Church Portrayal vs. Real-Life Struggles
00:00:00
Speaker
And that's one of these things that I think we've put this wall up as the church. We've put this, we need to sanitize things right when we go in. You know, we preach this idea of God loves us no matter what, but I also don't want to know all of your dirty laundry at the same time. It's like, you know, even in worship songs or, you know, Christian radio, it's like we use these vague terms of like,
00:00:18
Speaker
I sinned so much or I went so dark but it's like I can't know what that actual sin was or how dark it really got and I think for us like we with pastor's kid like and I guess I didn't really think about it honestly until my parents started bringing people from their church to screenings at theaters and I became like oh crap oh crap are they gonna
00:00:38
Speaker
going to be able to handle this thing because we didn't just take a step. We swung for the fences with the things that we talk about and the way that we show things. And it's been honestly very exciting to see people respond to it.
Filming Dynamics and Self-Perception
00:01:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Growing Up Christian. I'm Casey and I'm here by myself today. Sam just got back from a week's vacation and homework and work and all of that kind of stuff. He couldn't join me this evening, but that's okay because we're going to kind of keep it short anyways.
00:01:30
Speaker
Whenever I'm doing this with Sam, my little like monitor view of my webcam is really small. It's like up in the corner of the screen, you know? But since there's nobody else in the room, it's huge. And I just, I just realized like, I look like a little boy with like frosty white hair.
00:01:53
Speaker
I don't know if it's the lighting in here. I mean, it's partly because my hair is just so great. And, uh, I've always had kind of a baby face. So like, yeah, I just look like a toddler with, you know, a wavy Santa haircut. I was just telling April this week that, uh, when I was, when I was in elementary school, all growing up, I've always had like really curly hair and.
00:02:22
Speaker
I wanted in the worst way to have like bangs. I thought that bangs was just the coolest thing. I mean, you want whatever you can't have, right? So like people with straight hair always complain about how they want curly hair, which is really stupid and shut up.
00:02:38
Speaker
But I always wanted like straight hair. I wanted to be able to have bangs because I do have like a big forehead too. And I was very like self-conscious about it when I was a kid. But I mean, I just my dad always combed his hair like straight back. So that's what I did when I was younger. So I just had this like puffy wavy like fro type thing. And
00:03:05
Speaker
I hated it. You know, I wanted so bad to have that like Jonathan Taylor Thomas, the you know, the 90s like split down the middle, you know, the the the handsome son on home improvement sort of like hairdo.
Insecurities and Childhood Nicknames
00:03:21
Speaker
Lizzie McGuire's crush, not Gordo. I don't know. I want to say Steve Holt, but that's not right either. But nobody ever had that hairdo in real life.
00:03:33
Speaker
it was always just on like sitcoms and stuff. Like that's a Hollywood hairstyle. And then as you got older and resentful people who watch those shows like me started writing the next round of shows that became like the Hollywood bully haircut. Like if you have that haircut in a TV show between like 2007 and maybe like 2018, 2019, you're definitely like
00:04:04
Speaker
Like people on the show should watch their drinks around you. You're, you're definitely like frat boy energy, probably going to draw charges at some point. It's like the trust fund part. But yeah, I always, I never always had this like curly Afro type thing. And, uh, I remember there was a kid in my elementary school, maybe like third grade or something.
00:04:28
Speaker
And I think his name was Dustin. And he was like the real spazzy wild kid that was always doing, saying something wacky in the middle of class and everybody would laugh and stuff. But I remember he nicknamed me Forehead Guy. I was just like mortified.
00:04:52
Speaker
And I remember him just being like, like, oh, hey, forehead guy, let me kiss you beautiful forehead. He would say that all the time. And I would just like, uh, just shrink into myself. And that's why in that, that attitude of perpetuated like into college when the emo thing was big. And that's why I ended up doing like the, uh, dark and lovely chemical relaxer to try to get the like, uh,
00:05:21
Speaker
You know, the scene kids swoop to the side. It looked horrible. It was very like, burnt and awful looking. I've mentioned that before, but, uh, yeah, I don't know. Some people are like, you know, as you get older and your hair starts turning more gray, like it changes texture and maybe it'll go straight and it's, it's not, it's not happening. Now I don't care as much though. I mean, there comes a point in life where like, just having like a full head of hair.
00:05:50
Speaker
makes you like a good you have like you know three attractive points up on other people so like being five six is offset by the fact that I have hair and uh I don't know you know like being
00:06:11
Speaker
doughy is offset by the fact that I don't know. I managed to get a mortgage while interest rates were still 0%.
Aging and Health Philosophies
00:06:19
Speaker
So I'm actually, this might be my season, like early forties might be as good as it gets for me. And that's fine because probably late forties is when my body chemistry is going to start to catch up with me and I'm just going to deteriorate rapidly.
00:06:38
Speaker
like doctors are gonna start asking me how long I've smoked for and I'll have to be like, ah, I've never smoked. This is all like Diet Mountain Dew. Diet Mountain Dew and processed sugar are responsible for what you see on the inside. I'm gonna look like Krang.
00:07:00
Speaker
Like at some point here and, uh, I'm just going to go from being like, like everybody, like getting, I got carded at the movies, like, uh, probably five or six years ago, I got carded at the movie. I'm 36. And, uh, yeah, I had to show my ID to get into an arc to buy R rated movie passes. And I'm going to go from that to like gray haired baby to, uh, puddle a sludge.
00:07:30
Speaker
you know, boss from Star Wars in a hurry. Burn victim. Anyways, so we have this is a special episode.
00:07:44
Speaker
And it deserves a solid introduction here. So I'm going to do my best to take it on my own. But somebody reached out to us about a month and a half ago or something like that.
Introduction and Themes of 'Pastor's Kid'
00:07:59
Speaker
And they said, hey, we've got this movie coming out.
00:08:04
Speaker
You know, we're doing the promotion and stuff for it. We would love to, you know, have you guys talk to the filmmaker and, you know, discuss it. It's a faith-based movie, but it's kind of unconventional. It's not like a lot of, you know, what your mind conjures when you hear the term like faith-based movie or Christian movie, however you want to, you know, categorize it. And they offered to send us a screener, which
00:08:33
Speaker
That's like, like, I remember the first time I got bumped to first class when I was traveling a lot for work. And it's a, yeah, it's like a solid feeling. There's a definitely like a one-up sort of thing. It's like Mario eating a mushroom. That's what it feels like when you get upgraded to first class unexpectedly. And that's kind of what getting a screener feels like. You know, boys Bible study, those guys probably get screeners all the time. They're plugged in. They're, uh,
00:09:03
Speaker
you know, high society LA dudes that talk about movies. So people probably all want to send them screeners, I guess. But for us, this was a first. And, you know, hopefully the first of many to come. I mean, I would like to think that at some point, you know, our interview is going to be so well received that Kurt Cameron is going to reach out and offer to send us a screener and talk to us when I don't know, he makes a movie about
00:09:32
Speaker
You know, some sort of a rom-com about January 6th or whatever it is. That would be pretty cool. But yeah, it was fun to watch this movie ahead of time and to kind of like, you know, dissect it as you're watching it and sort of, you know, knowing that you're going to be talking to the creators and stuff about it. It was pretty exciting. So the movie is called Pasture's Kid.
00:09:54
Speaker
And our two guests this week are Benjamin Ironside Coppin, who's a award-winning writer and director, and he's kind of like the filmmaker behind this project.
00:10:09
Speaker
And Courtney Bandico, who's the lead actress. And she's done, she's done a bunch of different things. I was kind of looking at her IMDB page and she's been in, you know, quite a few TV shows and things like that. Legacies, All American, a couple of different movies and stuff.
00:10:31
Speaker
pretty accomplished actress and very good man. She was great in the film, but a pastor's kid. Let me just kind of read you the synopsis here because I think it's a, you kind of want to hear this going into the, uh, the, uh, interview and I'll, I'll try to do my best like movie, um, trailer narration sort of voice here.
00:10:56
Speaker
In this raw, true story of faith and redemption, college student Riley grapples with her identity after years of abuse and religious hypocrisy. She must face this painful past to find healing. And the kind of the thrust of the movie is that
00:11:17
Speaker
You know, Riley grew up in this really turbulent home. Her mom was an addict and, you know, just kind of lived like this really wild life of ups and downs, you know, while she was kids and she kind of raised her sister and stuff like that. At some point, her mom found faith in the church and she sort of had this like mea culpa moment where she
00:11:44
Speaker
you know, came to Jesus and turned her life around. And you know, that all sounds, how many of those kinds of stories have we sat through? Like if you grew up in the church, you probably sat through a lot of testimonies, right? Maybe you even gave your own slightly embellished testimony. Especially when you're like, you're 13 and you're expected to like get up and talk about what God's doing in your life. And you're like,
00:12:14
Speaker
I don't know, I like Transformers. But, you know, what you don't hear about a lot of times is like, okay, this person, yeah, they've gotten their life together in some form or another, right? But like, it doesn't change like the wake of destruction that they left behind them.
