Bad Break Turns Out Good For Banks

Elizabeth Banks, who caught the eye of moviegoers in "Seabiscuit" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" is back in "Invincible," about a Philadelphia man's unlikely quest to play football for his hometown team.

Banks plays a New Yorker working in a bar where Vince Papale, portrayed by Mark Wahlberg, and his fellow Eagles fans hang out.

On The Early Show Monday, Banks raved, "It's a great family film for all ages. It's really inspirational. My 6- and 7-year-old niece and nephew saw it and really loved it."

"Invincible" tells the story of a struggling 30-year-old bartender who answers the call from then-new Eagles coach Dick Vermeil for anyone who so desires to try out for the struggling team. Against all odds, Papale makes the cut.

"Can you imagine?" Banks exclaimed to co-anchor Hannah Storm, "for anybody who is a sports fan and goes to the stadiums and watches their favorite players, then the next day ends up on the field, with their favorite players? It's an absolutely incredible story."

Sort of like a real-life "Rocky"?

"Vince is considered the true 'Rocky,' " Banks says." He's from south Philly. He ran the streets of Philadelphia and, when we were shooting the movie, Mark Wahlberg ran around the streets of Philly, and we were basically waiting for him to run up the stairs and do the jump!"

Banks says her interest in sports when she was young turned out to be valuable — it helped her spew football statistics like an old pro when the script called for them.

Sports had a hand in getting Banks into acting as well.

"I'm an actor because I broke my leg sliding into third base, and I needed something else to do after school," she says. "I played softball in my youth and I was a cheerleader and I played basketball, none of which I was particularly great at, but I loved softball, and I broke my leg sliding into third base, and subsequently spent the next year going, 'What am I gonna do?' And I spent the next year singing in school plays, and now I'm an actor. Who knew?"

Banks called the last scene she shot in the movie, her make-out scene with Wahlberg, "the cherry on top of a great experience" that also included camaraderie-boosting spitball contests among cast members in the bar where the movie was made.