Purely for sporting reasons alone, Jim Thorpe should be mentioned in the same breath as the likes Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Danny Ainge and Michael Jordan. History Channel shines a light on this legendary figure with a two-hour documentary Jim Thorpe: Lit by Lightning which premieres July 7. Directed by Chris Eyre (Dark Winds), the project from executive producers including LeBron James offers a comprehensive exploration into the life and legacy of one of the best all-around athletes ever, who because a cultural icon.

Thorpe excelled at sports from his early days as a star football player for the Carlisle Indian School at the start of the 1900s, before becoming a pioneer on and off the gridiron for the NFL. He was the first Native American Olympic gold medalist and an MLB player for six seasons. He accomplished all this at a time when classism and racial strife were very much alive. The Sac and Fox Nation member even appeared in movies and became a source of inspiration to so many. 

In 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to reinstate him as the sole winner of the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Summer Olympics. He had previously been stripped of his medals because he had played two seasons of semi-pro baseball, thus breaking the then rule that Olympic athletes must be amateurs. In 2024, Thorpe, who died of heart failure in 1953, was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

Here Eyre opens up about the importance of this project. The Dark Winds EP/director also gives us early Season 4 teases from set, including working with Bosch star Titus Welliver. 

What kind of pressure did you feel to tell Thorpe’s story in an authentic way? 

Chris Eyre: There was pressure to get it right. My method was to stick to Jim Thorpe’s victories. I read a lot of newspaper articles that said he was a tragic figure. That he had all these hardships post-athletics. If you dig into his past online, you see some of that. But the real responsibility was I felt like his name was being lost. I was talking to some Native American youth and brought up the name Pearl Jam. I think they asked, “Who is that?” I said to myself, “Oh no.” We were talking a little bit later, and I said, “Jim Thorpe, you know him?” They didn’t know who Jim Thorpe was. I said to myself, “Anything I can do on Jim Thorpe, I would do.” This came around through LeBron James and Uninterrupted and History. I said, “I’m in no matter what.” The responsibility was how do you try to tell this epic life in two hours. This could have been a five-part series. It could be a feature film, which we are working on getting made. It’s an epic life. It’s an epic tale of someone who perseveres and keeps doing. 

The admiration I have for him as a Native American, I just didn’t want his name to be lost in the business. Then to have a GOAT like LeBron James endorse this movie and produce by saying Jim Thorpe is a GOAT, but not only that but one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. The fact he persevered and won and kept going and winning. Ironically, in 1912 when they were doing ticker-tape parades about him on the East Coast, he wasn’t even a United States citizen because he was Native American. Think of that irony. Twelve years before Native American people were regarded as U.S. citizens, he won the Olympics and was celebrated as an American athlete in parades in New York and Pennsylvania, but he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. Yet we claimed him as such. I just think his name should never be lost. For young people especially, they should know the name Pearl Jam. More importantly, they should know the name Jim Thorpe. It was that kind of realization that I grew up knowing who Jim Thorpe was. In this age of massive information and internet and social media, I think we’re also losing some aspects of interest and history. That’s why I’m happy to do this. 

The timing couldn’t be any more perfect as he was just recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom along with his Olympic medals reinstated to him in recent years. Not to mention what is going on in our world today. 

You know the history just citing those two things. In 2022, his medals were reinstated with him as the sole winner of those events. That was a hundred and something he won the medals posthumously. Then he got the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year from President [Joe] Biden and that administration. It is very timely we recount where we’ve been and where we’re going. The stories are what really make us American. He is an incredible sum of the parts of this country that make America great because he is one of the most enduring, tenacious Americans in sports history. 

You mentioned celebrating the victories and only having so much time, talk about your decision to not focus  much on the family side. We see that explored a bit toward the end, but was that by design? 

