Pastor Writer: Conversations on Reading, Writing, and the Christian Life
Pastor Writer: Conversations on Reading, Writing, and the Christian Life
Randall Wallace — Film, Faith, and the Braveheart Life
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Randall Wallace is the Oscar®-nominated creative force behind the epic storytelling of such critical and box-office hits as BRAVEHEART, WE WERE SOLDIERS, PEARL HARBOR, SECRETARIAT, and HEAVEN IS FOR REAL. Along with his work in film, Randall is the author of nine books, including five original novels, three novel versions of the screenplays of his films, and his first work of non-fiction, LIVING THE BRAVEHEART LIFE.
Exploring the Impact of Film Storytelling
Speaker 1You're listening to episode 211 of the Pastor Rider podcast conversations on reading , writing and the Christian life . I'm your host , chase ReptLogal . I've really been looking forward to today's conversation with Randall Wallace . You probably are far more familiar with his work than you may realize . Randall is a Hollywood screenwriter and written such films as Braveheart , the man in the Iron Mask , we Were Soldiers , secretariat , heaven is for Real , the Passion and , as we talk about his ongoing work on the upcoming Resurrection movie . It was a really interesting conversation , not only about his work as a screenwriter , his work within Hollywood but also about how his faith impacts that work . Not only is he a screenwriter , but also a novelist and a musician , and so we had a great conversation about those various crafts of writing and how film , in particular , is impacting our cultural conversations . It really was one of the great conversations I've had on this podcast . I hope you enjoyed as much as I did . Thanks for listening .
Speaker 1Well , I'm joined on the podcast today by Randall Wallace . Randall Wallace is the Oscar-nominated creative force behind the epic storytelling of such critical and box office hits as Braveheart , we Were Soldiers , pearl Harbor Secretariat and Heaven is for Real . Along with his work in film , randall is the author of nine books , including five original novels , three novel versions of screenplays from his films and his first work of nonfiction entitled Living the Braveheart Life . Now , over the years of the past writer podcast , we've had some great nonfiction writers , some great fiction writers , we've had some poets on talked poetry , we've had songwriters on , but I believe Randall is the first screenwriter and boy , we reached right to the top of the list . I can think of a few people that would be better to have on to talk about it . So , randall , it's a privilege and honor , just really excited for the conversation today .
Speaker 2Okay , so I'm so excited to be here with you , buddy . Thank you so much . Thanks for having me .
Speaker 1Well , as I mentioned in the introduction , you have done all sorts of writing . I know you actually I don't think your bio mentions it , but you also write music as well , and so I would love to sort of talk a little bit about how writing came about for you . And people might now realize as well , you even have a little bit of seminary years in your past , so just a super interesting combination of these things . When did writing begin to emerge in your sense of identity , your sense of calling ?
Speaker 2I don't think there was a time when I wasn't a writer in the sense of creating stories . It's certainly part of my culture and DNA . In the South I once read a book , I think it was called how Scots Invented the Modern World , and there was another one called how the Irish Saved Civilization . The author of those books likes to talk about different cultural groups and he spoke about the Celts as being people who had been known for thousands of years as storytellers , and whether that had anything to do with it or not I can't say , but I know that in my family , stories were the medium of our identity . You were told stories that told you who your ancestors were and who you were supposed to be . In fact , I wrote a little poem as the dedication to the novel version of Braveheart , and in that poem I said to you who know this simple truth and show it near and far , it is the tales we tell ourselves that make us who we are , and I believe that utterly . I found myself as a child writing songs and poems and making up stories , and my grandmother owned a country store in Tennessee and there was a potbelly stove in the middle of that store and behind the potbelly stove were stacks of pig feed animal feed for the farmers to buy and I fashioned the desk out of those stacks of pig feed and wrote one of my first stories .