00:12:33
Speaker
when they were living wild, right? And when you have kids, I mean, that's especially true, right? If your kids have just been along for the ride while you, you know, blitz from place to place and, you know, partner to partner and things like that, you know, they may be a little less like in awe of your sudden like conversion and lifestyle change.
00:13:01
Speaker
And, you know, I mean, the church with it comes all sorts of things, you know, changes in behavior and stuff. And a lot of times people who come to the church from a turbulent background.
00:13:12
Speaker
I think there's, there's a lot of pressure and they really feel like they need to, hey, we're going to go all in and adopt all of these like conduct standards and ideas about morality and what you can do and what you can't do. And if you're, you know, a teenager watching your, your parent go through that and all of a sudden like, Hey, there's all these rules, but you know, uh, I don't know, three months ago, like.
00:13:40
Speaker
We were just here by ourselves, didn't know if you were alive or dead or coming back, you know, if you were going to bring food, clean drinking water. I don't know. So I've never really heard anybody tell a story from that perspective before, but it's really interesting when you think about the fact that like, yeah, behind all of these great like
00:14:01
Speaker
you know, turnaround stories, Christian or not, there's probably a bunch of people that had to live through the crappy, you know, the first part of that story. And, you know, maybe they're not ready to trust this person that they've put up with for so long. And that's kind of like at the core of this movie here, it's like,
00:14:23
Speaker
young girl getting out of the house, trying to find her way in college and stuff like that. And wrestling with the fact that her mom is all of a sudden like this religious minister and doing all this ministry stuff and all of a sudden cares a lot about what's going on in her life and stuff for the first time.
00:14:48
Speaker
You get the idea, but I think the movie really wrestles with some of those ideas in a cool way. And, um, you know, this movie is right at R, which another thing that you don't expect from a faith-based movie, right? Uh, but there, you know, we'll talk about it in the interview here, but.
00:15:09
Speaker
You know, these guys, they tried to reconstruct like what this would actually, what would this actually be like in real life? Not the cleaned up fairy tale, you know, Christian whitewashed version of what life outside the church looks like. We got plenty of that, right? What does this look like from a real person's perspective? And, you know, and I mean, people, people swear. That's, that's what it is, right?
00:15:38
Speaker
And that's just one example, but they really tried to paint an accurate picture of the world that Courtney's character Riley is living in and grappling with all this stuff in. It's a really good movie, and it's one that I highly recommend.
00:16:01
Speaker
I don't know. It was really cool. This was a cool experience to be a part of and to get to participate in in this way. Ben and Courtney are both really cool. We had a great time talking to them and sort of picking their brains about, you know, faith and religion and filmmaking and all of that kind of stuff.
00:16:25
Speaker
I don't know. It was just a great time. I'm glad, I'm glad that we got a chance to do it. So, um, I'll put links to, you know, I'll put a link to the film in the, uh, to where you can rent it and view it and stuff like that in the description for the podcast. And, uh, along with.
00:16:45
Speaker
you know, Benjamin and Courtney's social media and stuff like that. So follow them, watch Pastors Kid, and enjoy our conversation with Ben and Courtney. And we're back with our guests, Courtney and Ben. Thank you guys so much for joining us. Thanks for having us. Yeah, I'm excited to be on.
Creating Diverse Faith-Based Films
00:17:12
Speaker
Yeah, we've never gotten a movie screener before. It felt really important. Like I told my wife, I'm like, clear your calendar. We have to screen a movie, a film, I think I said. So it was fun. Dude, that's awesome. It feels like a real privilege. I feel like anytime you get to see or hear anything ahead of time, you get to just feel like you are, I mean, like, I don't...
00:17:37
Speaker
I know where I stand in society, but for a moment, it feels like I'm slightly elevated. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Like vice president. You're pretty high up there. Real coastal elite, you know, like a real coastal elite for a moment. That's awesome. Sorry, Casey. Did you just say pastor's kid was your date night?
00:17:56
Speaker
Yeah. It went well. I think I got lucky after. That's amazing. Great date night movie. Put your arm around, you know, when tears are coming, pat the shoulder, pat the back. There you go. Got it. We've been married for like 15 years. So we definitely have the old people recliners. Yes. So when you got to, when you got to like reach for the hand, you got to kind of.
00:18:25
Speaker
lean across and over the popcorn crumbs. You can't do it for long because it's just an exercise to keep your arm out like that. Yeah, that's amazing. It's very similar to, I Love Lucy, how they had two twin beds. Back when romance was alive on television, I missed those. Sleep back in machines. That's amazing.
00:18:47
Speaker
I do want to say, for me, and this might have been an outcome that was different than intended, but after watching the movie, I had to go out and try cocaine for the first time. It's awesome. I mean, it's awesome. Let's be real. It's great. How's the experience? You know what they always say, sin is great for a season. It's 10 out of 10. I see this lasting so many seasons, though. Yeah, it's got so many seasons. It's like maybe Sopranos level seasons. Oh, that's amazing. I don't know. We'll see.
00:19:15
Speaker
Well, thank you guys for watching the movie. That's awesome. We've been making time for it. Yeah, of course. Thank you for, uh, for joining us. Maybe survivor level seasons even. So, um, boy, when, uh, when you tell people that you're about a movie, like a Christian film or like a faith-based film that has an R rating.
00:19:42
Speaker
I feel like people don't know what to do with it. I've kind of like, you know, focus grouped it a little bit with some of my friends and stuff and nobody's real sure about that. And I think what you guys did is pretty unique. So I guess first question is, you know, why all the potty words?
00:20:01
Speaker
Why all the potty words? Dude, I think that's, and honestly, just to kind of address that a little bit, is it's been so tricky to label the film, to be honest with you, because it's like, it's simply like what I try to tell people is it's like, it's a regular movie, like just like envision like a regular movie that's about a faith journey. And, but as soon as you say that, it becomes the Christian movie, it becomes Kirk Cameron, it becomes all these things. And so even when we've been trying to tell people going into it, it's like,
00:20:28
Speaker
don't have any like presuppositions in your mind when you go into the film. You just let it be a film and don't be like comparing it to God's not dead or all these other things. Just go in and let it be a story, go along the journey. And so we've tried it, but it's so hard to navigate that because it's like you're putting the camp. I was even, I think we were on a podcast. I was talking to a friend and they're like,
00:20:50
Speaker
When a Jewish person makes a Jewish movie, it's not considered a Jewish movie. When a Muslim person makes a story about their Muslim faith, it's not called a Muslim movie. But because Christians have branded so much in this space, you're all of a sudden put into that box. And so that's been the tricky part as we've been presenting it around. Pastor's Kid is literally just the story of one of my friends. I had no idea this was their testimony.
00:21:17
Speaker
We ended up filming their story during for a rush church service. We had an Easter service and they're like, we need a video. And we filmed her story. And I had no idea this was her journey. And she's talking about, you know, the drugs, the cocaine, like all those beats that happened in the film are like real things that happened to her. And I'm like, holy crap, this would make an amazing movie. And so we just set out to make the most honest, like real version of that story that we could like tell. And we kind of were like, we don't really care
00:21:46
Speaker
If it fully like gets the full Christian audience, but we felt like there was this group, you know, I'm a, I'm a millennial Christian, you know, that's like, we watch all sorts of movies with all sorts of language. We want things feeling honest and real and authentic. And it's like, let's make something in that vein that we haven't seen before. I mean, short of like the controversy of the passion of the Christ.
00:22:05
Speaker
I don't remember a movie coming out that's like kind of stirred the pot as much as our little movie has with some of these discussions in these ways and I think that's exciting that you know you have some people that walk out feeling very seen and heard and you have some people walking out feeling offended but it's kind of like that's kind of what we set out to do so I don't know if that answers your question at all but yeah yeah
00:22:27
Speaker
Ben, I'd like to touch on a couple things that you just said about us being put into the Faithfilm box. And I never saw that as a negative thing. I think being in a box and having a niche that's wonderful and brilliant, the only thing
00:22:44
Speaker
about it was can we build another little box inside of that one or a branching off of the box and like can there be a different another kind of movie that does stuff a Different way because we've been having these discussions about there's faith and family and we love that genre it does amazing things and it represents a large section of the community, but then I
00:23:10
Speaker
We thought that there's this other subset of people that aren't seen by those movies at all. That they say that, hey, that's not my view of things. That's not the life I've lived. That's not the reality I've lived. It's not the people I know. So, hey, maybe there's this other kind of movie.
