North Philadelphia Oscar winner directs true story 'Unstoppable'

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Born with only one leg, wrestler Anthony Robles' incredible, true story is now being told in the film "Unstoppable."

With this film, Oscar award-winning film editor, Northeast Philadelphia native, and Temple University alumnus William Goldenberg is making his directorial debut.

He says this story called to him.

"I've done everything in my career by instinct, and my instincts told me this is the one," he says. "I fell in love with the story and then met Anthony Robles. He's an incredible person. I've never been more impressed by somebody in my life. I thought once I met him, 'Okay, I'm doing this.'"

Jharrel Jerome plays Anthony Robles on his journey to becoming a national champion in college wrestling.

Goldenberg told me that he knew, in order to get this right, Jharrel and Anthony had to work as a team.

"I knew that I couldn't ever do the wrestling and as authentically as I wanted to unless Anthony did some of it," Goldenberg explains. "Anthony and Jharrel are both doing the wrestling, and through visual effects, we make it look like one person."

Goldenberg says he wanted Robles to be involved in every step of turning his story into a feature film.

"He was involved in everything from the screenwriting to picking Jharrel as the lead. He had something to say about it. We wanted to make sure they bonded because he trained Jharrel to wrestle."

Robles was offered a wrestling scholarship to Drexel University. He ended up staying in Arizona, but Goldenberg made sure his native Philadelphia was well represented in the story.

"The last day of the shooting was here in Philadelphia in April," he says, "and we shot that scene on the Art Museum steps. It was surreal."

A Temple University alumnus, Goldenberg says that's where he got bit by the film bug.

"Turns out I had an aptitude for it and things turned out pretty okay," he says.

An Oscar for film editing for "Argo"? We would agree.

"Yes, it's been pretty amazing," he laughs.

"Unstoppable" also stars Jennifer Lopez and Don Cheadle, among other big names.

It streams on Prime beginning January 16.