Speaker 2When I was 10 or 11 years old , I wrote poems . When I in the second grade , there was a poetry contest . I lived in Memphis and the teacher announced that there was a citywide poetry contest and I wrote a poem for it and submitted it , and I thought my poem was pretty good and I asked the teacher later on what had happened . Who won the poetry contest ? And she said I didn't send yours in because you had copied it out of someone else's book . And I told her no , I didn't . But she didn't believe me . She was sure I had found the poem somewhere else and the strange thing was it conveyed to me that I had written something good , that I had written something that my teacher thought I had stolen . And all my life I dreamed of being a writer , but I didn't imagine that it was something anyone could make a living doing , so it's just always been something I've loved to do .
Speaker 1I know a little bit about your history from reading the Braveheart Life and I know you were pursuing songwriting . You have also been doing fiction writing . At what point did film become important to you ? Did you recognize that as something you wanted to pursue , and was that a surprise to you ? I mean , I think when I think about early days of writing , I fell in love with the novel , I fell in love with books that have impacted me . Was that a surprise to find yourself sort of moving down this road of screenwriting as well ?
Speaker 2It was an absolute surprise . I had never aspired to do it , never imagined doing it . I was a songwriter in Nashville at the time and in the way this started I had written stories in high school . I went to college and they had a writing program in college you could submit a story for and see if you could opt out of the regular freshman English into the creative writing section . And I submitted a story and was accepted there and discovered fairly quickly that I loved writing .
Speaker 2But I didn't want to be the kind of writer that my professors were . They had aspirations to what I would call a kind of literary exclusive club and their writing was full of esoteric references and big words like esoteric and words that I felt were in stories that were meant to kind of make them elite . And I wanted to write stories that were accessible to everybody , not because I thought that was writing down to people , but because I thought my aunts and uncles and cousins and my people in Tennessee were smarter than most everyone I had ever met and were smarter than many of the people that I encountered in college , and I wanted to write stories that appealed to them , that moved them , and a lot of this came out of my church experience as well . I went to tent revivals and all of the things that were part of Southern evangelical culture . But in those places I was exposed to those two things that were deep and eternal Not only the Bible but the music of Beethoven and Bach and Handel and Orators who could hold an audience with just their voice and the stories that they were telling .
Speaker 2So I had gone to Nashville in pursuit of being a singer-songwriter . I had gone to Nashville because I had met Chris Christofferson and he had encouraged me to go , which is a whole other story . But while I was in Nashville I wasn't really connecting with the commercial music business in Nashville . And went to California and met and fell in love with a woman and owned her coffee table . It was a screenplay that her father had written and that was the first time I'd ever seen the screenplay format and that immediately appealed to me . It was clear . It was unpretentious . All that you could show was what characters did and what they said . You didn't have all of the literary pretensions or the other styles of writing . So I immediately reacted to that and thought this is something I need to try .
Speaker 1As you've been working in film , I would love to hear your thoughts on the role film plays in society . I often , as a writer , I'm passionate about reading . I love to read , but I also watch shows and I'm also keenly aware for most people , probably , the time spent watching stories is greater than the time spent reading stories . How have you seen the role storytelling through film is playing in our society ? Is that changing , and is that part of what has drawn you to the work as well ?
Power of Movies, Holding Onto Courage
Speaker 2Chase . I think movies are arguably the most powerful and most sophisticated art form humanity has yet come up with , Because they combine narrative with images and music and operas do that , I suppose , and other forms of music do but not in such a grand and powerful way as movies can do . I know this may not be the golden age of movies , and the older I get , of course I will watch current films and think , as older people often say , they don't make them like they used to . But I think what's happening with that is that we are comparing any given modern movie with a larger and larger set of reference points , and it's hard to compare a given movie with the greatest movies you've seen throughout your whole life and think that the modern ones measure up . But I think movies as an art form are tremendously powerful and I love a great movie . I just seldom get to see great movies .
Speaker 1I was wondering about this idea of if Brave Heart was made today . I think Brave Heart's been out it's over 20 years I'm not sure on the exact number . If you think a movie like that it still gets produced today , or do you think the movies that are getting produced is changing as well ?
