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What kind of ideas?

Russell: One of the ideas is this: If you're unpretentious about these matters, people can mistake that for a lack of seriousness. That's why we had people wearing suits in this movie and it has this European formality to it … it's because I am serious about it. People are used to seeing these ideas taken seriously in movies that are dramatic like The Matrix or The Passion of The Christ. Or they're satirized by independent cinema. I'm doing something different—I'm taking the ideas seriously in a comedy, even though I'm being off-handed and joking about it as well. I think the most daring thing about this film is its sincerity and its optimism.

As a Zen monk once said to me, "If you're not laughing, you're not getting it."

Some influential Christian thinkers have also been inclined towards comedy. G. K. Chesterton famously employed a sharp sense of humor for very serious purposes. Thomas Merton was a Benedictine philosopher with a delightful wit—and, incidentally, he wrote a great deal affirming ways in which Christianity and Eastern thought have things in common.

praying at left, turned our interviewer into a makeshift priest" /> Russell, praying at left, turned our interviewer into a makeshift priest

Russell: You know, you're dressed a little like a priest today!

[I'm taken aback. He's referring to the fact that I'm wearing dark clothing.]

Russell: All you need is … here, let me do this!

[Russell jumps up, hurries to a nearby table, grabs a white napkin and folds it into a small square. Soon, everyone is laughing as he buttons the top button of my black shirt and tucks the napkin in over the button so I appear to be wearing a clerical collar.]

Russell: Does anybody have any Scotch tape?

I wish I'd brought a camera.

[Baena pulls out his camera cell phone and takes a photo of Russell in a pose of prayer beside me in my 'priest costume.']

Russell: Let's keep going. Back to what I was saying about "departure points."

Jesus would say this is true: If your spirituality is about your ego, then your spirituality is fake. Our ego likes to control things, to have certainty. Certainty is very useful. If it wasn't, we'd be sitting in our own excrement. But, that certainty can really close your mind off to the true light of Jesus and to the truth about what is. This film is about "departure points"—departures from certainty and the ego.

The whole idea behind the Existential Detectives is this: When you're stuck in traffic, and you're cursing—just like Albert is at the beginning of Huckabees—at that moment you think that that's what your life is about. The Detectives are there to challenge that [self-centeredness]. If Jesus was there, he'd say to you every two minutes, "Child, what do you think you are right now?" So when you see [the Detectives] out of the corner of your eye, you remember, "Oh yeah, that infinity thing." For the Christian, that would be, "Oh yeah … the Cross!"

I've got to read you a quote! [His assistant brings him a book.] This is a quote from W. H. Auden: "We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die."

I love that. "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." But that leads me to another question. Christ transforms so many lives, but when Christians are portrayed in movies, they're always narrow-minded, thick-headed, judgmental extremists. I know some Christians are like that, but why the constant caricatures?

Russell [bluntly]: Do you think I did that in this movie?

[I'm ready to say yes, but I turn the question back to him.]

Do you think you did?

Russell: I did not want to satirize [that Christian family]. They have big hearts, but in certain ways, they're still closed-minded. [He pauses.] But you're right. They're characters who want certainty. So when people come and talk to them about asking questions, they're like, "No, we don't need to ask questions."

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