00:23:35
Speaker
And then Ben, you were saying about, you know, just wanting to depict reality. And so really, this is kind of how people, this is how people talk and how and like, why sanitize it in that way? How do we best honor your friend's story without telling it really how
00:23:59
Speaker
how it is, really how the friend, how that friend circle was really, you know, the reality of it. Yeah. And I think what's interesting to your point, Ben, about like a Jewish film or a Muslim film and them not getting branded that way and it being different for Christian films is they really did like, you know, I think the problem is so like the intent of a lot of Christian film is
00:24:24
Speaker
Despite it not being viewed by people outside of Christianity, it always feels like the intent is a form of evangelism or proselytizing. It's almost impossible
00:24:40
Speaker
almost. I think you can see it in movies like other movies like Doubt. I don't know if you guys know. Oh yeah. Doubt was Philip Seymour. That grapples with faith. Like I think you can see it in certain like films that touch on faith. But it's weird as soon as you do hit like a quote unquote Christian film. It's like they it's like for an audience that's not watching it but validated by the audience who is going. This is what I needed. And it's
00:25:06
Speaker
It just gets strange and feels like real like inside baseball sometimes if you're not if you're not part of that world or didn't grow up in it so much of it's just not even gonna make sense to you as an outsider.
00:25:20
Speaker
But so, Ben, I know, and I want to touch on it a little bit more, but I know that you did, you do have a Christian background. You grew up Christian. It sounds like you still, obviously, you still identify as Christian. Courtney, did you have, is your, do you have a faith background? What's your... Yeah, absolutely. I definitely grew up in the church, was raised Christian, went to church when I was younger. I will say, am I practicing Christian at the moment? No.
00:25:47
Speaker
However, I do consider myself deeply spiritual and I still borrow a lot from my part of my personal life from all denominations, I'll say, including Christianity. And I just think that Christianity under an umbrella is just, it has a beautiful, wonderful message. And I'll never say anything otherwise. Did you leave the church, Courtney, because you just wanted to sin so bad?
00:26:16
Speaker
That's a really good question. Amazing. I don't know. I don't know if it changed anything about the way I live my life or anything like that. Well, that's why I left. That's why I asked. I left so I could commit tax fraud. Yeah. I'm going to say white collar crimes is the worst of sins. I don't think it's my favorite month of the year. It's hilarious. Oh my gosh.
00:26:46
Speaker
My color crimes, I mean, is it even? It's really not even a crime anymore to do that. It's great. We've entered a new era of business. Everybody's doing it. Something I want to mention is my wife and I just watched the movie. It's Adam Sandler's new movie with his daughter called You're Not Invited to My Bar Mitzvah on Netflix. And the whole movie, she's like praying and talking to God. There's like a little voiceover where she's like talking to God as she's going through all these different things.
00:27:15
Speaker
And I watched that one, and it's a pretty good little movie, I'd suggest it. But I'm over here like, this is just, it is, it just is that she has this spirituality, she has this faith. It's not that it's trying to say everyone needs to be this faith or force it on you, but it's saying let's follow this character who has this faith as she's wrestling with God through this kind of, this friend ordeal she has. And I think that's where for us, like making Pastors Kid, that was kind of the goal was that the whole hope was that everyone could watch this film,
00:27:45
Speaker
and feel seen in some way and not feel like anything's being forced or pushed on them in some way. Does that make sense? For sure. And looking at your online profile, like you've been making movies for a little while, it looks like, from what I can tell, and I'd just love for you to kind of share a little bit of backdrop into your journey into filmmaking. Like faith-based film or Christian film, that doesn't look like that's always been something that you've
00:28:12
Speaker
done. So this is the kind of weave in and out of that. Yeah, yeah, no, I and that's this is our first like, quote unquote, very blunt Christian film, you know, faith story. And I think some of that, you know, I went to film school at a school out here in California called Biola. And it's a it's a Christian school that has like a film department, but you're also required to get like a Bible minor. So you're getting Bible and film. And it's it's a very interesting, interesting major in veggie tales. Yes. Yes.
00:28:40
Speaker
That was amazing. Yes, it was all veggie tales. It was a lot of Scorsese, actually. That was the one that was big on. And then Scott. Which makes sense. You know, Scott Derrickson, who does a lot of horror stuff, he went to Biola, too. He did, crap, Exorcism of Emily Rose, Doctor Strange. Oh, OK. Oh, gosh. That one with the phone, Black Phone recently, Sinister. But he had been a big Christian horror guy that was talking about how to do horror within the Christian, or horror with Christian themes and stuff.
00:29:10
Speaker
So it was, it was interesting in that, but it was kind of like taught at my school that it was like, you either go into the industry and you never talk about faith and you like be successful or you go and you work in a church and do video work and that those are your two options. And I always found that to be very frustrating because it's like,
00:29:26
Speaker
if that's part of someone's identity, and I think there's so many stories, especially within the church, in deconstruction, people being burnt, people walking away from the faith, and it's like these stories just aren't shared often, or when they're shared, they're done in this way that feels very one-dimensional. You make everyone a good guy and a bad guy instead of the depth of struggling with these things. And so I feel like going into Hollywood and working into Hollywood, I worked at Lionsgate, I worked at Sony, I've worked at a handful of really cool places,
00:29:57
Speaker
And I kind of did that thing where I hit it a little bit or like we'd make a horror film with some underlying themes or we'd make a project with some stuff. And then when I heard this testimony, that was the one where I was like, this is our story. Because for me, I saw the movie Moonlight that came out a few years back at One Best Picture.
00:30:14
Speaker
And it's basically the story of a gay black kid, a poor gay black kid in Florida, as he's struggling searching for his identity. And it's not bashing you over the head with propaganda. It's not forcing anything on you. It's simply, let's tell this kid's story. And I could not be, as a white suburbs kid that grew up middle class suburbs kid, I couldn't be any more different from this kid's journey. Yet I'm so connecting to his journey and the way that they're telling it.
00:30:43
Speaker
My wife and I basically watched that and we're like, this is the format to try to tell a story of someone wrestling with faith and not providing the answers. Moonlight does not provide the answers. It doesn't end with a bow. And that's kind of what we want to do with our film is kind of like when you watch it and at the end she maybe has an experience of another road she can take. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? You as the audience get to decide, you know, do you want her to continue down the trajectory or do you want her to take another path?
00:31:11
Speaker
Courtney, for you, as someone who grew up in the church and then maybe still has a connection to Christianity and some of its ideals or messaging, but has left it in a technical sense, was playing this character who's going through that faith journey like a weird re-visitation for you? Yeah, what?
00:31:35
Speaker
No, that was it. Oh, interesting. Revisitation for you. Yeah. And so it was actually like a really great thing to revisit and re-explore because I mean, in the kind of acting I do, I do bring a lot of myself to it. And in order to do that, you have to examine what all that is. And so, you know, I think in the beginning I did a lot of introspection about, you know, everybody has a spiritual journey. What is mine? How do I use that one?
00:32:04
Speaker
to bring Riley's to life. And then, you know, I really think ultimately what the film did for me was, you know, obviously there was some cynicism, which Ben touches on that in the movie, like the voice of the cynics. It makes an appearance, which I think is very fair. Like everybody has a voice in the movie.
00:32:31
Speaker
still without telling you what to think, which I find very beautiful, Ben. But really I said, okay, Riley is struggling and wants that connection. And so the first thing I actually had to do was dismantle all the cynicism to get to somebody who deeply desires this connection and love. And then, and then just even objectively taking any
00:32:58
Speaker
any construct out of it, I think we all can identify with that desire to feel connected and loved at a very base level, no matter who you want that love from.
Acting, Introspection, and Spiritual Journeys
00:33:09
Speaker
And so that really just, you know,
00:33:13
Speaker
Just just like any journey. I think you take with a character if you want to go If you want to get real deep real universal and connected to it You do you leave changed you leave, you know You learn something from your character and then there's some you leave behind and then there's some you take with you and then That's just something that I kind of just kept which was hey this I left a more open-minded more loving with a bigger heart, you know which is
00:33:41
Speaker
something you pray for, I think. Sure. And then what was your, Courtney, your trajectory into the acting world? I'm curious about when that started for you. Dorky theater, kid.
00:34:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was a play that changed your life. You were in it and you're like, Oh, well, the first play I ever did. Okay. It was the Steven Greg one X I was in a one act play in high school. And then I played Shelby Eatonton Lachery.