Speaker 2Well , the funny part of it is that when we were making Brave Heart , Not very many people had the sense that it was going to be the kind of movie that people think of it now as being . In fact , one of the earliest reviews of Braveheart that I remember was lumping Braveheart in with , I think it was Die Hard 2 . And this was in Time Magazine or Newsweek , I think it was Time , and the headline of the review was it's summer , let the mayhem begin . And it just treated Braveheart like it was a frivolous action movie , and now it's seen in a really different way . When I wrote it I did not have any sense that anyone was going to like it . I just wrote it for myself . I wrote it to tell the truth as I saw it , to write the kind of story I wanted to see and I wanted my sons to see .
Speaker 2I gave it the earliest draft to a friend of mine , Jack Bernstein , who wrote Ace Ventura , and Jack and I had worked together in television and are great friends to this day . Jack writes comedy , I write drama , largely historical drama . So we were in two sort of different fields but we are excellent friends to share with because we're not competing with each other . We're not jealous of each other , we just read and give honest opinions . And I'd given Jack a copy of Braveheart and we met the next morning for breakfast for me to hear his notes and the first thing he said was I think this is the best thing you've ever written and you could have just knocked me over . I never imagined that he would feel that way about it .
Speaker 2So I don't know if people generally speaking , I don't think people are aspiring to do movies that go that close to the heart of the writer . We want to write . We have a kind of contempt for the audience to say , well , I'm going to write the kind of frivolous , superficial story that I think the audience wants . I think that is the most toxic , corrosive attitude a writer could have . It's far too often when you set out to write garbage you succeed , and I don't think that's the way anything worthy is done . I certainly , when I sat down to write Braveheart , I was trying to tell a story that was the deepest that I could imagine to my own heart and my own family , and that doesn't guarantee that a great movie will come out of those efforts . But I can't imagine doing something without having that commitment and intention .
Speaker 1What you're describing as something I really pick up on your work and I think it's one of the things I respect most is you seem to be drawn towards stories that matter to you deeply and of course I think you're a professional , you understand how these end up coming to market and the work that's required in them . But it does seem like you not only start from this point of this story mattering to you , but you hold on to that through the process . You talk a lot about courage , and I think that's the idea that comes through through your non-flexion book , the Braveheart Life that kind of courage to be able to pursue stories that you know matter , or at least matter to you , with that sort of hanging question of will anyone else care about this , will anything come of this ? How , as a writer , do you maintain that belief , that courage , through what can be a really long process ?
Speaker 2That's a great question and I think the way I need to answer that is to say that I am not always without fear and I may never be fully without fear . I think of courage , as I guess many people would say . It's not the absence of fear , it's doing your best in the face of the fear .
The Art of Writing and Adaptation
Speaker 2Early on Chase , I came to the procedure of believing in motion , in forward motion , in sitting down to write , no matter what , whether I felt like it or not , whether I felt I had a good idea or not , that I was going to write a certain number of pages and trust whatever would happen from that , and I was going to keep going and keep moving forward with the story and let the story speak to me however it wanted to . And that's to me a kind of definition of courage , a practical definition .
Speaker 2There's a kind of stubbornness about it , I suppose , and also a kind of trust that when I heard it early on , one of my first teachers real helpful teachers that I had when I was a sophomore in high school told us to write every day and that all good writing was rewriting , and I believed that and I trusted in it . And not always does something loom up in a story that excites or inspires me . But when the story surprises me , when it moves me , that's when I believe the story is happening and then I'm on the right track and I just keep every day as you do , about anything you love being a parent or being in a marriage . You just keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep looking for the good days , even when you're in the struggles .
Speaker 1I think that idea of love is really key . So many people , I think , love the idea of being a writer . What's the saying ? Love to have written , but the actual love of the story or seeing these surprises or the work actually coming together , like you described . For me , the joy is in seeing the way you get better at the editing process , that that love is the thing that sort of keeps you coming back to it in the uncertainty .
