Kelley O’Hara On Executive Producing Her First Short Film ‘Ripe!’ and Keeping Teamwork Central After Her Professional Soccer Retirement

deadline.com:

Professional soccer player Kelley O’Hara has added executive producing to her resumé as she plays her last NWSL season before retiring from the sport.

Luke Anderson, a close college friend she met freshman year in the same dorm on the same hall, reached out to the two-time Women’s World Cup champion in February 2023 to ask for her partnership in backing Ripe!, a short film from directing duo Tusk — Olivia Mitchell and Kerry Furth.

Anderson co-founded the creative agency Juxtapose Studio, and the short will premiere June 8 at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival. “[Luke] signed on as an executive producer and was basically like, ‘I need to find somebody as a good partner in this.’ And when he thought about it in terms of somebody who understands queerness and football, he was like, I’m calling Kelley,’” O’Hara told Deadline. “So he called me.

I told my partner Kameryn [Stanhouse] about it, and she was really interested as well. We had a meeting with Luke and Tusk and they took us through the project and the short, and we got off the call and Kameryn, who knows a thing or two about creatives and pitches, and that sort of thing, was the like, ‘This is one of the best I’ve ever seen.