00:34:16
Speaker
and Steel Magnolia as my sophomore year and my sister played my mother. And so the cast was perfect. So we looked a lot alike. So it was great. And then I don't know, I just, and then doing theater, like competitive, um, forensics style stuff in high school. And then, you know, it could, my life could have been a couple of different ways. I was also in the, in the band.
00:34:39
Speaker
I was in the percussion section, I did strings, I played the guitar and all that. I was just sort of this artsy fartsy music and not musical theater, music and theater kid. And then I just kind of couldn't get away from it really. Then I went off to college and then couldn't get away from it. Then I said, well,
00:35:02
Speaker
I guess I got to go to LA and then it just sort of, I think it's just, you know, found it when I was 16 and just kind of just never stopped. And then still on that journey of just, hey, just doing it. That's awesome. I feel like filmmaking is one of those industries that feels so foreign to most people. Um, like it's one, it's like,
00:35:24
Speaker
in maybe like two areas of the country, predominantly, like Georgia and growing in Georgia, but our Atlanta, the Atlanta area, I guess, but then like, in LA, and it's like, it's insular, it's foreign, it's only ever on your TV, you have no interaction with these, with people who are in that world. And it just seems like an impossible, it feels like an impossible world to break into. But there's, of course, you have like this A list, right? You're
00:35:52
Speaker
You know, if you're Robert Downey Jr. and you're like, oh, I've been in movies like forever, right? And he found his way into it. And you become those like...
00:35:59
Speaker
not like those people you go, they just seem like completely untouchable, but there is an entire industry going on underneath them where it's just like people are making movies, people are putting their heart and soul in, I mean, even their finances on the line for these things. And I don't know, I feel like it's such a cool industry, but feels so disconnected, like people feel so disconnected from it. Like what was it for both of you, I guess that made you feel like I can just fucking do this if I want to.
00:36:31
Speaker
It's not with you, Ben. Go ahead. Yeah. I think for us, the big thing is, so we work in the commercial space is kind of where we make our money is we work primarily in beauty. We do a lot of big beauty companies. And so we've acquired a lot of gear over the years. And so that's where every year we try to make an independent feature film with the gear that we have, because we're able to, we'd have it in the garage right here, right next to me, where we can go kind of make a movie.
00:36:55
Speaker
And so that's even with pastor's kid. It's like, you know, our crew was like seven people, something like that. Courtney was like that. It was very, very small, very, very intimate. You know, my wife and I wrote it together. You know, she produced on it. We had another producer friend that came on board. I shot the film.
00:37:12
Speaker
as well and so we're able to just be kind of small and intimate and my big thing is like even over story even over everything is just performance is it's like how do we get authentic feeling performances and that's just what like that's my like drive is like you know story is great and I love having stories and having a decent script to follow but
00:37:31
Speaker
if you don't believe those characters are really who they are, it just doesn't work. And so that's where even finding Courtney is like, this movie is literally all on her shoulders. Like, even if you're not like interested in the faith discussion, if you're looking for like a solid performance piece of like a character just getting put through the ringer and wrestling with these things, I feel like the film holds its own in that regard because she just has so much depth in what she brings to the story. So yeah,
00:37:58
Speaker
you know that's that i love that kind of smaller intimate approach in making films and that's really cool yeah courtney did amazing so thank you um i guess i mean i feel like i hear this all the time but it genuinely is my answer too is just i don't know if anything ever was like i can do this it's just
00:38:20
Speaker
It just, it's the thing that just made all the sense in the world of, hey, I'm gonna do this. There's nothing else I can...
Passion and Challenges in Filmmaking
00:38:31
Speaker
want to do so I'm going to do this and then you know and then it's just it's strange because yeah stuff gets scary you know when you're kind of almost going broke and stuff but like the the you know the mountain itself that you're trying to climb that's kind of never been scary because it's sort of like it's just always just sort of made sense to me and I think
00:38:57
Speaker
you know, if I have anything to offer as far as wisdom goes is that that's probably, yeah, if you can't find anything else, then this is you're probably in the right, the right arena, then that's awesome. Yeah, so there's a, you know, on a lot of what we end up talking about on this show is like Christian culture, which is, you know, you guys both grew up in and, um,
00:39:25
Speaker
One of the things that we've joked about over the years is, you know, we've all like as kids been sitting in church and there was like somebody that got up to, you know, do a special, you know, speech or something where they would like share their testimony. And there was a tendency for like,
00:39:47
Speaker
For men who got up and did that, like the wilder the story, the better. Oh, yeah. Right. It was a lot of like, oh, it was sex and drugs. And I was in the Hell's Angels. So many women, so, so many women. It was just terrible. But so many. No, I talk about that all the time. 100%. Not women, though. I did all the drugs. Yes, yes, yes.
00:40:11
Speaker
So women kind of always had to... It's true. I feel like if a woman got up and said similar things like, oh, I slept with a bunch of people and I did a bunch of drugs and stuff, that wouldn't have been regarded as welcome. It was dangerous in some way or something. Maybe not dangerous in the word, but... It's like social sabotage to a degree. Yeah.
00:40:38
Speaker
It just wasn't something that they wanted to hear from women on in that forum, you know, like, is that something that you guys had in mind when you told this story that like, you know, you're talking about a young woman that's doing, you know, that's experimenting with drugs and things like that.
00:40:55
Speaker
You know, I think for me, it was just one of these things. I was surprised to hear my friend's story that this is what happened. I really didn't think too much of it being a male or female story, but what's been insane on the flip side is as the film, we've been screening it for different people and having different people watch it.
00:41:13
Speaker
kind of conservative Midwest, you know, grandma types, you know, 50s, 60s range, watch the film, we let them know ahead of time, like, Hey, this is raw. Hey, this is our this is why we did it. And we got scored really high by most of them funny enough.
00:41:29
Speaker
And they were like, I knew a Riley growing up, or I knew a Sarah, or I did these things. And they felt afterwards like they could start sharing some of the stuff that they'd been through that they didn't have to put up that wall anymore. And so it's been very interesting as we've released the film to see how different groups have responded to it in ways that I wouldn't have expected sometimes, you know,
00:41:49
Speaker
We were in theaters for two weeks and there was an older man at a screening at my parents church in Indiana or not at their church but some people from their church went to the theater and there was an older guy in his 60s that was he was just bawling completely bawling afterwards after the film and just like could not like uncontrollably could not get it together like after watching the film and that's one of these things that I think
00:42:12
Speaker
We've put this wall up as the church. We've put this we need to sanitize things right when we go in. You know, we preach this idea of God loves us no matter what, but I also don't want to know all of your dirty laundry at the same time. It's like, you know, even in worship songs or, you know, Christian radio, it's like we use these vague terms of like,
00:42:28
Speaker
I sinned so much or I went so dark, but it's like I can't know what that actual sin was or how dark it really got. And I think for us, like we with pastor's kid, like, and I guess I didn't really think about it, honestly, until my parents started bringing people from their church to screenings at theaters and I became like, oh crap, oh crap, are they gonna
00:42:47
Speaker
able to handle this thing because it's so we didn't just take a step we swung for the fences with the things that we talk about and the way that we show things and and it's been honestly very exciting to see people respond to it so yeah but yeah yeah and I always wonder what what that's about you know I this I there this whole
00:43:12
Speaker
list of things that we don't want to hear about, that we don't want to talk about, but I just think how many missed opportunities do we have by
00:43:26
Speaker
by doing that, by really hearing somebody and seeing somebody and listening to them. I personally feel there's just so much opportunity there if we're willing to look, because there's so much we don't know. And then
00:43:45
Speaker
And then I've always and then I said this earlier that I think that the message of Christianity in the Christian community is just ultimately one of the just incredible community and incredible empathy. And but there were missing something by not wanting to look.
Church's Sanitization and Sin Perception
00:44:04
Speaker
If that makes sense. It does. It feels like, so I mean, I'll at least harp on the word sin for a moment. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what people get like concerned about as though there's like this idea that like you can like within Christianity, I think I would say it wasn't necessarily said, but in something I experienced growing up in the churches that like you can
00:44:28
Speaker
Yeah, God's love is unconditional, but it feels like the concern is personally offending God in some way. Yeah. I think that's what's really tiresome about this word. I did this in college too. There's a lot of time spent on trying to decide what
00:44:49
Speaker
Sin is and I think this permeates human history to you go through even if you look through the like the Old Testament or the Jewish scriptures way you like to call it you go you just look at the way that throughout History throughout Judaism. There's been a conversation of like alright, so you can't work on Sunday now We have to sit down and figure out what we're or Saturday day. Whatever. Yeah What work is?