Speaker 2Absolutely , and I think you hit on something key there . I heard it described I believe it was when I was in college that people sometimes choose a profession because they like the abstract idea of the profession . Like I want to be a doctor , not so much because they want to do the things that a doctor does , but because they like the idea of being called doctor .
Speaker 1Wouldn't it be nice to introduce myself as doctor ?
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , and to tell people that they're a writer people like the abstraction . I have a goddaughter and exceptionally talented and bright woman and when she was in college she came out and worked with me for a while as an intern in my company and at the end of the summer I sat down with her and said well , how do you feel about being a writer now that you've worked in the company for a while ? What do you think ? And she said well , it's an awful lot of paperwork .
Speaker 2I thought it was a brilliant observation . It's a yes , it is , and you either like that or you don't . You either really enjoy in some deep sense the process of sitting down with a story and working through the mysteries and the confusion and the being lost part of it , with a trust that it'll be worthwhile , even if you never do find the find the path forward , that you got into the mystery and you work through the woods and people either find that appealing or they don't , and not everyone is called to be a writer , but if you are , it's something you really can't keep from doing .
Speaker 1Yeah , that certainly resonates . There's I always use the word and inevitableness to it . It's just one way or another . I'm gonna do this . I might quite well try to do it well , do you know , when a story comes along , do you know if this is for film or if it's a novel , or do you have a sense ? How far into the process do you get before you begin to sense , kind of , what that story is supposed to be ?
Speaker 2Well , because I have written novels and screenplays and songs , I think of it all as one whole process . It's just aspects of something , just like your foot is you and your hands are you and your eyes are you and they . They may seem to be very different , but but they're all connected and they , they all amplify and support each other . When , when I'm writing a novel I mean I love writing novels it takes me longer and and I get more lost when I'm writing a novel because the there aren't the structural aspects or restrictions to a novel that there are in the screenplay . So a novel will beckon me and I'll get a wander around the woods with , with the story in a novel and largely too because people can , with a novel you can share with a reader the internal journeys of a character .
Speaker 2A character might be doing nothing more than sitting on a part bench externally , but internally could be having enormous transformation within the character , and great writers like Tolstoy can describe those things in a riveting way . But in a screenplay you need to convey those things in a way that the audience can see or hear exactly what what the character is going through , and and in a song you have three or four minutes to convey that . But of course you do have the language of music to use for that . But each one of them has their different advantages and disadvantages and I love doing all of them . I believe that doing all of them makes me better at each of them . I hope it does .
Speaker 1Yeah , I wondered about that specifically times where you've taken a novel and adapted it to film , or taken a film and sort of produced a novel out of it too . That seems like such a unique experience as a writer to be able to explore the same story with both sets of limitations in place .
Speaker 2Yes , and and I have done it in both directions , by the way I have written a screenplay first and then written the novel . I've done that a number of times and allowed myself to expand on the things that I had in the screenplay and also was able to include scenes that were cut out of the movies because of time or or other restrictions like budget . But I've also gone from writing the novel to then writing the screenplay . Deciding what in the novel would be would make an essential scene to show in a screenplay form . And I've also taken stories that I wrote either or as a novel and or a screenplay , and I've written songs around those experiences or on aspects of that , like trying to capture in a single three minute song the essence of what a movie was about .
Speaker 1Yeah , like we were soldiers secretariat . I think you produced music for for both of those films as well , right ?
Speaker 2Yes , I did , and I didn't have the song in the movie man in the Iron Mask , but but during the the filming of man in the Iron Mask , I had a piano in the house that my family was staying in for the for the shooting in France , and in one day I was sitting at the piano and found myself writing a song that that , to me , sort of captured the essence of what the movie was about . So I love doing that and I think that's a great exercise for somebody to do about anything . Even if it were , say , I'm not a , I'm not a good visual artist , I don't draw well , although I have practiced it some to try to get better , and I think that would would be an example of something that a writer could do if you had the artistic skill to sit down and and draw a scene from your movie .
