De uma entrevista com Gavin O'Connor , o escritor e diretor do filme:
The Tommy character reminded me in some ways of Mark Kerr, who was the subject of one of your documentaries, The Smashing Machine. How much did your experience from that production inform the sensibility of Warrior?
Smashing Machine was my introduction to the sport and the fighters in the sport. But since that film, I've met so many fighters and have been to so many fights and watched so many fights that that was just part of the DNA of what I was doing. I'm sure there's a page out of a lot of even boxers' lives, and people I know, that have sort of infiltrated the script.
If you're referring to the pills ... now that you mention it, probably unconsciously. The whole intent with Tommy was, he was coming home to see his father -- but he was coming home to see the father that he knew when he left, which was a man who was a drunk.
No documentário (link acima), o lutador, Mark Kerr, está ligado a analgésicos prescritos (opiáceos). Embora a referência não nos diga claramente que Tommy está usando analgésicos, é um indicador razoavelmente bom nessa direção. Todos os problemas familiares que Tommy teve, bem como sua experiência nos fuzileiros navais, podem explicar por que / como ele se tornou viciado neles. É útil notar que os opiáceos, além de aliviar a dor, também promovem uma sensação de bem-estar e euforia.
O abuso de analgésicos prescritos é bastante generalizado hoje em dia em todos os estratos da sociedade.