00:45:13
Speaker
is work turning your lights on and off. And you have to be in this constant conversation. And that could be an act of reverence, but it also just could delve straight into legalism. And I think my experience was often legalism. It goes, this is sin. We've labeled this sin. Now it's something that you can't do because it's bad, because it's bad, because it hurts.
00:45:33
Speaker
god's feelings maybe or maybe they go because it's unhealthy for you but it never felt like the you was the concern it was like you setting yourself up as a pariah uh you setting yourself up as someone who's opposed uh to christianity um and perhaps even this idea that
00:45:51
Speaker
If our beliefs are true and God is supposedly working through all the people here, if you go down that road, it kind of calls into question what kind of work God's doing and the people who claim to...
00:46:03
Speaker
to be Christian. So I think there's a lot there. And I think that you taking the time in your film to just allow that to be what it is. And you can see, you know, maybe it's just like a fun thing to maybe doing Coke was a fun thing to do on a Saturday when you were in college. Maybe it destroyed your life. I watched it with people drinking, you go, right, you're now 22, you're about to graduate, and you're like,
00:46:26
Speaker
You kind of start looking at your friends going you are doing it for fun and your life is yeah yeah in jeopardy if you keep going down this road and you really do you have to like sort it out on a individual basis and i think i'm talking too much but it's not here it's like.
00:46:44
Speaker
Is who's it about who's it ultimately about and i think that you you kind of side step. What in your film the activities that people are engaging in and actually just make it about the individuals involved.
00:47:00
Speaker
Well, that's the hope too is like, even as we're filming it, we didn't want to damn anybody is we wanted everybody to end. We had so many characters that you could so easily be like, oh, like this is the pothead friend who's making all, you know, and he's just this guy or this, you know, the one that always gets me is the stepdad is, you know, he's yelling at her, you know, and says this. And we were very intentional about.
00:47:19
Speaker
you know, him taking a beat and apologizing and not just letting him be like, oh, now he's angry religious stepdad. We're going to call him that. And then her friend, you know, Tim or Lance, you know, even who's this this boyfriend, you know what I mean? That's kind of just a side character. It's like how many times in like real life have you ended up one on one with your friend's friend and you're like awkwardly there and then all of a sudden I've had times where it's gotten deep with random people that you wouldn't have expected to get deep with.
00:47:44
Speaker
And so that's where we really tried to make it a human story. We tried to be very unjudgmental of people's lives and just say, Courtney's put the best way. She's like, it is, this is, this exists. How are you as the audience? Are you going to interpret that? Or what are you going to take away from it? As opposed to like, I think so much faith content is trying to bash people over the head with their message. Whereas ours, we wanted to just ask questions.
00:48:11
Speaker
and allow people to kind of pull away what they want to pull away. Yeah, and I feel like ultimately, if the message gets too complicated, it ultimately gets really diluted. If the message is, God loves you, God forgives you, God's here for you. When you err, we are human, we make mistakes and we make wrong turns and all that, and it's not to glorify any of it. It's just say like, hey,
00:48:41
Speaker
we go on these journeys and then suddenly however long it's been, we can wake up and say, oh, how long have I been on the wrong path? I don't know. But then if there's not this opening, like, oh, well, I've been on this path for so long. Well, I guess I'm going to keep going because I don't see the other way. But now, if that person is heard, seen, there's so much opportunity there.
00:49:11
Speaker
I feel like one of the other cool things about how your story differentiates itself from a lot of like, you know, just the typical faith-based stuff that we've all seen in the past, you know, youth group movie type stuff or whatever, is that there's a tendency within
00:49:31
Speaker
You know, when you're given a nice, clean, clear cut testimony that like the people that were in your life at the point at which you were, you know, downtrodden or at your worst, or like you hadn't turned the corner and accepted God or whatever.
00:49:48
Speaker
Like they're kind of universally portrayed as like negative characters that you needed to distance yourself from like there's not really room for them to be decent people that were actually your friend and were good for you to be around.
00:50:04
Speaker
just you know not what you needed at the point in time or or maybe you just weren't hearing what they were trying to tell you or whatever but I think it's cool that like you know you kind of have like this uh you know group of characters around uh around yourself in the movie that like aren't necessarily you know cut from that same you know cloth of
00:50:29
Speaker
you know, Christian culture and stuff like that. But there's never the sense that they're like bad for you in the story. Like they're your friends, they're there for you. And, you know, when you need them and stuff like that, they had overall like positive, you know, uplifting advice to give you. It just wasn't like, hey, you need to get right with God, you know? And I think that's kind of cool because I mean, if we're being honest, like,
00:50:58
Speaker
It's just the idea that you're just going to cut all these people out of your life because, you know, I don't know, they drink on the weekends or something is cartoonish, you know? I think, you know, this whole idea that sin might be contagious if you're around it. I don't know about it just because it takes the onus off of the individual and their own autonomy about
00:51:23
Speaker
you know, how in line they are with their own values. I mean, I can certainly be around anything. And I can certainly hold tight to my moral code, my own one that I've assigned to the one that I've chosen to live by. And by no means is contagious because maybe I've always thought I've been thinking about this lately, about people who come into my life. And it might be me who needs to be in their life.
00:51:51
Speaker
for a sec, you know, cause I feel like we're always looking at like, okay, why is this person in my life? Why is this person here with it for a reason, a season or a lifetime, you know? But really I, I might need to be there for them, you know? So I don't know. And that's what Bill Gates said about visiting Epstein's Island. Oh, there you go. There you go. Everybody just jumps to the negative, you know? Maybe he was there to help those people.
00:52:21
Speaker
That's why. There you go. Right. Right. It is funny going back to like, I guess the same conversation. I do think it is. It's still hard that so I remember being in a church, being a kid, being people talking about how, you know, secular culture doesn't like that word. It makes
00:52:44
Speaker
for the law it's like whatever you just kind of use it to say this is good this is bad and then you kind of get older and i'm like oh i kind of get what they were talking what the culture the secular culture was talking about now because it's like again boiling these things down to like individual actions um
00:53:05
Speaker
I mean, there's things we universally understand is wrong, of course. You know, obviously harming individuals to certain things. Like there's something that everyone everywhere will just level on. Yeah, that's obviously wrong. But it feels like the bar for sin isn't just like a person's interpretation of wrong. And I don't I feel like
00:53:27
Speaker
You did like a good job of the film of like you didn't really address like the extent to which you addressed the actions of the people in the film was the extent to which it was harming their lives and their relationships with other people and I think You touched on that without having to talk about like the action itself being wrong versus The impact that's having on your really right the people around you. I think is a great
00:53:57
Speaker
a healthy delineation. And I think that intentionally, unintentionally, I think you made that in the film without without making it obvious. And I think of like, it's one of the things that connected to in the film even is like, the story of Riley and her mom is
00:54:16
Speaker
My grandfather was a very, he had his come to Jesus moment after half of his kids had grown up. So half of his kids get to experience him as this loving, kind, sweet man who stopped drinking and got his shit together. And then the other half of my dad's siblings would kind of struggle with their relationship with him up until the day he passed away.
00:54:37
Speaker
And I think that that's, I mean, all their experiences are valid, right? Forgiveness, the lack of forgiveness, the inability to forgive, the desire to forgive, like that's all part of the human experience. And I think
00:54:52
Speaker
having that narrative intertwined is really important. I think it's starting an important conversation and I don't think you tried to finish it or say that things have to go a certain way, but I think it starts an important conversation. Yeah, even like growing up, it's like, and I'm so glad that you mentioned that because like growing up we worked, my mom worked as kind of at-risk teens in a ministry. And we went to church with a few, you know, a couple of guys that were kind of in the ministry as a brother and sister and
00:55:19
Speaker
You know, the dad played keyboard in the church, right? Um, the dad had been a terrible drunk and you know, he would beat up the mom and threw her down the stairs multiple times, became a Christian, you know, and now here he's playing keyboards at the church. And so, you know, we were kind of working with these at-risk teens. They were in our group there. So we're getting the kind of behind the veil stories.
00:55:38
Speaker
and you know we're like you know why you know they were not wanting to go to church they were selling drugs at school you know all the all the stuff you know the the regular stuff drinking partying all the stuff and um and i remember basically them sharing like every time i walk down those stairs all i can see is mom sprawled out on those stairs that dad threw her down so when i go to church and i see him playing keyboard and playing worship music
00:56:00
Speaker
It doesn't do it for me. That doesn't fix what my experience was. And I think that's something that was so powerful about this story is that we all have had hypocritical run-ins with the church.
Past Experiences and Personal Faith
00:56:16
Speaker
I would say if you're raised in Western society, you've had a hypocritical run-in with someone who claims to be a Christian.