Speaker 1Interesting . I work on cover designs actually , as I'm going through books and they'll change , but it's a part of my way of trying to visualize what this book is is doing covers for them as well . So that's interesting . I hadn't made that connection , but it's the same idea .
Speaker 2Yeah , and do you , for example , have a struggle with coming up with a title ? Oh , I'm the worst .
Speaker 1I feel like I'm an okay writer , except for titles , so that's always the part that's the most difficult for me .
Speaker 2I think I think pretty much any writer would say that I . I think if you're a writer and you say , oh , I come up with titles , great , I'm super at titles , then you're . You may not be much of a writer , you may be a much better advertiser , and that would be a tremendous skill to come up with titles . But one of my earliest writing teachers said that students always hate coming up with titles and he suggested that if you didn't know what the title of your story should be , you didn't yet know what your story was about . And and titles are hugely important for movies . Because , well , one producer I worked with I worked with him on Heaven is For Real a man named Joe Roth , and Joe had run Disney's , got a really illustrious career and he gave me a kind of speech about titles . He said it is the , the text of the of the movie , that sells the tickets . It's the subtext that makes the movie great . So an example would be Saving Private Ryan , the .
Speaker 2What Saving Private Ryan was about was the selfless sacrifice of a generation . But if you made that the title of the movie , nobody would buy a ticket to see the movie . But you call it Saving Private Ryan and it sounds exciting . It's a war story . It's obviously Private Ryan is in trouble and has to be saved and people will buy tickets to that . But when they see the movie they come away thinking that was about so much . And I had the , I had the . I've had the same question with each movie I've done in each , each book I've done is what do I call it ? That ? It makes it attractive for someone to look at but also reflects in some sense the substance of what the story is .
Speaker 1I see that really clearly in your work , this idea of subtext as well , in that sometimes I've seen you get sort of described as a you even sort of did it yourself a kind of a war writer or a historical war writer . It's a lot about . I think also masculinity gets lumped in there . But when I look at your stories in your , your films , I think they all have this thread of love and particularly the place of family within these stories that you know . If you said you were writing a war story about love , I think this is the point you're trying to make . People might scratch their heads , but when you , in a war story , write a story about love , it does have this , this deeper meaning to it that comes through . Do you , do you do those sub themes sort of ? Are they always there in your work ? Are you finding them in the story , the subtext that you're describing ?
Speaker 2I think they are . I do I and and I'm asked the question a lot about why I focus on war stories and my answer is always that I don't . I focus on love stories and I don't think we are fully alive until we have found what we love so much we would give our lives for it . That's what makes us fully alive and and you're absolutely right that that family and masculinity is is part of all of that . When Braveheart first came out , a newspaper writer in my hometown did a little article about it kind of hometown boy makes good sort of story and and he made some insightful observations . He he said that there were four or five father-son relationships in Braveheart . And I had not thought of it , chase , it hadn't occurred to me , it just had been a natural thing to me to tell the story that way . It always hits me right in the heart when someone will tell me that their father had them watch Braveheart or that a father will want his family to watch Braveheart .
Speaker 2I went to Duke both as an undergraduate and then my year in seminary . I was at Duke . I was at a Duke basketball game with the dean of the Duke Divinity School the then dean of the Divinity School he introduced me to Coach Shyshevsky's wife , mickey , and she was an absolutely delightful person and said that Mike would regularly at Christmas time gather the whole family around and they would sit under quilts and blankets and watch Braveheart together . I don't know if they still do that , but it was certainly exciting to me to hear that said , because it struck me at the heart of everything I write for and everything I write from .
Speaker 1I was thinking a lot about this because the work that I've been doing with men the five masculine instincts the book I published uses Shakespeare's stages of a man to try to pair with biblical characters around these images or stages of masculinity . One of the things that strikes me is that book or I think good books will give language to something that perhaps a person may have known and felt but didn't have language for this idea of men having language to be able to express some of these things . It feels like we're in a moment where men have less and less language for being able to articulate those meaningful things . It seems to be why things like Braveheart I mean , if you ask all the men in the world to list their top five movies , I almost guarantee Braveheart would be one or two across those cumulative lists . It gave men something that they were trying to articulate . Do you think about that in your work , of the sort of role it's having on helping shape men and give them in language for these things of meaning , as you're talking about love and family ?