Absolutely it was by design. When you talk about how do you get this story right, you get the story right by going back to the basics of why is his name remembered. There were a lot of things that happened in the epic life of Jim Thorpe that would have been mistakes or the trivial things that happen with people in which their name is tarnished. In my telling of Jim Thorpe as a native person, I’m most interested in why his name is celebrated and revered. That was the very first choice everyone supported me in. It was really let’s tell the story about the positive nature of his successes and why his name should never be forgotten. You could get into the expose of anyone, especially athletes and celebrities. He existed before there was any celebrity athletes.

He existed before the onset of money being the commanding thing in sports. Basically, he was an advance of both of those things. You look at it and think, “Well, why did he do it?” You say, He did it for the love of sports, but more importantly, when you talk about his history, he was a boy who lost his twin brother at 9. He lost both parents by 11. He was forced to a boarding he ran away from and finally got so far away at Carlisle that he couldn’t go home. He probably would have died or made it somehow. He chose athletics. You wonder how people become who they are. He became who he was because he didn’t quit. I think above everything, when he learned to play baseball, a ballroom dancer, when he won the decathlon and pentathlon. He was the first president of what would become the National Football League. When he played with the Canton Bulldogs and won nine titles in professional football. His life was epic. 

Even acting. 

He was in a hundred movies. He had a movie made about his life in 1953, The All American played by Burt Lancaster which needs to be remade and of which I’m working to remake. It’s an epic life that conjures the celebration of the human spirit. He deserves to have his name recounted over and over as an inspiration to other people. 

Chris Eyre (Michael Moriatis / AMC)

What kind of feedback have you gotten from his relatives? 

I’ve gotten really great feedback. I’m in touch with Teresa Thorpe, his granddaughter. She is very excited and sent me a lot of accolades because people should know his name. They don’t want his name to be forgotten. One of the more interesting things that happened was that my casting director called me and said, “You have to see this guy.” This was for the part of Jim Thorpe and the recreations. He looked exactly like Jim Thorpe, and that was amazing. I said, “Can he act?” She said, “He can act.” Here’s the big thing though. She said, “He is also Sac and Fox Indian like Jim Thorpe was.” I said, ‘Are you kidding me?” What are the odds of that? I felt in that moment it was serendipitous of note. That Jim Thorpe’s name “Bright Path,” where there was something happened. Dukon Harris is the gentleman who plays him. He is an artist who lives in Oklahoma and was cast to play Jim Thorpe. He is great in the movie. It was one of those incredible connective tissues to the tribe and Jim Thorpe that he is from the same place. 

With this project and working on projects such as Dark Winds, what does it mean to you to see roles that aren’t necessarily Indian archtypes but characters that are beyond that?

I think it’s great because people are complicated. I think for me as a filmmaker, I’m always looking at the gray and not the black and white of it. When you get to Emma and Joe Leaphorn, they are fully realized three-dimensional characters because they have norms to them and secrets and all sorts of interesting things. They are breaking up in Dark Winds, and I’m hopeful they get back together. I’m more interested in the gray areas like with Jim Thorpe and characters and not what’s on the nose of what it is to be Indian. What it is to be Indian is amorphous, enigmatic. One of the greatest points of pride when I’m telling Native American stories is that they are so complicated. We look at things like Killers of the Flower Moon or Dark Winds or Reservation Dogs. When you do it right, it has such incredible complicated human value and spirit to it that it creates the best stories. 

I know you’re working on Dark Winds Season 4 now. What can you tease about that? How is it having Titus Welliver in this upcoming season? People know him from Bosch. Here he gets to play a more bad guy. 

I just directed Titus and Zahn [McClarnon] in a scene. It flew off the page because those guys are so incredible together. It was like watching two wolves in a room and they were both alphas that kind of balanced out to this incredible equality where they just hold their own space. It was a joy to watch Titus and Joe Leaphorn act together. I’m excited for people to see that in Season 4. Just in a joking way here, but all these things come together. I’ve heard a rumor that Joe Leaphorn’s favorite athlete is Jim Thorpe. 

Jim Thorpe: Lit By Lightning premiere, July 7, 8/7c, History Channel