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IWe first met John Corbett as the quirky radio deejay who loved to wax philosophical on the brilliant TV series, Northern Exposure. More recently, we've seen him as a hunky love interest in both My Big Fat Greek Wedding (with Nia Vardalos) and HBO's Sex and the City (with Sarah Jessica Parker). Now he's back in another "nice guy" role, playing a Lutheran pastor in the new romantic comedy, Raising Helen, which opens May 28 in theaters nationwide. In this interview, the enigmatic Corbett, 43, who grew up Catholic, says he's a born-again Christian who refuses to do nude scenes, claiming he didn't know Sex and the City was so "dirty" when he took the part. And yet he fesses up to a fondness for "cussing" in real life, including a propensity for using the "F-word way too much." At any rate, he's an interesting study …

John Corbett and Kate Hudson in Raising Helen

So, how much preparation did you need to play a priest?

John Corbett: Zero. Twelve years of Catholic school! I had a necktie on since I was five. I didn't know that Lutheran pastors could get married. I thought the collar meant "no," no can do. Anyway, I'm not Catholic anymore. I'm a born again Christian now.

You became Greek Orthodox in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Corbett: Yeah, but I'm a born again Christian now.

What does that mean to you?

Corbett: I went to 12 years of Catholic school and never read the Bible. Weird. I read the Bible for the first time when I accepted the Lord in 1986, when I was about 25 or 26. The Catholic Church had all this pomp and circumstance that just sort of left me in a daze. I ended up in a non-denominational church, where you have a fellow up there, he wasn't wearing anything fancy, and he was just sort of interpreting the Bible, and I liked that. That never happened in the Catholic church.

So, you're attending a non-denominational church now?

Corbett: No. Not anymore. I'm a guy who reads the Bible now. I don't go to church.

Is there a particular book or passage of the Bible that is meaningful to you?

Corbett: I like Revelation.

Why?

Corbett: I like sci-fi, I guess [laughter]. It is just really scary to me, man. Nothing scares me like the Book of Revelation.

Any other Bible stories intrigue you?

Corbett: Noah's Ark. I was listening to the radio the other day, and they were talking about these satellite photos that they just got from Mt. Ararat and what could be Noah's Ark. Then I looked through the papers and watched the evening news, but I never saw anything else or heard anything else about it. That kind of stuff is interesting to me, because I have always kinda been looking for proof, and that is sort of heavy proof right there.

Once you learned you could put your arms around Kate Hudson and wear a collar at the same time …

Corbett: That's the proof I've been looking for [laughter]!

When did you first meet Kate?

Corbett: I did a movie in 1993, called Tombstone, with Kate's dad (stepfather Kurt Russell). Kate was out there; she was 12 years old. I mean, I'm 20 years older than Kate. There is no way in the world I thought they would let me play this role. But when I saw the movie yesterday, I thought, You don't see any sort of age difference. You know, you don't feel that this guy is older than her.

Great chemistry.

Corbett: Yeah, it somehow works. I was pleasantly surprised at how much of it actually worked, our relationship together.

What about the religious references in the movie?

Corbett: There were a ton of religious references in the movie, and I begged Garry [Marshall] to take a lot of them out. I mean, every time I spoke, it was a religious overtone. But he made me do a couple of them anyway. One funny one Garry made up is when I first meet Kate in the movie. She's telling me she's a Lutheran, and she calls me "Father." Then I say, "Pastor." She says, "Father Pastor," and I say, "Pastor Parker." It was funny.

If you had to choose a single scene that really sums up the whole thing, what would that be?

Corbett: Well, I'll tell you the scene that made me cry yesterday when I saw the movie. There's no dialog. It's when they are at Kate's sister's house after the accident and everybody is there, and Kate goes up in the closet and finds the three kids … I'm gonna cry right now. It made me cry just to see those three kids there in the closet. That doesn't sum up the movie, but that was an emotional moment for me. I feel bad for any kids who've lost their parents. My parents are still alive, so I have never been through that, you know.

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Related Elsewhere:

Raising Helen	Printer view

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Garry Marshall	Printer view
The man who brought us TV's Happy Days and films like Pretty Woman now delivers another romantic comedy, Raising Helen, starring Kate Hudson—whose mom, Goldie Hawn, starred in another Marshall film, Overboard, 17 years ago.

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Kate Hudson	Printer view
The daughter of Goldie Hawn—and stepdaughter of Kurt Russell—got a taste of motherhood while filming Raising Helen. After filming ended, Hudson learned that she was pregnant with her first child.