Thirty minutes into the Disney Channel movie “The Luck of the Irish,” teenager Kyle Johnson, who’s never had an off day, is playing the worst basketball game of his life.
The stakes are high — it’s the semifinals in the state tournament, and a win would put his basketball team in the championship game for the first time in school history.
With every misstep, turnover and airball, the crowd grows increasingly irate. Mr. Holloway, whose son is on the team, lets out his frustration on a bag of Emerald Isle potato chips. He dramatically crumples up the bag but then proceeds to delicately reopen it when he realizes there are still a few chips left.
“Take him out, coach!” he shouts while clutching his potato chips.
Kyle’s coach, meanwhile, isn’t doing much better. As the game progresses, he goes from sighing to wringing a towel to using the towel to wipe his sweaty face.
Mr. Holloway and the coach — played by Utah Jazz great Thurl Bailey and the late actor Stan Ellsworth (whose career included hosting the BYUtv show “American Ride”), respectively — have minor roles in the film. But the care and comedy they brought to their roles is a major reason why “The Luck of the Irish” remains popular, even 24 years after its release, according to director Paul Hoen.
“It’s such a pleasure as a director when you have somebody ... who’s not the lead of the movie, and you find them locally there, and they just turn it on. ... They’re all just there, taking it all so seriously,” he said with a laugh.
“Everybody who came to that movie came in wholeheartedly and committed 100% to their part — there isn’t any cringe factor in any of the actors,“ he continued. ”I think that’s what makes the movie so wonderful to watch.”
“The Luck of the Irish,” which premiered on the Disney Channel in March 2001, was Hoen’s first movie for the network. Filmed in Utah, it helped establish an extensive children’s programming career for the director — over the years, his work on the Disney Channel has included the popular “Zombies” movie franchise, “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” and the “Andi Mack” TV series.
But as the Los Angeles-based director reflects on “The Luck of the Irish” after more than two decades, the film still stands out as somewhat of a gold standard.
“It holds up, which is amazing to me. Some of the other movies I’ve done, I don’t know so much,” he joked.
‘The Luck of the Irish’ comes to life ... in Utah
Hoen vividly remembers sitting in his bed early one morning and beginning to flip through “The Luck of the Irish” script.
Somewhat to his surprise, as he read through the story of a teenager who discovers his Irish heritage and has to chase down an evil leprechaun to get his family’s good luck coin back, he was hooked.
“Kind of this page turner where you just got engrossed in the story for whatever reason, and it made you laugh,” he recalled. “So it was all on the page, and I always think that a good movie starts with the script.”
The director doesn’t have a connection to Irish culture — his ancestry is Italian and German — so he did a bit of research ahead of filming, which he said included a “deep dive into leprechauns.”
While the film does reference Irish folklore and mythology, Hoen said he initially wanted to include even more.
“I was sort of pushing it so it would have a little bit more of an ethnic kind of feel to it, like … what if the houses all looked like leprechaun houses with colored doors?” he said. “But the channel really wanted everything to kind of feel like in the suburbs. Just keep it real, real, real — don’t go turning it into like a village of leprechauns or anything like that, which I thought was quite wise and smart.”
Hoen eventually headed to Utah for filming. That may seem like an unlikely place for a movie called “The Luck of the Irish” — a 2024 American Community Survey placed Utah among the 10 least Irish states, per U.S. News and World Report — but Utah is a go-to spot for Disney Channel filming, he said.
“I think it offers on a sunny day, that blue sky kind of Disney, aspirational place to live,” said the director, who has filmed a number of projects in Utah over the years. “The people are all so nice, and it feels like a home to me.”
Filming brought “The Luck of the Irish” cast to Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper for the school scenes — Hoen called the Salt Lake City area “the land of the beautiful public schools” — and to Lagoon Amusement Park for the Irish festival where Kyle’s good luck coin is stolen.
Lagoon was actually closed at the time, Hoen said, and the crew had to pay to have certain rides open for the movie.
The ferris wheel looms large behind a group of Irish step dancers, and you can also catch glimpses of the Paratrooper, Samurai and Rocket rides throughout the scene.
