Audiences can definitely get an idea in their head on what a movie is going to be when it is said to have a "faith-based" angle, likely worried that a movie is going to overtly and awkwardly hammer home religious principles. But there have been a recent string of titles where faith and Christian teachings have been a part of their story, but have avoided the "preachy" label and draw praise from critics and box office and ratings results from audiences.
Someone who has had his hand in that is director Jon Gunn, director of the 2024 new movie Ordinary Angels, starring Alan Ritchson and Hilary Swank, a great example of a movie that has touches on faith but is just as accessible for those not actively practicing. Gunn has also worked as a writer and producer on two recent movies that are examples of faith-inspired stories aimed at wider audiences, the critically-acclaimed American Underdog and the box-office success Jesus Revolution. He also has plans to continue with those kinds of stories, signed on to write and direct episodes of what is being described as a Game of Thrones-like series about King David for Prime Video.
We talked with Gunn about how he approaches making movies that are able to effectively strike this balance. He also talks about how weird COVID schedules made Ordinary Angels his first directing effort to hit screens in seven years, how he gets authentic performances out of his young actors and what he has been watching recently that he has loved.
In a lot of your movies faith plays a strong element, definitely, there are parts of that in Ordinary Angels, but it feels very organic, or not, for lack of a better word, 'preachy'. How do you go about finding the balance in a story with themes of faith but also can work on its own for people who are not overly religious?
JG: Yeah, I'm not interested in telling a movie that the purpose of it existing is to talk about faith. I think when faith is organic to the story it can be something that's very relatable for a lot of people. In this particular case, the true story involved people who were struggling with faith, which is very understandable when you suffer loss.
In this case we've got Alan Ritchson playing a character who's a blue collar roofer set in… Louisville, Ky., and he was a man whose heart has been hardened because he lost his wife, his daughter was sick. And this woman, Sharon Stevens (Swank), who is a hairdresser struggling with her own demons, saw this family in need and decided she was going to help them, whether they wanted her help or not. And interestingly, by helping them, just the simple act of helping them, transformed their life and hers as well and was sort of the stepping stones for his heart being softened and his faith being renewed. So I think it's kind of a beautiful reminder that faith in each other, in God, all of these things when put in action can be life changing and transformative.
This is the first movie you've directed to come out in seven years or so. What was it about Ordinary Angels that made you want to get back behind the camera and tell this story?
JG: Well it's funny actually, you know I had a whole slate of movies that I was developing, either writing or producing or directing with Lionsgate over the last five years. COVID obviously made things kind of complicated. And funny enough, I had directed a movie called The Unbreakable Boy before I directed this movie. And Unbreakable Boy, which stars Zachary Levi, that movie comes out next year. So the COVID schedules changed things a lot, so I made both of those movies in COVID in the midst of the pandemic.
But this film was brought to me by Lionsgate, it was a passion project of theirs, and they had been developing it for quite a while. It's been in development for 15 years. Dave Matthews, of The Dave Matthews Band, was one of the producers involved along the way. And so when they brought it to me I read the script and I just loved it. It was so honest and compelling and unbelievable, quite frankly, this true story, so I happily joined and got to be the guy that brought this movie over the finish line after so many people had been involved for so many years. So it was something that was easy to say yes to because it was such a compelling story.
And also I liked the challenge of telling this sort of true story, domestic drama that in the third act became kind of an action sequence in the worst blizzard in Louisville history.
You get some really nice performances from your young actresses, Skywalker Hughes and Emily Mitchell. Have you had a lot of opportunities to work with young actors before and do you have a particular way that you try to work with them to get such good and authentic performances?
JG: Thank you. It matters a lot to me. I had worked with a number of kids. I did a movie called Like Dandelion Dust with Mira Sorvino and Barry Pepper like 15 years ago that had a young 5-year-old at the center of it as well. And The Unbreakable Boy, my Zach Levi movie, has a kid whose 13. In this particular case, Skywalker and Emily were both such great finds. I spend a lot of time in casting to make sure we find the right actors, so that's part of it, just casting the right people, and we went on a big search for a long time.
And then when I work with them, you know I love kids and I feel like a lot of times kids are sort of forgotten in the process of directing a film, they just get put there to be cute or to say a line or whatever. But I really like to engage with them and develop relationships with them and then find an environment on set where they can organically live in the space and not just be told to stand there and say a line. But I do a lot of improv with them, I let the cameras roll sometimes for a few minutes before we even start the scene just to get them in a moment, and find actors like Hilary and Alan who are going to engage with them in a real, honest, authentic way so the scenes aren't just memorized performances but they're actually people living in a space. So I work really hard at that and then we do a lot of takes and we do a lot of work in the editing to bring it together in a way that hopefully feels really authentic.
In this case, Skywalker and Emily are just spectacular kids and actors and people. So I'm thrilled with how they came out in the movie, I think the family feels very honest in this film. I hope.
We like to know what filmmakers and actors are watching themselves. So are there any TV shows or movies recently that you’ve been particularly fond of?
JG: The Bear is a show that I love deeply; it's such a great, complicated human story, I love that show.
You know I'm finally watching Game of Thrones, by the way. I never watched it, so you can imagine how hard it is for me to avoid the spoilers on that. But because I've been working on something like that I've been watching that show, and you know what, it's really good as it turns out; everyone was right, it's a really good show.
I also really love that show Bad Sisters, I don't know if you watch that, but that was a show I found realy charming and fun.
Ordinary Angeles releases exclusively in US movie theaters on February 23.