00:56:21
Speaker
And so there's kind of that story, and I think a lot of people, even in our comments as it was coming out, they're like, oh, this is gonna be your regular deconstruction story and blah, blah, blah. And I think what's cool about this testimony is it's elevated, is it's like it's elevating that experience of like no one saw her pain as her mom became this great Christian and this pastor. And I think that hopefully that's such a human aspect that whether it's dealing with the church or not, it's like people can relate to some aspect of that.
00:56:50
Speaker
But yeah, no, I'm really glad that you picked up on that because that's something that we really wanted to hit on is just because this person is saved doesn't mean it fixes the collateral damage around there. You know what I mean? It makes it about that individual person's story. Right. I kind of like AA elements, right? Where you're like, I recognize the damage I've done. I have found myself and I want to do better. And you can't hold it against anyone who's
00:57:16
Speaker
you know, if you were in the wake of their destruction, like, it's just, part of that's the acceptance, right? You just accept that and learn to live with the fact that you did damage relationships potentially beyond repair. But you can't let that hold you back from finding your path forward too. Well, and I think you start to see that. We talk about, you know, Riley has this trauma throughout the film that it's like,
00:57:41
Speaker
our movie, we've been telling people it's more of like a day in the life of film, right? There's not like a huge plot that's pushing everything forward. You know, I make a joke that in like a traditional faith film, she'd have been a drug addict at the beginning. And by minute 15, she'd be like saved and going and helping kids in another country.
00:57:57
Speaker
But our film, I really wanted to to not just let those traumas be washed over, but it's this idea that we're following her in this every day, you know, kind of boring life that she has in a way. And things are triggering these traumas that she has as a kid. You know, my mom has traumas. She grew up alcoholic family that became Christian and became super legalistic.
00:58:17
Speaker
At one point my mom had been in an orphanage as a child with both parents alive during Christmas. And so I remember growing up as a kid whenever we would go to like a store that was selling Christmas things or Christmas music with playing, I could see my mom have this flick in her mind where she got sad all of a sudden.
00:58:35
Speaker
And she'd be like, can we move on from the store? Can we get away? And that stuck with me growing up. Like later on, I found out the actual story of what had happened. And so that stuck with me that it's like you can be with someone in the normal, boring, everyday life, and these triggers are popping up constantly. And I wanted to make a film about that trauma and not just washing over it and making it easy that like, oh, I'm a Christian now, everything's good, or I have this and everything's good. It's like, no, like you have to process through that stuff. So.
00:59:04
Speaker
I have that reaction to my right, Kerry's voice too. I know, I'm telling you. When it kicks on at Thanksgiving, it just, you know, it really brings it back. Little October surprise. Get out of here. That's awesome. Oh, dude, I love it. So, you mentioned Kurt Cameron earlier.
00:59:24
Speaker
I would love to see like a rivalry break out. You guys could have a really cool thing going on. Can I read? I want to read you this real quick. We got a review that I want to read you real quick. It says, um, this movie is God's not dead. If it was good as in this was
00:59:46
Speaker
that mean god is dead so so where where where god's not dead if it was good as in it was made with love and empathy and not hateful arrogance so i'm just going to leave that and let people uh just just think what they think about that quote and uh
01:00:05
Speaker
But dude, honestly, what kills me is, you know, you're talking about these Christian films. It's like, OK, I'm going to pitch you right here. You're right. This God's not dead. But it's told honestly and lovingly with like a real interesting college student who's wrestling with his faith, an atheist professor who's really blunt about his thing and about his perspective. And they debate and they grow to respect each other. And at the end, they're having coffee with each other. Think like like Goodwill Hunting.
01:00:29
Speaker
But God's not dead. Like that is a great idea. But then you go and watch it. And I'm not going to comment too much on it because I don't want to get in trouble, but it is what it is. So, you know, well, we've commented on it enough. I've listened to you. Yeah. I like the same story, but maybe the student runs over.
01:00:53
Speaker
the atheist with his car oh there you go let's get blood on your hands yeah come on there's got to be something yeah either way the news boys show up at the end no matter what version it is it has to be that toast is burned but they sing breakfast instead there you go i love it oh man dude uh christians christians forever have been very excited to like find out
01:01:20
Speaker
that someone in prominent position, especially in Hollywood, is a Christian. Yep. Right. Pumped about it. You know, Mel Gibson's is the one that comes to mind. But John Voight, for some reason, they claim John Voight, even though he's just a crotchety old prick. Kanye West, man. Kanye West. Oh, wait. Oh, yeah. That's a good one to wrap your arms around. Kat Von D, we talked about it recently. Yeah, she's cool. She switched teams.
01:01:49
Speaker
And now she's, uh, now she's blacking out her entire body. That's full body blackface. So all of these, so there's been several celebrities that have announced like, uh, you know, that they've converted to Christianity or Catholicism, Catholicism. So boring. What, uh, what do you think is driving that? And who do you, you know, as being that you're on the
01:02:20
Speaker
If you're on the team, who are you hoping you guys draft next? Oh, me? Are you talking to me? Yeah. See, I don't like it. We're claiming Courtney. She's on our side. Okay, cool. Yeah, I don't like it. I feel that. I'm a very, I'm a welcome humble guest. There you go. I love it. Wait, I'm the outsider? Thanks, guys. I feel ostracized over here. She humbled herself like a good Christian, so I don't know, actually.
01:02:47
Speaker
I don't know. I haven't seen that in a while. So I hate how they like you're right. Anytime any celebrity mentions God, just even a vague idea of God, it's like Christians do eat it up and they're like they claim it as their own. Yeah. And you're over here just like, hey, guys, like maybe don't don't don't look to them for more like any moral character or don't put them on a pedestal. But if you really believe it, maybe just like
01:03:12
Speaker
read your Bible more and study about Jesus more but maybe don't put these guys up on this pedestal because it's like Kanye is the perfect one like I don't mean to be I'm not trying to rag on him I don't know where his faith journey is or where he's gonna land or whatnot but I remember when the Sunday services were happening in LA it's like all of my like Christian LA friends were like going to the Sunday services and they were like all about it I even know like a Christian movie that like used one of his songs like in their trailer
01:03:40
Speaker
and now you know other stuff has come out and you know now they're all of a sudden trying to distance and i'm just like why can't you just be like supportive of like whatever his journey takes be stoked on it but don't be like it's the same even with like a pastor it's like or are these hill song guys or any of these things you keep putting people on pedestals and then they fail and then you're all like sad about it and it's like maybe just don't put them on pedestals
01:04:02
Speaker
and focus on your own spiritual journey and your own faith. And if that can support you in some way, like a song, I still listen to some of Kanye's Jesus is King every once in a while. I listen to all my Christian hardcore. Half of those guys aren't Christians anymore. So it's like, it doesn't matter what their journey is. If it's growing me or making me think spiritually, then that's all that matters. So yeah, I hate that they put them up on pedestals because then they fall and everyone gets all crazy about it.
01:04:31
Speaker
It's like, just stop. Just stop. It's definitely been stages or, uh, you know, Rijks to Kanye's journey spiritually. And he's in the third, I think. Do you remember Jesus walks back in the day? I remember loving that. Even like the music video says like he's like angels popping up everywhere. And I love that as like a youth group kid, I was like, dude, this is legit, man. And it's just like, you know, just go along for the ride.
01:04:55
Speaker
I was all for him until he trashed George W. Bush. And Youngby was very upset about that. Oh, really? Really? Okay. Okay. He's gone through a journey. Yeah. He's really come full circle. It's incredible. And then another circle. You guys have any run-ins with one of our favorite people to talk about and is Katherine Crick. She's casting out demons in LA. I don't know if you guys have any use for that.
01:05:25
Speaker
that kind of technology. Who is that? How do I not know that? Catherine Crick, she was like, supposedly she went to LA to become an actor.
01:05:34
Speaker
Uh, that didn't work out. So she became a scam artist instead and started like casting demons. She got like big time saved and started, she just cast out demons outside and stuff. It's cool. Oh my gosh. I'm about to look that up. Yeah, it's crazy. There was, this is one of the funny things talking about like, um, you know, trying to make the movie like a, like a day in the life and make it accurate to like, like you said, like this is how people talk. And one of the things we joke about all the time is that, uh,
01:06:03
Speaker
Like you watch these videos on tiktok and stuff of these like ministers like casting demons out on the street and everything and these people like Scream and snarl and bark and stuff like that, but they think they never swear Oh
01:06:22
Speaker
It's hard to sell it. I mean that just shows you why we get in trouble with Christians wearing potty words and armor because even demons don't use potty words, so You end up in a in a herd of pigs jumping
01:06:41
Speaker
We know that's why Jesus did that. Yeah, it's so hard for me though, because it's like, and I don't want to rag too much on all the Christian films out there, but it's like, it's so hard for me because you show a life before Christ, right? Before Christ.