Speaker 2I love the thought that it does help men and , I think , women too .
Language, Faith, and Writing Power
Speaker 2I don't think about it much kind of like our discussion about abstraction . I don't say to myself when I'm writing that this is the lesson or the takeaway that I want someone to have . I'm trying to get at what feels in my soul to be divine , what feels to be meaningful and in alignment with what I am created and am being created to be . I'll give you an example .
Speaker 2I was at a charity screening of Braveheart a few years ago in Austin , texas . When the movie finished , I walked up on the stage to do a question and answer with the audience . The first person who stood up was a young woman who said Mr Wallace , I don't have a question . I just want to tell you something . My fiance died six months ago and before he died he told me to watch Braveheart , so I would understand the way he loved me . That was one of the most moving things I ever heard about any of my work .
Speaker 2When you mentioned that men seem not to have the language , we don't seem to have the means to communicate with women or with our children , or even with ourselves , with each other , what we're feeling , I think in that it's like you have a given set of words and every one of your words has been identified as hateful and cruel and insensitive . So you don't have words . If I go to this word like love , if you say I love you and that word has been misused and overused and corrupted , then you're not conveying what you really are hoping to say with that word . I think it's in the realm of why we're told not to take the Lord's name in vain . It's that if you think about this last night for some reason , that if we say Jesus in a way that we're not talking about Jesus and who Jesus is and all that Jesus means , if we use His name frivolously or carelessly , then we are robbing ourselves . It's not that we're hurting Jesus , we're robbing ourselves of the power of our language .
Speaker 2I do think the power , of course , the power of language gets restored with some of our actions . One of the things that I tell my sons is two of the most powerful words you can use are yes and no . It's like Jesus also said that let your yes be yes and let your no be no . If someone is confronting you or telling you to do something and you look at them and you say simply no . There are very few other things you could add to that that would make that a more powerful statement than simply looking at them and saying no . I think that that's why we tell stories , because the narrative conveys the essence and the truth and the power and the poetry of what we're trying to explain . I think that's what the dying young man meant when he I hope it is when he told his fiance to watch Braveheart , so she would understand this kind of love .
Speaker 1You are a person of faith . That's genuinely a part of who you are , and it comes through in your work , so it's not something you've shied away from . But is that how you think about faith , your faith showing up in these stories as well , too ? It's not something you're enforcing into every project , but it is , like all of these other themes , something that sort of emerges from the story because they're in your life as well .
Speaker 2Yeah , chase , I want to avoid dogma . I and some people will use religion in the same or use religion and dogma synonymously . I don't think of religion quite like . I think of just this sort of understanding that I don't believe in . My own understanding , I have an understanding of spiritual things . It's simply my understanding at the moment . I do believe in and I'd love to discuss issues of theology with other people who like the same thing , but none of that is a substitute for putting it into action , for living it .
Speaker 2One of my mentors when I was in college and then again in Divinity School was one of the greatest men I've ever known Thomas A Langford . Dr Langford was a brilliant theologian . He had read everything and could explain it to you in the clearest terms , the most complicated thought . He could take a whole bookshelf full of works by a theologian and boil it down into a simple diagram that seminary students could understand . All of us who got to study under him held him in awe . He told us one day that his wife thought theology was just the greatest waste of time anybody could have had . This is why he's sitting talking about this . They're the poor . Go help them . I'm really glad that he did teach theology and share all of that with us . I think that if I write a true story , a story that actually has the essence of truth in it , that truth will shine even to someone who has a whole different understanding of theology , and maybe even they call God by a different name . But if God is in my work , they will recognize that .
