The tennis pro plunked down on a folding chair in the shade beside the Jewish Community Center’s tennis courts. He looked sweaty and exhausted from a morning in the hot sun.
He also looked familiar. That’s because the rugged-looking guy in tennis whites was Josh Hopkins, from “Cougar Town,” “The Perfect Storm” and dozens of other television shows and movies.
There were also lots of people rushing around with walkie-talkies, and many more lights and scrims than usual out on the tennis courts. It was day three of filming on an independent movie called “Tan Lines,” a comedy written by Louisville author (and tennis instructor) James Markert.
What had brought Hopkins to a film shot at the Louisville JCC?
“I’ve been a football player, a baseball player, but I wanted to add this,” he said. “My window was closing on tennis pro. I might be strictly coaches from here on out, but I wanted to have one more shot at the glory.”
Something about Hopkins’ squint suggested that he was being ironic. In fact, the Louisville shoot was one of the things that drew him to the film — he grew up in Lexington and worked as an apprentice at Actors Theatre of Louisville nearly two decades ago.