01:06:56
Speaker
It it's not as it's not too bad compared to like when then they accept they see the cross in the field and then all of a sudden everything's fixed. And you're kind of like what really changed? Because that's where it's just like what we're currently I talked about how so many Kirk Cameron type movies there's the cross in the field scene, you know, where it's like they go out to the field, they have their God experience and then they're changed.
01:07:16
Speaker
And in our movie, we have that same type scene. But it was real. It really happened in this girl's story. And so I was like, we're going to take it on. We're going to try to make it as authentic as possible when she has this moment. What will that be like? And that was a struggle for us. We had to figure out what that looked like.
01:07:39
Speaker
It was much more moving than Kirk Cameron doing that and then going and installing like covenant eyes on his computer. I have a couple of logistics questions. The first one. Did your friend actually have someone leave?
01:08:00
Speaker
a duffel bag of cocaine. Yes. On the front. No fucking way. Yes, absolutely. And we're filming like literally as that felt like the most unbelievable thing in the story. So I'm glad we addressed this. So people said that to me, too. They're like, now I'm like, you know, yes.
01:08:17
Speaker
So no joke, we filmed her testimony video at the church and then I asked her if I could make her movie, right? And so she came over me, we interviewed her for like four hours. She sat down and just like shared everything. And that was when she's just like, yeah, you know, and her drug dealer or supplier didn't have a nose because he'd done so much cocaine that his nose had rotted away.
01:08:36
Speaker
so it was like flat in on itself no joke and so i was literally trying to be like how do we visual effects like remove this guy's nose like but we just we couldn't figure out so just darkened it but she was just like yeah he dropped you know the reason why he liked her is because she wasn't an addict
01:08:51
Speaker
is that she could do just a little bit of coke and she would just like walk away from it. So he knew she wouldn't like steal her supplies, basically use her supplies. And so yeah, he basically had her on, she dealt for a long time and then he knocked on her door one day, dropped the duffel bag, said the feds are after me and my family and sprinted off. And I'm like, what was in the duffel bag? And she's like, whole bunch of coke and a whole bunch of cash. And she's just like telling it like it was like a normal Tuesday. Just like, yeah, it was just a bunch of drugs and cash. And I'm like,
01:09:17
Speaker
Are you kidding me? This is like our second act kickoff. It's like, what's she gonna do with these drugs? And I was like, what'd you do with it? And she's like, I sold it and we did it. It was just like no big deal. And I'm like, this is crazy. I was like, my immediate thought was like, if that happened, someone somewhere at some level would, you go breaking bad mode, right? Someone's coming looking for this. Like you can't just blow through a duffel bag of Coke and cash.
01:09:45
Speaker
And that's incredible. Yeah, that was the style. He was the dude. The guy just had a really he he was covering his tracks and he did a really good. Yeah. It's a true miracle. Yeah, I blame. Again, I true. That's the hidden miracle. That's where the footprints in the sand led him in the coke. It's just like a little coke footprints all over the place.
01:10:11
Speaker
Well, and so funny too, because even when she talks about her, even her like morality, like her like struggling with things, it was that she's like, I realized these friendships of mine were so parasitic, right? Where it's like, we'd be buddies, but I'm also their supplier. And so it was this like kind of parasitic relationship we had, and she started to feel guilty.
01:10:28
Speaker
because she's like over here, like looking on the outside and she's like, I'm not addicted to this or I can, I can walk away. But like you were even saying, you're like, I'm seeing my two friends over here get too deep and this friend get to me. And that was one of her first things that she was just like reflecting on the crap. Like I'm, I'm part of this, you know? So dude, that's so funny. That was the thing that stuck out though. And the second logistics question is when there's multiple scenes of people snorting Coke, are you, what are you using?
Realism in Filmmaking Techniques
01:10:56
Speaker
And are you really,
01:10:58
Speaker
Courtney, how are you making those lines disappear, Courtney? I started a pixie stick in college once and it was rough, so I can't imagine. I can't imagine. I probably wouldn't have been able to do that, but it was a vitamin B12 powder. Okay. Dang, you were wired afterwards.
01:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, no, we're very well supplemented. At the very least. Yeah, and we we did have to actually snort it up. However, funny enough, I was the worst one. Yeah. I was the worst. And it's funny. I was like, I'm the lead of this movie. How am I the worst?
01:11:36
Speaker
at this. And so we do takes, we'd go for a take and then I was to use this, but I'd go for a take and I'd be like, right. And then nothing would disappear. I'm like, really? That assured me they were usable together. We use every single usable one in the film. That's what we do. Every single usable one.
01:11:58
Speaker
You started doing bumps instead, or you'd stick it on your team. Yes. We had the resort. But the other characters, they were fine. They were doing a great job. I think Peyton and Lance, they were like, Peyton and Sam, I'm so sorry. They were doing great. But it's become my turn. And then the P-12 powder is still fully there. I'm like, ah, OK.
01:12:24
Speaker
You immediately sneeze and snot everywhere. Yeah, well, really, to get graphic, not complaining, Ben, but it was it would roll back down the back of your throat. Yeah. And that'd be kind of interesting because, you know, it kind of had a too cold, kind of to like swallow it. Yeah. Like a full five hour energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, five hour normal aid. Yeah.
01:12:53
Speaker
Dude, that's awesome. It looked real. Yeah, it looked good. It looked good on screen. B12 powder. Nobody would have guessed that it wasn't. I always was curious about that too. I've heard other people say that they did vitamin B12. It's interesting. I can't try that in case I like it. The B12. I actually got a vitamin B12 shot this week. I was at the doctor and they were like, you want us to put some
01:13:22
Speaker
some vitamin B in your, in the back of your arm. And I was like, absolutely I do. And.
01:13:29
Speaker
I can't have that around either. Do you need help? Do we need to talk about it now? You could talk about it here. It's safe. It's safe. I'm not doing a cocaine or anything, but I do run the risk of being one of those sad local news stories about a person overdosing on monster energy drinks. Oh, boy. That's even worse. That's the one part of it that's still in youth group.
01:13:56
Speaker
I've seriously like considered smoking because it would be less tacky than what I do. That's what Andrew did? He doesn't drink water. I'm just worried about, you know, a diabetes diagnosis. Well, he drinks sugar-free ones only, which are probably worse for you. It's too late in the game to start worrying about diabetes now.
01:14:26
Speaker
So, okay. If you, if you were to take any movie, right?
Reimagining Movies with Faith-Based Themes
01:14:34
Speaker
And you had to like, okay, your project is to take a movie that's already exists. And you're going to reshoot it with a faith based spin on it. What comes to mind as like the one that you would want to do? Transformers.
01:14:55
Speaker
I guess do you want is it supposed to be a good movie afterwards or are we trying to make something like cheesy Oh either or both. Oh boy. This is yeah. Do you want to ruin it or do you want to try to make it better? You could go in the house the jack-billed Oh Jack a pastor and you're good to go on that one, but
01:15:18
Speaker
Well, this is actually kind of funny because a lot of vampire movies are kind of crazy. Yeah, it would be really cool to see Blade sort of if the end of it was like
01:15:35
Speaker
God interviews I mean I know that's like deus ex machina. We don't like that in films, but like what if it was like that? What if it was the Pope? What if it's guys let's see if you get this reference. What if it's Bible man as blade?
01:15:54
Speaker
Oh, God. Did you ever hear of Bibleman? Oh, yeah. Actually, we had his Bibleman's daughter on the podcast. Aw, that's awesome, dude. I didn't taste that one. She had a cool story. She was super cool, yeah. Great. Growing up, what it was like growing up with all that. That's awesome.
01:16:12
Speaker
I mean, I do find that interesting. And I was thinking about that a lot, I think, just even just a couple of weeks ago, just like, Hey, you know, you know, vampire movies, they're, they're faith, they're faith based, because I watched vampires, like, it's, I think it's just called vampires. It's still, it has Stephen Baldwin in it. And
01:16:32
Speaker
It's got to be good. Yeah, well, I forgot the name of the lead actor, but it's just this old sort of grungy vampire movie. And that's it's, it's got Catholicism all over it. Yeah. So inherently, it's in that and the conjuring even that that it's in the church, like there's priests and Catholic, you know, and so it's always funny, like these spiritual, supernatural horror films, they they kind of circle.
01:17:01
Speaker
circle Catholicism and Christianity. But like, it'd be fun if they were like a little bit closer or even the people call the exorcist. Oh, yeah, film, because the priest in it, he is fully struggling with his faith.