Speaker 1In your book Living the Brave Life you tell about a short story by Tolstoy that I thought when I read it . I thought this is something I'm going to remember and reread the short story again and again because it's so captured the way I think about that integration of faith and writing In the short story . You probably do a better job recounting it . But the wood felling , if you remember this story , yes , yeah , there's this scene at the end where I thought and I'll let you express the way the sort of humanity comes through . But I thought , if that's not a Christian story , if that's not a story about humanity , about incarnation , I don't know what is , although it's certainly not , you know , christ doesn't appear at the end , nobody bows and knees and prays at the end . But maybe talk a little bit about how that story in particular shaped the way you think about what this good writing can do .
The Power of Storytelling
Speaker 2Well the story is , I remember it and I should say that there are often stories that I remember and I retell many times and then I'll go back and read the actual story in it and it's different from the way I remember it . But that story I read when I was really young I think freshman year in college and the story is about a soldier who is shot , and he's a Russian soldier . He's been fighting in the mountains against some native tribes and his officer has seen so much death that he no longer feels the humanity of that's suffering as men are dying around him . He's just cold and miserable like all the others and he wants to go home . And while they're out cutting down wood for firewood in the mountains , one of his soldiers is shot by a sniper and the soldier is dying and they put him on the wood cart to carry him back . And the man knows he's bleeding to death and says to the officer there are letters in my boot from my wife and some to my wife . I want you to take those letters and make sure she gets them . And the officer says , sure , I will , I will . But the dying soldier has seen it happen many times that they're just so immune to death now that they're just going to throw him in a grave and nobody's going to bother to pull out these letters . So he grabs the officer and says take them now while I'm still alive , and that way I'll know that you'll have to get these letters back to my wife . So the officer gives the order that they cut off the men's boot and unwrap the rags that he's wrapped his legs with to keep his legs warm and the naked skin of his flesh is exposed , and that's of his leg . And it's the first time in ages that this officer has seen a man's bare leg . And it's that scene , that the sight of that , that makes the officer realize that this is a human being that's dying and the loss in that .
Speaker 2And I think that when I heard that story , even at 18 years old , it occurred to me that that's what artists do , but that , I think , is what a pastor does In a sermon . I think it's what any storyteller is trying to convey . It's to say to us okay , we get used to seeing all of this . Notice what we've forgotten . Look at this . The storyteller points out to us the site that will make us remember that we were created by love and for love , and that's why it's well . You know , I love what you're studying , I love the sacredness of storytelling , that storytelling is , in fact , the sacred art , and that's what that story said to me .
Speaker 1Yeah , I listened to that story and went back and re-read it too and I just thought to myself you could write 100 pages in a nonfiction book and not be able to capture at all what you're able to capture in this short story , this sort of final image that there is . There's a need for all of it , right ? I'm very thankful for my theology books , my theology education . I wouldn't trade that . But to have that and not have story is really to be lacking in something , this full range of human experience and language that we desperately need as people of faith , as people .
Speaker 2Yes , and you know it's funny , I was thinking about this before we got to talk . I was excited . No , I was going to get the chance to talk with you . I mean , I was thinking of the stories and the sermons and the moments in life that have stayed with me , and how short they are , how succinct . You know . Mark Twain famously said in a letter to a friend I'm sorry this letter is so long , I didn't have time to make it shorter . It's one of my credos as a writer that if you want people to remember more , say less . And as you can tell , as I ramble on in stories I have to struggle to edit down and get to the essence . But I remember a moment when I was with my two oldest sons at that point my only sons .
Speaker 2I was in the church that my grandmother and grandfather and mother and father and my aunt Betty had founded in Tennessee and it was Father's Day and my marriage was falling apart and the pastor of the church was not highly educated , he had bad grammar , but he nailed me right in the heart . It was a June day in Tennessee , the thunder was rolling and lightning was crashing outside the church and sort of turning the air yellow and he just went right on preaching and he said I want to give my son $10 million and I'm not going to because I don't have $10 million . You're here in church today because you want your children to have faith . How are you going to give them faith if you don't have it yourself ? And I cannot imagine a more perfect sermon than that was to me .
