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Wheaton College has an extensive Graham library. Did you check them out?

Hammer: Not in person, but I did all the research online. There is great stuff all over the place. So many places have dedicated space and time to Billy Graham, there was that much stuff that I could look up and get into. It was incredible.

Before you took the role, how much did you know about Billy Graham?

Hammer: I knew quite a bit about Billy Graham from a historic standpoint, that he had such a heavy hand in sculpting modern day Christendom in the 20th century. I had never been to any of his crusades, but getting more and more into this role, I was able to get more and more into his teachings. I was able to learn so much through all this.

If there were any one or two things that you took away from your research into the character, what would those be?

Hammer: The biggest thing that surprised me was his personality, and how much of it he actually had. When you watch him preach, he's preaching, he's reading from the Bible and telling people what they need to hear. But when you see him interviewed and you see his personal life, you realize this is a funny, quirky dude. He just loved to have fun, he loved hanging out, he loved being with friends, and that's the side of Billy Graham that I feel like no one really gets to know. And that's too bad, because that aspect of Billy Graham is just as fascinating and fun as Billy Graham the preacher.

The question has to come up when you play a character like this: What about your own personal beliefs?

Hammer: I have my own spiritual life, and I value it very much. I feel like spirituality is something that is for each person and something that needs to be alive for each and every person. With this, I was given a chance to get into the spiritual life of Billy Graham and, as an actor, take that on. I started reading the Bible quite a bit, so I could understand the word that Billy Graham was saying. His sermons were so rich and deep with revelations, that as an actor, if you just say those words and you don't understand the meaning behind them, it won't make sense. It'll fall flat. But if I can understand his sermons on a deeper level by reading up on the Bible, then I'm able to, as an actor, experience that as well, and that was a beautiful thing.

Is there anything from Graham's spiritual teachings that you would take away from the film, or apply to your own spiritual life?

Hammer: I'm sure that, in the process, I just discovered so much about my own spiritual life. But nothing's jumping to the top of my head.

Billy and Charles (Kristoffer Polaha)

What about the Charles Templeton side of the story, how he had all these doubts that precipitated Billy Graham's own crisis of faith??

Hammer: That is one of my favorite parts of this movie, because they're both presented with a fundamental question of spirituality and human faith, of, "Do I take this literally and live by reason, or do I live by faith? My mind tells me that faith doesn't work out, but faith tells me that I shouldn't listen to my mind." And it's a question that has plagued humanity since the beginning of time. And it's amazing to watch these two people deal with the exact same question so differently. For Billy Graham, it shakes him for a little bit, but then does nothing but cement his faith. Whereas Charles Templeton deals with this problem and he allows it to destroy his faith. I think that it's amazing to show the humanity of both of them.

Did you do any research into Templeton as well?

Hammer: I did. Not as much as I did into Billy Graham, but I did want to familiarize myself with it, and their friendship, and how they dealt with each other. They were really best friends—they traveled together, they preached together, they hung out all the time together. It's really great how the two of them became such good friends, and then the two of them were at the same time susceptible to something so small as a crisis of faith that destroyed their relationship.

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