01:17:20
Speaker
And he is fully like, will he leave the church? Will he stay in the church? What is all this? And so it's just, it's really sneaky. I thought a show that actually did a good job with this dynamic was Midnight Mass. I haven't watched it yet. Yeah. Oh, that was really good. It's fantastic. I mean, there's some parts where like conversations go on for a long time between people and it starts to like, you almost start to lose it a little bit. Like it feels like a forced.
01:17:49
Speaker
dialogue but overall I thought the way they they interacted with a faith element and what ultimately feels like a vampire it could be a monster story I I feel like it I feel like it's a vampire story that's my that was my thought on it when you get to the end but
01:18:08
Speaker
Here's mine. I'm going to give this one is and it's sort of done. I've we got hit up one time to do a Christian zombie movie of some kind. And I'm a big fan of like George Romero zombies like Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, all those like classical ones. But does this have anything to do with the COVID vaccine? No, no, no.
01:18:28
Speaker
Well, I mean if you are, but like I still think it would be legit and we've never seen this. I want to see Guillermo del Toro make a revelation movie. That's what I want to see. I want to see Guillermo del Toro with like freaking demons and angels fighting in the sky with like literal Jesus riding in on a horse with like blood and all the like all the creatures and stuff. We got to go to his he had like an art gallery in LA that we got to go to and they had the angel from
01:18:55
Speaker
One of the Hellboy movies has all the eyes on it and stuff. Yeah. Like legit. And I'm just like, I want to see Guillermo del Toro tackle some like or like the book of Ezekiel, like go to all those crazy Ezekiel angels with Guillermo
Potential Adaptations of Bible Stories
01:19:06
Speaker
del Toro. That's what I want. Movie adaptation of like this present darkness by a freak for Eddie. Oh, dude, that would be a big Guillermo on that. I'd watch it. Humans fighting in the air and Guillermo del Toro style would be epic, dude. Yeah. Courtney, you had said something. I totally missed it.
01:19:25
Speaker
Oh, what is it? I don't know. You're on the phone right now. Oh, yeah. Right now he has such a good idea. We've talked a good bit too about like just Bible stories, like one of my favorite entered for as far as like an entertaining story, I think would be like,
01:19:44
Speaker
What's his who did the Moses movie? Ridley Scott? Yeah, you're like people some Christians had a problem with that ultimately I thought it was it was I didn't love it. It's too long. I don't like movies usually anyway I don't watch a lot of them to be honest, but
01:19:59
Speaker
I was like, it's hard for me to watch two movies. That was the third movie I've watched this year. Not even in a year. I think in the past year, I've watched John Wick one through three. I still have to watch four.
01:20:18
Speaker
Pastors kid and oh man, oh, we're a wonderful company A bit of a cinephile to say or children's movies. I you know, I watch children's movies against my will I Shouldn't say against my will it's a pleasure. But yeah
01:20:35
Speaker
Watch, I feel like watching movies with your kids doesn't count as like watching movies. But anyway, what was I saying? Oh, Samson, you know, because he's just, I don't want people to make these stories Christian. If we're talking about like, good Bible stories, like don't make it, make it Jewish. Make it, like that's what they did with, with Noah. I said Moses. I meant Noah.
01:20:57
Speaker
but i like that idea and samson is like brutal and violent and he just kind of sucks the whole time forever and you're like just right just make that story i just want a 24 style exactly yes the green knight exactly 300 style i just want to see him kill 1 000 people with a donkey's jawbone that's what i want to see right
01:21:19
Speaker
And that's the thing is there's like so many like even like I enjoyed Noah I enjoyed aspects of Exodus gods and kings or some stuff that drives me crazy in it but it's like I love some of the questions that Noah asked and some of the things that it like brought in from other other perspectives other like Jewish Jewish points of view.
01:21:36
Speaker
Like, I want to see like, like Darren Aronofsky who did that, you know, he did, you know, Black Swan and all these other films. I want to see him do, do Job, like Job, just like a nihilistic, like dark story of this guy basically being, you know, beat to hell throughout this whole thing. But he has this reliance of a faith of some kind. You know what I mean? It's like, I already made the whale. Oh, there we go. Ooh.
01:22:05
Speaker
There's opportunities for this genre, for that world to just be, to do better and be
Human Stories in Faith Contexts
01:22:12
Speaker
better. And I think you guys are participating in that. So thank you. Dude. Thanks. Yeah. I think there's a hope that it's like, do you guys watch like, okay, it's my, the chosen at all. Have you seen any of the chosen? I haven't, I've been wanting to check it out. It seemed worth it.
01:22:27
Speaker
i would say is i was very defiant against the chosen for the longest time i was like i don't want to watch a jesus movie or show like you know i can barely handle a jesus movie for too long and the way i view it is if you ever watch the show friday night lights if you take the show friday night lights and set it in bible times that's kind of the chosen and so however you feel about that um you'll feel about that and so there's really good parts and there's some other parts that are just kind of slow and drawn out but it's trying to basically tell a character drama
01:22:55
Speaker
within the story of the Bible. There's literal moments that feel like Breaking Bad in it where like the Roman soldiers are coming to get Peter and then the next episode it like cuts away and it tells a completely different story and you're like left on this cliffhanger for like an episode or two and so I've been telling people like give it a shot like I had to do like a whole first like half of a season to really get into it but I like what they're doing you know I mean it's like they're they're trying to push things forward even like what was it Mark Wahlberg did one called Father Stu last year
01:23:22
Speaker
It was last year, two years ago, it was like an R-Rage film about this guy's story of faith. I'm like, I like what they're doing. Let's just keep pushing that envelope and tell some of these stories in ways that people who aren't of the faith can come and enjoy it and have a powerful experience. Instead of, like you're saying, preaching to the same audience, just puffing ourselves up. It's like these stories are human stories, so just tell them as human stories.
01:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Dude, you might get the chance to do that. Daily Wire might call you up to do the Kyle Rittenhouse biopic. Oh, no. I was laughing. After you finish your COVID zombie movie. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. That's amazing. Hitting Daily Wire next month. There you go. Both of you at the same time. Dude, uh. Well. Sign me up. Let me know. Courtney's on for all this. She's stuck to all this. Yeah. Yeah.
01:24:18
Speaker
Like, I want to have conversations. Whatever the conversation might be, it's great, you know? I love it. I love it. Well, man, we were, I'm so glad that we got to talk to you guys. Thank you so much for spending an afternoon with us here. And we really loved your movie. I mean, that was, I can't think of a
01:24:41
Speaker
a faith adjacent movie that got me thinking as much as yours did. And I really feel like you guys accomplished the goal that you talked about of just giving us a realistic view rather than the kind of whitewashed
01:24:59
Speaker
uh, church testimony version of events that, that, you know, it would, it would be easy to make out of a story like this. I think it's, it's real and it's impactful and it has a lot to say, and there's a lot to, to process and digest after the fact. And, uh, man, it's, it's great.
Movie Releases and Social Media Presence
01:25:19
Speaker
Where, where can people find it?
01:25:21
Speaker
Dude, thank you, man. Yeah, so we're still in what is today. We'll be out of theaters tomorrow. So we're still in a handful of theaters. It's Wednesday, March 27th. We're still in a couple of theaters, but we're out of theaters tomorrow and then we'll be on Amazon Prime probably in about a month. So yeah, sometime in April, we'll be up on Amazon for people to see. And guys, I just had to tell you, it's been so awesome to see people's responses to it because you have people who are of faith and people have been burnt by the church and people who are in a faith of any kind.
01:25:48
Speaker
Walking into this movie and they kind of all come out like you're saying like wrestling with some of these things and wrestling with these experiences Instead of like being offended or having something like pushed on them It's like they're talking about it and that that was the hope the whole time And so I'm so thankful that you guys watched it and got that kind of out of it. So yeah, absolutely man, dude. Oh Pastors kid the movie comm is where they can go and we'll have when it's up on the BOD stuff I'll have it all up there for people to check out. But yeah
01:26:18
Speaker
And do you guys have social media where people can follow you? Yeah. If people want to come hang out with me on the internet, I've got Instagram. It's just my last name with another OT at the end. B-A-N-D-E-K-O-O-T. And there's whispers of me making a TikTok, but I don't know. For now, it's Instagram and threads, is it?
01:26:43
Speaker
Dude, awesome. And then we're at Ironside Films as my company, so if you go check us down on there, it's just I-R-O-N-S-I-D-E Films, and that's, yeah, that's where we are. Excellent, well. Awesome, guys. Thanks everybody for listening. I'll put links to all of that down in the show notes here, and we will talk to you soon.