Speaker 2It didn't tie things up in a sweet bow , it didn't make me go well , what a nice little , sweet Father's Day message . And it nailed me to the wall , thinking I've got to have faith myself . I can't be inspiring unless I am inspired . I can't be loving unless I love . And that is what I think we do in a story . I think it was Jane Austen who said an ending that does not surprise the writer will not surprise the reader . And that's how I approach my writing . It's not an exercise in me sharing my wisdom with the world . It's an exercise in me trying to discover and distill what is most meaningful .
Speaker 1I think what you're articulating is not only the benefit of having written a story that blesses other people , but really what is the gift of being a writer as well that it does its work first on you . I always think about that as a preacher I preach every Sunday I always think this sermon has to do something in me first before it has any business doing something in someone else , and so to hear you articulate that same thing as a storyteller resonates deeply with me as well .
Speaker 2No , Well , if I was anywhere close , I'd be going to your church , I can tell you .
Speaker 1Well , I have a feeling this conversation could go a while too . I'm holding myself back from my favorite short stories , but we'll have to do it again sometime . I am curious , before we go , what you're working on now . Is there anything you can talk about , anything that's in the works that people could look forward to ?
Speaker 2There are two big things that the biggest is a small word for what I think these are . I am involved in helping bring the story of the resurrection to the screen . When Mel Gibson was out promoting Hacksaw Ridge I went with him because I wanted to help that movie be seen and I had worked on the film myself . I did some uncredited rewrites and at one point I was planning to direct it . But the opportunity to direct Heaven is For Real came up and I went with that and then suggested to the producers they go to Mel . They had been to Mel before . They went to me but then with a new draft that I had written , they went back to Mel and he signed on and we were out promoting the movie and we were out to dinner together one night and I said to him you know , the Passion of Christ is a stupendous story but it's not the whole story . We really need to do the resurrection .
Speaker 2I'm sure he must have thought about it before , but we began to talk more and I wrote an early draft of it and he's been working and refining and imagining and it's in the works . We don't have a start date yet on the shoot . It gets announced from time to time that he's beginning to shoot , but that's not yet set when the movie will get made . But I had the belief that that movie will get made and it will be the Mount Everest of all movies and all stories . I believe that is the greatest story ever told . Along with that , I have begun to do . You know , we've been on a strike and I believe the actor strike is still going on . I've created a live show in which I use clips from my movies and stories about how I came to write and film those scenes and songs that I've written and sing about those scenes and those themes in my life . I'm doing it as a live show and I'm getting ready to take that show out on the road .
Speaker 1Oh , that'll be excellent . Make sure , when you have details on that , I'll be happy to share those events and dates . Hopefully there's one near me . That sounds like a pretty remarkable opportunity For the resurrection film . That's something I'm obviously excited about but also just going to be praying for for everybody involved in that production . What an important work . If you're interested in something Randall's done , I can highly recommend , of course , watch Braveheart . I love man in the Iron Mask . I watched it again this week just ahead of this interview . I wanted to see it again and pick up the book Living the Braveheart Life , where I've got a copy of Love and Honor , a great novel , sitting on my desk right now . I'll have links to several of Randall's work in the show notes . Again , I just want to say a huge thank you . I've been so excited about this conversation and just grateful for the example of faith and also just artistic work , the courage and discipline you've put in and excited for many , many more good things still to come .
Speaker 2Chase . Thank you so much , brother . We will love to have your prayers and we'll absolutely be praying for you too . Thank you so very much .
Speaker 1As always , you can find show notes for today's episode by going to pastorridercom . I've got links to those books that we talked about by Randall as well . Please check those out While you're listening to the show . Maybe consider leaving a review . You can do that wherever you listen to podcasts , clicking one of the star ratings or typing out a short message . I love to get that feedback . Subscribe to the show . I've got some great episodes coming out still this fall , and then always a review episode I do in December . Hard to believe that's almost here , but I look back on my favorite reads from the year . That's always a popular one , so make sure you're subscribed so you can receive it , as always . Thanks for listening . Until next time .