2 of 3

When you'd do a scene where you were emotionally maxed out, and you're trying to make it believable, and you know that there are 30 people in the next room praying for you while you're doing the scene—that's very encouraging. That kind of support and focus really made all the difference. It was a set unlike any other set that I've been on.

In your book, you say that there were very few Christians on the set of Left Behind, so even just within the Christian filmmaking business, it sounds like there was a big difference between working on those films and this one.

Cameron: Definitely. You'd think on a movie about the return of Christ, you'd have a lot of Christians there, but to my knowledge there weren't any other Christians on the crew or in the cast. There were some professing Christians—I'm not sure what that really meant or what their faith really entailed—but my wife was a Christian, I was a Christian, and the other lead characters in the movie certainly were not.

What about Clarence Gilyard [who played Pastor Barnes in Left Behind and has talked about his faith]?

Cameron: When I asked Clarence, he said he was a devout Catholic, and what he means by that, I'm not exactly sure. I would say there are significant differences between biblical Christianity and Roman Catholicism, but even within Protestant circles and Catholic circles, you've got a whole gamut of different beliefs and where people come down on certain issues. So as far as I knew, there weren't a lot of Christians that I could sit down and say, "Hey, we're on the same page and we understand the essentials of the faith."

I think a lot of Christian production companies try very hard to tuck that Christian stuff away. Even if their script has to do with Christianity, they desperately want to be taken seriously as a real Hollywood production company, so they kind of hide all that stuff. Whereas working on Fireproof, this was produced by a church—this is just an extension of their marriage ministry -- so there was no camouflaging the fact that this was a ministry project.

How important do you feel it is that a Christian film have people who believe offscreen what their characters are doing onscreen?

Cameron: I think it's very important, particularly for the lead characters who are ultimately going to be ambassadors for your project.

An example that comes to mind: Chad Allen in End of the Spear. That was just a nightmare situation, for the producers later on to have him on the cover of a magazine as a gay advocate for the homosexual lifestyle. People will see this movie and say, "This is a movie about the gospel and the word of God and your lead guy is a homosexual? Where's the consistency here?" It obviously was just an acting gig for this guy, not something he really believes. And even though it's make-believe, people who have strong convictions, particularly about faith in Christ, they want to know that people are the real deal. [Allen and the EOTS filmmakers discussed the hiring with CT Movies here.]

While I don't think it's necessary to always hire Christians—you want to hire people who do their job well, and sometimes that means in the key positions you need to have people who just do the skill well and don't have the faith—but for Fireproof, the philosophy was: "We want God's hand of blessing on this project, we're not as concerned about technical excellence as we are about spiritual faithfulness." I think God has blessed their faithfulness to want this to be a movie with integrity in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

They even had a spiritual interview with me! It kind of went like this: "Hey Kirk, is there anything going on in your life, personally, that might cause God to remove his hand of blessing from this project? We don't want any hypocrites. So if you're involved in any drug or alcohol problems, or you're sleeping around or have issues with some morality, we'd like you to tell us so we can move on and find a different actor."

next page... |  2 of 3

Related Elsewhere:

Hollywood? No, SHER-wood!	Printer view
How Sherwood Baptist Church became a hot spot for making Christian movies—including Facing the Giants and the upcoming Fireproof, starring Kirk Cameron.