Friday at the State Theatre.
In Pickleheads, Bonner plays a disgraced pingpong champ, lured out of hiding years after a humiliatingly scatalogical end to his career. With a score to settle, he seeks redemption through a new sport: pickleball.
It’s a local production. Bonner moved to Austin from Los Angeles in 2021, lured by good vibes and a change of creative scenery. Flanagan graduated from high school in Georgetown, attended the University of Texas and worked for years at Rooster Teeth, the influential (and now-closed) production studio. He made a pandemic-era move to L.A. but still spends part of his time here. The filmmakers shot Pickleheads in Austin and Dripping Springs, wrapping in January.
Those ties alone would make the Austin Film Festival a fitting launchpad, but also consider the pickleball mania gripping Central Texas. A 2024 report named Austin the country’s “pickleball capital,” citing thousands of active players in the metro area. Serious paddlers flock to dozens of state-of-the-art facilities, from Austin Pickle Ranch to Dreamland. The city parks department operates 20 public places to play. Austin’s even home to a Major League Pickleball team, the Texas Ranchers.
Bonner caught the pickleball bug through moviemaking, natch. He gained 30 pounds to star in his 2022 film, Dance Dads, (which, as the title implies, required a certain type of bod). After filming wrapped, he had trouble losing the weight. Then some friends invited him to grab a paddle.
“I became addicted instantly,” Bonner said. The pounds melted away in weeks.
A cinematic lightbulb went off. He’d never seen a feature-length narrative film about pickleball. Bonner imagined a mockumentary shot like The Office but inspired by Dodgeball and other nostalgic sports comedies. (Coincidentally, Apple TV+ recently announced its upcoming release of The Dink, a pickleball comedy produced by Ben Stiller.)
Bonner drummed up interest for the project by playing in a pickleball tournament as his mulleted character, Barney Bardot, at South Austin’s Bouldin Acres. He won. The stunt helped attract the attention of producer Ryan Cooper, who brought Flanagan on board. The director came in with scant pickleball know-how.
“I legitimately did not know the rules before we started filming,” Flanagan said.
While researching, Bonner met with players for the Texas Ranchers, ”which I didn't know existed before I started writing the film,” he said. Team co-founder Tim Klitch loved the idea for the movie. He let the crew shoot a climactic tournament scene at Austin Pickle Ranch, which he also co-owns. Klitch makes an on-screen cameo, playing himself.
Most of the film’s background actors came from the Austin pickleball community. Enthusiastic extras expressed mild disappointment when Flanagan instructed them merely to mime gameplay while the camera was rolling, so the mics could still pick up dialogue. Remember: the noise.
One of those background actors, Susie Cohen, found out about Pickleheads from a Facebook post. She picked up pickleball while living in Montana during the pandemic. Now, she plays on courts all around Austin and teaches private lessons.
Cohen always wanted to be an on-screen extra; she tried to get on the hit TV series Yellowstone back in Montana but didn’t make the cut. So, she eagerly helped fill a seat in the audience during Picklehead's tournament scene. At one point, she got to grab her paddle and help actors warm up.
“As a teacher, it's so accessible to people,” Cohen said. “I teach people from super young to super, super old. You can watch people go from zero to 60 in one lesson.”
Pickleheads also boasts a bit of star power. John O’Hurley, known for his role as J. Peterman on Seinfeld, plays a sports broadcaster in the film. And for the part of a pesky bank representative, Bonner envisioned someone like Harvey Guillén, star of the FX mockumentary series What We Do in the Shadows. It turned out producer Cooper actually knew Guillén, who flew in to join the cast.
Premiering at the Austin Film Festival marks a full-circle moment for the filmmakers. Bonner’s Dance Dads won the fest’s audience award for comedy in 2022, and years ago, it was the first film festival Flanagan ever attended. While he was a UT student, a screenwriter acquaintance scored Flanagan a ticket to see their friend’s film at the Paramount Theatre. That friend turned out to be director Shane Black, screening his 2005 neo-noir Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
“I was like, Oh, these are real people who do this,” Flanagan said. “The thing I'm trying to do is doable.”
That’s something filmmaking and pickleball have in common: Anyone can play.
“As inclusive as the sport is, we want to make the movie, as well,” Bonner said. “Pickleball is the most welcoming sport activity that there is, in my mind.”