Since “The Luck of the Irish” was his first movie for the Disney Channel, filming came with a steep learning curve for Hoen. He navigated unexpected weather issues — a rainy day put a dent in a car chase sequence — and learned to trust the instincts of his actors.
“I learned a lot on that movie,” he said.
As he spent most of his energy worried about making it through his first Disney film, he couldn’t have anticipated the success “The Luck of the Irish” would have — and just how wide-reaching it would be.
‘Sometimes you catch the magic’
Whenever he watches his movies back, Hoen will often find himself thinking about behind-the-scenes moments rather than the actual story playing out on the screen.
As a director, he’ll think about the weather the cast was navigating during a particular scene, or the staging or the camera angles.
But that doesn’t happen with “The Luck of the Irish.”
“I can actually watch it … and just sort of get immersed in the story,” he said. “That’s when movies really are magic, and that movie, for me, is very engaging. When I start to watch it, I just start to get sucked into the whole world of it all and the characters, and I laugh. I don’t feel my presence.”
And apparently viewers felt the same way.
While the network was fairly lukewarm about the film, Hoen said, it ended up being the highest-rated Disney Channel movie at the time (a few years later, the “High School Musical” franchise, also filmed in Utah, would surpass that record).
“They were shocked with the rating on how many people watched it, and how many people continue to watch it,” Hoen said.
The director himself has seen the film within the past year. And in the 24 years since the movie’s release, he said he’s had a number of people who grew up in that era of Disney Channel original movies approach him and share their love for “The Luck of the Irish.”
“That’s the thing about movies — sometimes you catch the magic and sometimes you don’t. I think we definitely captured the magic."
— "The Luck of the Irish" director Paul Hoen
Most recently, Hoen was in New Zealand filming “Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires,” the latest installment in the popular “Zombies” franchise that hits Disney+ this summer. When the crew went out for drinks to celebrate wrapping production, the director was surprised to find that the bartender was a fan of “The Luck of the Irish.”
“That’s the thing about movies — sometimes you catch the magic and sometimes you don’t," Hoen said, praising the “The Luck of the Irish” storyline, cast and crew. “I think we definitely captured the magic.”
The continuing popularity of ‘The Luck of the Irish’
“The Luck of the Irish” and other Disney Channel original movies at that time drew in a huge audience in part because children’s programming was more streamlined, Hoen said. Networks like the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon were the places to go if you were a kid.
“Now, with streaming, things are all sort of in an upheaval these days,” the director said. “The viewership on the channel is down, but you really realize what an impression Disney has made to all these kids from that time.”
But even as streaming platforms and viewing options continue to expand, “The Luck of the Irish,” which is on Disney+, continues to have staying power.
“I think in general, all Disney Channel movies at the time are very similar in the fact that they show somebody, a child, going through some challenge of identity and who they are, and in the end they discover, ‘Hey, no matter who I am, whether I like dancing or basketball or I’m a leprechaun, I’m still loved by my parents.’”
The film also celebrates the melting pot that is America, and embracing your heritage and family traditions — themes that continue to strike a chord today, Hoen said.
“It’s just what makes this country rich, and I think we’re all susceptible to feeling like, ‘Oh, do I belong? Do I fit in? Am I an important piece of this puzzle in my community?’ And I think it shows everybody that they are, in a lighthearted yet poignant way.”
With the success of “The Luck of the Irish” and other Disney Channel projects, Hoen found himself further entrenched in the world of children’s programming. The deeper he got, the harder it became to envision a career outside of it.
While he knew he wanted to be a film director, he wasn’t always convinced that movies for kids was his path — for a long time, he was tempted to branch out and take on projects catered to people his own age. But gradually, as he’s witnessed firsthand what movies like “The Luck of the Irish” has meant to kids, even well beyond their childhood, he’s changed his tune.
“You always sort of hope that in your career you can do something that matters,” he said. “What a gift it is to be able to direct children’s programming, and sort of be a teacher and be a mentor.
“I didn’t think at the time, filming ‘Luck of the Irish,’ that that would be life or my career,” he added. “I’m thankful. I’m thankful for Utah, I’m thankful for the whole experience, because it’s made a career for me. I totally am indebted to everybody there for it.”